Rare in-house publication. A remarkable survival, two issues of a magazine created in-house by staff of the Vickers Airship Drawing Office at Barrow-in-Furness to celebrate Christmas 1918 and 1919. Charmingly, and appropriate for a technical drawing office, the contents have been reproduced entirely as mimeographs, technical drawings, and even a blueprint. Both issues are signed H.P. Joyce on the covers, though we have been unable to locate anyone by that name in historical records online. The issue for 1919 is described as the fourth annual effort, so there were at least four produced, though they are extremely rare. We can locate no copies in institutional holdings and these are the only two listed in auction records.

The contents of these magazines were submitted by staff, mainly identified by their initials, and they include poems and songs, short stories, satirical articles, fake advertisements, cartoons and caricatures. Most are related to airship work and refer to staff and office in-jokes, including 'memorials' to former colleagues, some seemingly real and others potentially comedic. Accomplished cartoons depict airships and planes with monstrous faces; one compares a manager's command of 'silence!' with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk; and 'Other Gods' depicts a Greek god on a chariot in the clouds, with an airplane and an airship flying above. There is a lengthy piece satirising scientific household management ('the only object of matrimony being to make money by cheapening the cost of living...'), and another gives the office 'house rules' ('Gentlemen entering this Office will please leave the door wide open. Draughtsmen who have no business will please call often, remain as long as possible, and take a chair and make themselves comfortable...'). The 1918 issue has a delightful puzzle page made in blueprint, with a chess conundrum and word games. Perhaps the most entertaining contents to non-initiates are the fake advertisements, one of which promotes radium facial hair removal. The bindings are likewise charming, handmade from blue paper with hand-coloured titles pasted on. The one for 1918 depicts a Red Cross nurse with two red highlights on her uniform, and the 1919 issue has a fully coloured-in scene of an airship floating over the Vickers Air Station.

The Vickers engineering company originated as a steel foundry in Sheffield in 1828, and over the course of the 19th century it expanded into shipbuilding and military hardware. In 1911 it began aircraft manufacturing, and in 1909 successfully tendered to construct Britain's first large rigid airship, after government concern about German Zeppelins. The Vickers Air Station at Barrow Docks was constructed for this purpose, and the illustration on the cover of the 1919 issue depicts 'the private railway station and the floating airship shed on the Cavendish Dock: this was unusual in the Barrow Dock complex in having no dock gates, so the only ship being able to enter it was an airship!' (Kender, 'R80 — The Last British Wartime Rigid Airship', Dirigible, The Journal of the Airship Heritage Trust, vol. XII, no. 2, 2001, p. 20).

The first ship manufactured was His Majesty's Airship No. 1, also known as 'Mayfly' because it was destroyed by high winds while being moved in preparation for its maiden flight. Next came the HMA No. 9r, the first British rigid airship to fly on completion in 1916. The third and final model was R.80, which was initially planned for the military but completed for civilian use but, not being suitable for either, was scrapped in 1925. The airship depicted on the cover of the 1919, though fictitious, is similar to R80, and may have been changed slightly to avoid breaching security (Kender).

2 hand-made, in-house staff magazines; mimeograph text, illustrations printed as technical drawings, two with hand-colouring, one chess diagram in blueprint, contents a little toned with occasional small marks and spots, mimeograph bleeding through onto opposite sides of leaves; perfect bound in original blue and green wire-stitched paper wrappers with illustrations pasted-on, that for 1918 with red watercolour highlights and that for 1919 in full watercolour, wrappers rubbed and a little worn, with splits, chips, and creasing at the edges, some dampstain, particularly on the lower covers, light rust stains, very good condition; 37 and 39 leaves.