$40.5
$61.97
The Golfing Girl poster A Braw Brassie on the True Line – Gleneagles Scotland – The Caledonian Railway – 1910 In the early 1920’s the Caledonian Railway company embarked on a poster advertising campaign to entice rail passengers to use their railway lines. Inspired by, or possibly inspiring, the posters bear a similarity in both concept and imagery to the successful and popular Kodak Girl posters created for the famous camera and film manufacturer. The Caledonian Railway commissioned a series of advertising posters that featured ‘The Golfing Girl’. Each poster featured an elegantly dressed woman taking part in a different aspect of the noble game. One titled A True Line Drive features a young woman teeing off. Another called Her Winning Way depicts a victorious-looking golfing girl successfully putting on a green. The vintage golfing poster come railway poster on this listing is titled A braw “brassie” on the True Line. Despite the way it sounds the ‘braw brassie’ reference doesn’t relate to the young golfer. Depending on how it is used the word braw in Scottish can mean lovely, appealing, eye-catching and even beguiling – as in the lyrics to the famous Scottish song It’s a braw bricht moonlit nicht the nicht meaning It’s a lovely, bright moonlit night tonight. In this Golfing poster, the word is coupled with ‘brassie’ To the uninitiated, a ‘Brassie’ has nothing to do with the lassie or girl playing the shot. A brassie was the name of an old wooden golf club that closely resembles the modern 2-wood or 3-wood club. Its name derives from the brass base plate on the head of the club. The Golfing Girl poster was illustrated by an unknown artist and features an image of a rosy-cheeked golfer wearing a tartan skirt and jacket. The young woman has been captured having just played her shot and judging by the enigmatic smile, it was good. The golfer’s successful swing is set against the beautiful, picturesque bens and glens of the impressive Scottish countryside. The red and white Caledonian Railway logo appears in the bottom right-hand corner of the image. Beneath the image, the poster reads “The golfing girl and her golfing friends acquire their healthy glow and happy buoyancy on the sporting and picturesque golf courses served by The Caledonian Railway. The vintage Caledonian Railway poster then goes on to provide a list of 24 Scottish towns with golf clubs that can easily be reached by The Caledonian Railway. Destinations include Aberdeen, Crawford, Crieff, Dunblane, Dunoon, Gleneagles, Lanark, Moffat, Oban, Peebles, Rothesay, Saltcoats, Stonehaven and Wemyss Bay. There’s a long history of Women in Golf. According to an article by Joseph Beditz in Jan 2022 on the National Golf Foundation website reckons that women now account for 25% of golfers. Given that an estimated 66.6 million people play golf throughout the world, the figure suggests there are 16.6 million female golfers enjoying the sport and the number is increasing. The statistics are surprising but they shouldn’t be. Players such as Lydia Ko, Brooke Henderson, Atthaya Thitikul, Minjee Lee, Jennifer Kupcho, Leona Maguire and Nelly Korda have certainly had an influence and inspired women to play golf. However, women playing golf goes back to at least 1552, when it was played by no less a person than Mary, Queen of Scots.She is said to have played the game regularly having learned it during her childhood in France. In fact, it is understood that she is responsible for coining the term “caddy” by calling her golfing assistants cadets. The origins of the golf are said to date back to the reign of Julius Caesar when a feather-stuffed ball was hit with club-shaped tree branches. A similar game came also be traced back to the Song Dynasty in China, sometime between 960 to 1379. However, it is widely accepted that the roots of the game as we know it, where the ball was to end up in a hole in the ground, began in Scotland around 1400. We know this because the first documented record of golf in Scotland dates back to 1457 when King James II of Scotland banned both golf and football because the sports were so popular, the King was concerned his subjects weren’t practicing their archery enough during Scotland’s ongoing wars with England! The first documented reference of women playing golf appeared in the Edinburgh newspaper, the Caledonian Mercury as well as in newspapers in London, Carolina and Pennsylvania. The articles reported that two married women had played a match on Bruntsfield Links in Edinburgh on 24th April 1738… with their husbands acting as caddies! The story caused quite a stir as it reported that the match attracted quite a crowd and gambling. The article complimented the women on their ‘dexterity’ in ‘holing out’ as well as how manfully they ’tilted’ the balls. The event was won by ‘Charming Sally’, although her surname and the name of the rival are still unknown. The first recorded women’s golf tournament dates back to the reign of King George III. It was held on January 9th, 1811 at in the Scottish village of Musselburgh in East Lothian. The tournament was held between local fisherman’s wives of Musselburgh and neighbouring Fisherrow on an eighteen-hole pitch and putt golf course at the Musselburgh Golf Club. The winner received a creel and a shawl with the runner-up being awarded two handkerchiefs. According to the Guinness World