“TROW” has been claimed as the pseudonym of Frank Eric Smith, who was born in Salisbury on 2 March 1908, lived most of his life in Dorset and Wiltshire, and died on 5 October 1985. According to Smith’s family, he drew many seaside postcards in the late 40s and early 50s, and derived his pseudonym from ‘Trowbridge’, the county town of Wiltshire.
However, Smith claimed to have stopped drawing in 1952, whilst new cards signed “TROW” continued to appear in large numbers until the late 1960s. It seems that the cards prosecuted by the DPP were in fact drawn by Thomas Trow (1909-1971) of Stoke on Trent, whose address appears on the reverse of surviving artwork, as the Greyfriars Art Studio.
50s
227 postcards