East Coast Types - No.4, The Scottish Fishwife

Poster, London and North Eastern Railway, East Coast Types, No 4, The Scottish Fishwife, by Frank Newbould, 1931. Coloured lithograph depicting an elderly woman selling fish. She is standing bent forward with a 'creel', a heavy wicker basket of fish on her back. She wears a tartan shawl, blue duffel coat, blue and grey striped dress and sturdy boots. In the background is a trawler. The text is arranged around the woman's feet and inclludes the slogan "Travel cheaply by L.N.E.R.". Artist's signature at top right. Text at bottom margin reads "Published by the London & North Eastern Railway, Printed in England, Chorley & Pickersgill Ltd Lithographers Leeds". Format: double royal. Dimensions: 40 x 25 inches, 1016 x 635mm.

London & North Eastern Railway poster, East Coast Types No 4, The Scottish Fishwife, by Frank Newbould.

This poster was numbered four in a series of six created by Newbould for the LNER in 1931. The series showed people associated with seaside trades on Britain's eastern coast, which was served by the LNER's railway network. It depicts a 'fishwife', a woman who sold fish. She is wearing the Scottish fishwife's traditional dress of strudy boots, a striped petticoat, blue duffel coat with a tartan shawl over her head. On her back she has a creel, a wicker basket used to carry fish.

Fishwives were popular subjects for artists from at least the seventeenth century.

Frank Newbould (1887 - 1951) designed and produced the artwork for a large number of railway posters. He was considered one of the LNER's top artists and for a period in the 1920s and 1930s was retained on an exclusive contract that prevented him from working for other main line railway companies. Like many railway posters of the 1920s and 1930s, this one does not depict a railway subject at all, but encouraged rail travel by illustrating an interesting feature of a place served by the network.