Records, Musselburgh is the oldest surviving course in the world. It was the venue for the Open Championship six times between 1874 and 1889. The course is still in use today. St. Andrews is widely considered the “home of golf”. It is certainly home to the Royal and Ancient Golf Club which was established in 1754. It was golf’s leading authority, administering the rules of the game and running the Open Championship. St Andrew’s opened the world’s first 18-hole course. When the world-famous “Old Course,” was constructed it became the standard for golf courses across the world. Just as significant is the fact that in 1867 St Andrew’s became the home of St Andrews Ladies’ Golf Club, the oldest ladies’ golf club in the world. From then Women’s golf started to take off. 1893 saw the formation of the Ladies Golf Union. A series of ladies golf tournaments taking place in New Jersey and Australia in 1894, and New York in 1895. As the new century began a women’s tournament was played at the 1900 Summer Olympics. It was the only time women’s golf was featured at the Olympics until 2016! Since the 1900s women’s golf has come on in leaps and bounds. Players such as Dorothy Campbell, Betty Jameson, Glenna Collet Vare, Joyce Wethered, Louise Suggs, Babe Zaharias, Kathy Whitworth, Nancy Lopez, Betsy King, Patty Sheehan, Betsy Rawls, Patty Berg, Mickey Wright and Annika Sorenstam have all contributed massively to the women’s game. The Caledonian Railway The Caledonian Railway was a major Scottish railway company between 1847 and 1923. It was formed with the objective of connecting to the English railway network and providing a railway line between London and Glasgow. With the opening of the Caledonian Mail Line from Carlisle to Beatock in 1847 and between Glasgow and Carlisle in Feb 1848, a continuous railway route between Glasgow and London was established for the first time. The company progressively extended its network and soon reached Edinburgh and Aberdeen and creating a dense network of branch lines in the area around Glasgow. The company also developed a considerable passenger service to the Firth of Clyde, serving many of the island towns and resorts. Fast boat trains were run from Glasgow to steamer piers and although the Caledonian Railway was refused permission to operate its own steamers, it formed a partnership with the Caledonian Steam Packet Company. The Caledonian Railway quickly established itself as the dominant route from Central Scotland to England, rivalling the Glasgow and South Western Railway and the North British Railway. The Railways Act of 1921 forced many individual railway companies in Britain to merge and the Caledonian Railway was no exception. The company was grouped with the Glasgow & South Western Railway, the Highland Railway, the London & North Western Railway, the Midland Railway and a number of smaller railways across Scotland and England to form the London, Midland & Scottish Railway Company. The LMS inherited 3,040 Coaching, 51,536 Freight and 1,786 Service vehicles and 1,114 route miles from the Caledonian Railway. Many of the carriage designs such as the Grampians had been at the leading edge for style and comfort at the time of their introduction. The Caledonian was also one of the first of the UK companies to introduce Pullman coaches. The Company also owned two very fine hotels as part of the stations at Glasgow Central and Edinburgh Princes Street. The development of the majestic hotel and golf course at Gleneagles was interrupted by WWI and was not fully completed until after the grouping. The legacy of Caledonian Railways is still evident today and many of its principal routes are still used. Although the term Caledonian main line has no official present-day meaning, the line is in use as part of the West Coast Main Line railway and is still generally taken to mean the main line between Carlisle and Glasgow and Carstairs and Edinburgh. How much is an original Caledonian Railway poster worth? Like many of the vintage posters and wall art on our website the Caledonian Railway poster is considerably rare and highly sought after. It would seem that not too many of the originals have survived the 110 years since they were first published. The posters rarely come up for sale through online stores or auction sites. It is a vintage poster that appeals to a new generation of female golfers. It also appeals to collectors of golfing memorabilia, railway poster collectors, Scottish poster aficionados and general poster collectors alike. Its appeal across a variety of genres helps push up the value of the original prints. In 2019, an original copy of this Golfing Girl poster went to auction and achieved a sale price of £4,500. There’s no argument from us, if you can find an original copy and can afford to buy it, you’re on to a winner. There’s nothing like owning an original vintage poster and they often make a great investment. Chances are in just a few years you’ll be able to sell it for more than you paid for it. Unfortunately, for most of us, an investment, even at the entry-level prices of the collectable poster isn’t even close to being a possibility. This is where our stunning high-quality reproductions come into their own. They cost a fraction of an original and look absolutely ‘braw’ when they’re framed and hung on your living room wall.
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