Most school postcards (including school groups) were taken by local photographers and are recorded as such. some national photographers specialised in school postcards (often interior pictures) and published a number for private schools in Hertfordshire.

Percy Alex Buchanan was born in Lewisham, Kent, in about 1878, the son of Alexander Buchanan, a schoolmaster (1881, 1891, 1901 census). A search on ebay and google suggests that he specialised on school and college postcards - with many interiors - and these were taken all over England with at least some in Scotland. Moche Caine (moshe.caine @t gmail.com) repost that Buchanan took panoramic school photographs in the 1930's and would like to here from anyone who knows more about these - and I would love to know of any from Hertfordshire.

Hertfordshire Schools where his postcards are known are:

Unfortunately many of the cards have no reference number, and most have not been posted. In addition several that were posted may have been produced years earlier, such as the St George's example, above, where a card almost certainly published by 1910 was posted in 1948. while many of the ebay adverts do not give full details. This makes dating, without much more research, a little difficult.

However the earliest dated card I discovered in a google search was of a school group of a school in Clapham, from 1908, by "P. A. Buchanan & Co, 344 London Road, Thorton Heath, Croydon" - this was his home address in the 1913 Kelley's directory for Surrey. The St George's School, Harpenden, must have been not later than 1910 and give a Chiswick address.

Other, apparently later, cards are have the address as either Thornton Heath or Croydon, with no street address, some with and some without "Ltd." I found not other cards giving the Queenswood Avenue address. This has the highest number I located suggesting it is later than the others - probably 1930s.

Lofthouse, Crosbie & Co.

This company produce postcards of schools and other institutions, to be sold by the institution. Older cards were published from Tower House, Trinity Square, London, E.C. while later ones were published from Hampton, Middx. On google I found the statement "Before the war printing was carried out by Trenkler of Leipzig [the distinctive printer’s numbers being the give-away]; after the outbreak of war they were printed at their own ‘works’ at Hampton Hill."

The cards of Lockers Park were probably taken in the 1930s.