Set fair for Hastings

After seeing the Bruce Angrave Hastings poster yesterday, Mondagogo tweeted with a link to her photos of this wonderful object.

Cartoon forecasts on Hastings Victorian Weather station

It’s a strange mechanical weather forecasting device – part of the Victorian weather station in Hastings.  Here’s the whole thing.

 Hastings Victorian Weather station

Although if you look closely, the cartoons aren’t actually Victorian.

Cartoon forecasts on Hastings Victorian Weather station detail

In fact they look suspiciously as though they might also be by Bruce Angrave.  Certainly the chins seem familiar…

Cartoon forecasts on Hastings Victorian Weather station detail

It seems Angrave did do cartoons as well as poster design (and illustration, and write books, and paper sculpture and  a lot more besides).  Here are a couple which were reproduced in Graphis in 1946

Bruce Angrave cartoons from Graphis 1946

Compare and contrast.

Cartoon forecasts on Hastings Victorian Weather station details

It certainly looks like his work, but I can’t prove it one way or another.  In a weird omission no one seems to have written anything at all about the weather station, so if you are in Hastings and know more, I’d love to hear from you.

And thanks to Anna from Mondagogo for the loan of the pictures.

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