WH Smith bookstall at station

The exact date isn’t know but it is believed to the early 1900s.

Station staff are included in the line-up, which also shows a group of smartly dressed boys to the left.

WH Smith opened its first station bookstall in 1848 at Euston.

With ‘railway mania’ at its height, other bookstalls followed and became known as outlets for cheap editions of other publications which were produced for railway travellers.

These popular publications were known as ‘yellowbacks’.

However, by 1905 a dispute with the railways over rents resulted in station contracts being lost on the Great Western and London and North Western Railways.

WH Smith opened shops near stations instead by the start of 1906 had 150 new shops.

Nowadays, WH Smith can be found on Bridge Street in Worksop.

The company was founded back in 1792 by Henry Walton Smith and his wife Anna, who opened a small news vendors in London.

In 1828 when their son William Henry Smith had taken over the business became known as WH Smith.

The picture is included in a book called Bygone Bassetlaw which was brought into us by George Gauntley, of Dinnington.