1928 Cooper Pictorial Poster of a Londoner's Transportation

This is a 1928 Richard T. Cooper London Overground and Underground promotional poster illustrating the history of London public transport from A. D. 327 until 1927. It is one of the most outstanding publications from the Golden Age of London's Transport Posters

A Closer Look

Cooper depicts the conveyances in four strips, coving from the Roman litter to the motorbus, illustrating coaches, carriages, buses, omnibuses, trams, and the first taxi. London's railways occupy the bottom of the sheet, including the first underground railway, 'The Metropolitan' dating from 1863, to the modern Tube. The iconic Underground logo appears at the bottom-center with text assuring the rider of 'swift, safe and comfortable transport.'

Golden Age of London Transport Posters

In 1927, the London Times proclaimed, 'there can be no doubt at all that the credit for the earliest consistent use of good posters of any kind belongs to the Underground'. Frank Pick, London Transport's Chief Executive, had been commissioning artists to make promotional pictorial posters for the network since 1908. Among the most famous are MacDonald Gill's celebrated Wonderground Map and this poster, Cooper's 'London Transport'. London Transport's posters reached the height of their design prowess during the 1920s and 1930s. Pick commissioned over 40 new posters annually, engaging both established artists and the up-and-coming. Pick believed that, as long as the subject remained clear, the posters could 'move from the most literal interpretation to the wildest impression'. The Golden Age of London Transport posters ended as World War II (1939 - 1945) placed new demands on public transportation and the printing industry.

Publication History and Census

This poster was created by Richard T. Cooper and published in 1928 for the London Underground Group. This example is the original 1928 first edition. A reprint was issued in 1977 by Impress (Action) Limited. We note only one cataloged instance of the 1928 edition, located at the London Transport Museum.