William Clement Adolphus Winton (William Winton Jnr.)

Stationer and lending library proprietor, 14 High Street and 25 Brunswick Road, Shoreham-by-Sea. Winton was born in 1873 at Shoreham, and was the first of ten children of William Edward Winton and his wife, Emma. Both parents had been born at Shoreham, William Edward in about 1854 and Emma about two years later. The son of a Shoreham labourer, Edward Winton (born in about 1818, died 1870), William Edward worked as a printer and bill poster, who distributed circulars and advertising material throughout Sussex. He also organised fairs, carnivals, regattas and markets in the Shoreham area. Despite impecunious beginnings, he became a very successful businessman. By 1911, he was living in a fine old house at 9 Church Street, Shoreham, which is now called "Wintons". He also acquired a hall at 7 Church Street, where he put on lectures and concerts. In 1910 it became a cinema, and after 1914, under new ownership, the Star Theatre and Kinema.

By 1891 William Clement was helping his father as a printer; ten years later he was still living with his parents at Church Street and working as a printer, but seemingly on his own account. He set up in business as a stationer under the name William Winton Junior between 1903 and 1905, leaving some of his younger brothers to help run the family printing and bill posting business, which was then trading as William Edward Winton & Sons.

William Clement began publishing cards of Shoreham as early as 1906, but seems to have been most active as a postcard publisher between 1910 and 1915. He was a talented photographer, who may well have been taught to use a camera by his father, William Edward. He sold a great variety of halftone and collotype cards, some of which may have been printed by the family firm from his own and perhaps also his father's photographs. Some halftones are monochrome except for the skies, which are a garish lilac pink. Similarly exotic cards were published by E. T. W. Dennis & Sons Ltd. of Scarborough, who may have printed cards to order from William Clement Winton. Winton also sold fully coloured versions of some of his monochrome cards. Nearly all the printed cards carry his name (William Winton Junior) and address (either 14 High Street or 14 High Street and 25 Brunswick Road) on the reverse, either up the left side or along the base of the card. No card has been found bearing his father's name.

William Clement Winton was one of very few Sussex publishers of view cards who also produced comic cards. His "Shoreham by night. Up-to-date" is a collotype showing the Norfolk suspension bridge at night. Comic-strip speech bubbles rise into the dark sky from unseen lovers hidden behind the balustrades, with injunctions such as "Kiss me Sergeant", "Quit tickling George", "Cut it out" and "Love me Honey"! Edward Colquhoun in his book, Around old and new Shoreham (1989, Goldleaf Partnership, Shoreham, page iv) reproduces an earlier variant of this card. In a different vein is a sketch of "Shoreham in the near future". A strange flying machine hovers over the town while a woman, a baby, and a man are hauled aloft on a rope, and parachutists float down to the ground. A 1911 postmark has been found.

Perhaps the best known of Winton's printed cards shows horses fording the River Adur at low tide hauling a former railway carriage to be used as a home or beach hut at Bungalow Town (Shoreham Beach).

Some Winton real photographic cards are sepia toned and others black and white. The photographs lack borders and have handwritten captions in blocky capitals. Capitals at the start of words tend to be larger than the rest, and some letters are embellished with very short descenders. Some of the real photographic cards are views of Shoreham and Bungalow Town, while others record special events, for example "One of His Majesty's airships over Shoreham-By-Sea" (1915 postmark noted), Shoreham Carnival in 1912, "Gale damage at Bungalow Town, March 1912", and a chalet on fire at Bungalow Town on the night of 24 April 1915. Winton was obviously enthralled by the flying activities at Shoreham airfield, and issued several cards showing the planes and their pilots, notably Gustaf Hamel, Mr Geere, and the Pashley brothers. Philip Fry in his book Lancing and Sompting - a second selection (1998, Sutton, Stroud) reproduces two of his cards, one showing Oscar Morison's Bleriot-type monoplane in the grounds of Lancing College on March 11, 1911, where it was on display to the pupils, and the other showing the Pashley brothers with their Farman biplane in about 1912. Winton also recorded wrecked ships, for example the SS Hampshire Coast, which went aground at Shoreham Beach in February 1915, and military camps at Shoreham in 1914 and 1915.

Many of the photographs on Winton's real photographic cards carry a logo consisting of an oval ring (sometimes heart-shaped, but also in some examples sausage shaped) enclosing the words "WINTON PHOTO". A variant logo uses the same words sandwiched between curly brackets.

Some Winton cards are numbered. The highest number seen is 5090 ("A busy day at Shoreham Aerodrome"), but it is unlikely that he published more than a few hundred cards.

Winton married Mary Emily Hedgecock in 1901. Mary had been born at Shoreham (or at Westbourne on the Hampshire border - accounts differ) in about 1871. In 1901 she was living at 13 East Street in Shoreham, with her brother, William Hedgecock, a bootmaker, and her widowed mother, Susan Hedgecock, who worked as a draper and employed Mary as an assistant.

Mary and William Clement lived at 14 High Street in Shoreham. They had at least three children: a daughter, Jessie Winton, born in 1902, and two sons, Geoffrey Norman Winton, born late in 1903, and Hubert Leslie Winton, born early in 1905. The 1911 census records that the Winton's 14-year-old servant girl, Constance Amy Perchard, came from Florida! Winton and his family were still living at 14 High Street in 1924. His father, William Edward Winton, remained at 9 Church Street until his death in 1932.

William Clement Winton continued in business as a stationer in Shoreham until the late 1920s. By 1924 he and his family had settled at Shoreham House in John Street and then in the 1930s they moved to 28 Victoria Road.

For more information you are recommended to visit the history section of the Shoreham community website at www.shorehambysea.com where you will find impressive photo galleries, including an archive of Winton family photographs, and detailed biographies of William Edward Winton and his son compiled by Roger Bateman .

Acknowledgement: Grateful thanks are due to Roger Bateman for help with a revision of the present entry.

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