Smashing Collection

Wonders of the cinema organ by G. H. Davis
Noises played for films: wonders of the cinema organ. Thunder, shots and tom-toms controlled by an organist: a film-theatre organ that creates sound effects. Date: 1929

Tennis-playing brunette beauty prepares to smash
Striking! A tennis-playing brunette beauty prepares to hit a net-side smash shot. It looks like game, set and match for her handsome male companion. Date: early 1940s

Georgian cartoon, The First Scrape - woman smashing a violin over a young man's head, because he was making a terrible noise with it. Date: circa 1820s

Scenes from Gaumont film, Smashing Through
Scenes from Gaumont motoring film Smashing Through Date: 1929

Rioting in the West End of London 1886
Looting shops in Piccadilly, London. A meeting of the unemployed was held in Trafalgar Square, which divided itself into two groups, the Fair Trade League and the Revolutionary Social Democrats

Teach the Young idea - to window-smash
The elderly suffragette (a believer in the window-breaking policy): Look, dear - thats the sort of hammer. Cartoon commenting on the window-smashing policy of militant suffragettes. Date: 1912

VASES MADE
Vases and jugs being manufactured- one lady looks intent on smashing them Date: 1930s

Luddites smash weaving machinery in a Nottingham textile factory. The Luddites were a movement of radical group of English textile workers

Suffragette Militants Smashed Windows
Photograph of the damage inflicted on the plate glass windows of the shipping line Hamburg - Amerika. The building in Cockspur Street was attacked in March 1912 during the W.S.P.Us window smashing

Stone-breaking cell in a workhouse
Illustration showing a workhouse stone-breaking cell. Tramps and vagrants broke stones in return for a nights accommodation Date: circa 1909

Polo Cartoon by Tom Browne
Humorous Polo illustration for a comic postcard by Tom Browne. The gentleman player in the red seemingly needs to work on his mallet control! circa 1905

Racing car smashing its way to victory
Racing cars smashing around a course but carrying on regardless. Date: 1932

Fighting Paris 1830
Armed to the teeth with chairs and axes, rioters invade the church of St Germain l Auxerrois, Paris, during the 1830 revolution. Date: 15 February 1831

Mid Pleasures and Palaces by C Watson Mill
Image from a promotional letterhead for Mid Pleasures and Palaces by C. Watson Mill. First produced at the Grand Theatre, Mansfield, 23rd September 1912

Sphere cover - East Coast bombardments, Hartlepool chapel
The bombardment of the East Coast - the scene outside a Hartlepool Baptist Chapel. Scene painted by Fortunino Matania based on a sketch by fellow Sphere artist, G. H

Cracker Ball released by electromagnet to crush scrap metal
Steel Cracker Ball released by electromagnet to crush scrap metal Date: circa 1920s

Suffragette Window Smashing Bow Street
This shows a large queue of people, surrounded by police, waiting to enter Bow Street Magistrates Court. Captioned on reverse, Window Smashing Continued

Suffragette W. S. P. U Demonstration Programme
A W.S.P.U programme for a Womens Demonstration at the Royal Albert Hall, 28th March 1912. Printed in purple with green pencil attached with green ribbon

Suffragette Window Breaking Campaign. A notice put in the window of a jewellers shop, at the height of the militant window smashing campaign in early 1912. Date: circa 1912

Suffragette Militants Broken Windows. The scene in Cockspur Street, London following a campaign of window smashing by militant members of the W.S.P.U

Suffragette Smashing Crystal Palace. Cartoon showing a suffragette, Miss. Suffra Glasbrake Gyste with a bucket of bricks, destroying the Crystal Palace, her hammer discarded on the ground

Duchesse De Maine Angry
ANNE LOUISE BENEDICTE DE BOURBON-CONDE, duchesse de MAINE, wife of Louis Auguste, depicted smashing furniture when required to quit the palais des Tuileries, Paris. Date: 1676 - 1753

Uncle Podger playing cricket
Uncle Podger shows the children how to play cricket, with disasterous results! Date: circa 1907

A Crack team at a smashing gait. Date 1869. A Crack team at a smashing gait. Date 1869

New Compensation Act - 1906 - Gardener takes a fall
" The New Compensation Act" - " I ken see a life of ease for me!" - a Scottish Gardener is not unduly concerned at his tumble off a ladder and into the greenhouse

Guinea Day at the Festival Gardens, Festival of Britain
A cartoon depicting Guinea Day at the Festival Gardens, Festival of Britain, with upper class people in their best clothes, taking part in some unlikely (for them) fairground activities

Carrie Nation, the Saloon Smasher
Carrie Nation (1846-1911), American temperance campaigner known as the Saloon Smasher because of her use of vandalism to get her views across -- she would generally enter a saloon

Glass-Smashing for Votes! by Wilmot Lunt
This illustration shows suffragettes breaking windows in protest for the right to vote

Lear / Nonsense / Buda
There was an Old Person of Buda, whose conduct grew ruder and ruder; Till at last, with a hammer, they silenced his clamour, by smashing that Person of Buda

The Midianites Defeated
The Midianites are defeated by the Israelites who panic them by a night attack with much blowing of trumpets and smashing of pottery

Tennis / Off the Ground
A player leaves the ground to make a smashing return

Dining on Oysters
An insolent young man smoking a cigar, puts on his gloves as he makes a parting comment to an affronted older gentleman who is stopped in the act of smashing open an oyster

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