The proud city: St Thomas's Hospital and the Houses of Parliament

British Second World War poster by Walter E Spradbery DCM (1889 - 1969). One in a series called ' The Proud City' commissioned by London Transport in 1944 to boost the morale of the travelling public. The series celebrates London's survival of the Blitz and features views of iconic London buildings as if rising out of the ruins of a war-scarred landscape of the city. They appealed to commuters sense of pride over, and common ownership of, several prominent London public landmarks to remind them what they were fighting for. Spradbery designed posters for London Transport from 1912 - 1944 and this was his last series. The artists also chose the quotations featured in the series.

This poster depicts St Thomas's Hospital and the Houses of Parliament. The image takes up the whole of the top two thirds of the poster. It shows the Houses of Parliament in the background and the hospital in the foreground next to a row of ruined buildings. The image is painterly and framed with a white border. Title text is at the top and beneath the image and a quotation by William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850, major English Romantic Poet) is printed lower right. The London Transport logo is prominently located lower left in white. Both image and text are set against a beige background.