Fragments from France Cigarette Cards

In 1916 R & J Hill made an arrangement with the publishers of The Bystander to reproduce twenty of Bruce Bairnsfather's popular Fragments from France cartoons on cigarette cards. In all, Hills issued four sets of Fragments from France cigarette cards - two with colour reproductions of the cartoons, one in sepia, and one set in black and white (now the scarcest of all the sets). Each set was made up of ten cards (although the colour set are often referred to as one set of 20 cards). As well as the Fragments from France 'logo' and cartoon caption, the back of each card carried the message "There could be no better reflection of the bright spirit of the Empire's gallant sons than is depicted in these sketches, by one who himself has endured the grim reality of war" and the acknowledgement "Reproduced by courtesy of The Bystander."

The colour (with lower case captions), sepia and black and white series all feature the same ten cartoons, while the colour (with captions in capitals) series has ten different drawings.

All the colour and sepia cards are reproduced below, along with examples from the rarer black and white set.

Colour Series (captions in capitals)

Colour Series (captions in lowercase) 

Sepia Series

Black and White Series