The city of Portsmouth, on the Hampshire coast, has been an important
naval base for centuries and is still home to much of the Royal Navy's
fleet today. The town has grown around its dockyards, spreading down to
include the resort of Southsea on the southern point of Portsea Island
in the nineteenth century. At the turn of the twentieth century
Portsmouth was regarded as the world's greatest port, with a large
proportion of the town working in the dockyards, particularly refitting
ships during the First World War. Portsmouth became a city in 1926 and,
as a major naval base and embarkation centre for the troops for D-Day,
it was a target for heavy aerial bombardment during the Blitz, which
left much of the old city and the surrounding areas destroyed. In
Portsmouth The Postcard Collection the author has drawn on a remarkable
selection of old postcards to give a pictorial record of life in
Portsmouth in the past, from c. 1900 to the end of the Second World War.
Although much of historical Portsmouth was lost during the Second World
War, some landmarks have remained and will be familiar today. The
postcards show the changes to Portsmouth's fabric and its community
adapting and changing over the course of this period, and will be of
interest to those who have lived in Portsmouth or know it well.
