Sepia Saturday 140: Two weddings and a funeral

For my contribution to the Sepia Saturday scrapbook this week, I have delved into my collection of specimens from Derbyshire's longest lived studio, that of W.W. Winter. This group of wedding photos - slavishly following Alan's matrimonial photo prompt - was a recent purchase on eBay and is probably the most recent example that I have from this studio.


Unidentified wedding group, c.1950s
Paper print (156 x 114mm) by W.W. Winter, Derby
The listing naturally caught my eye, or rather eBay's search tool, because of the studio's location, but it also turned out to be an interesting research problem. On the face of it, the wedding portraits offered relatively few clues as to the identities of the subjects. The bride could be in her mid- to late thirties, the groom - with an incipient receding hairline - perhaps a little older, and he is wearing a cassock and dog collar, so presumably an Anglican priest.


Photographic "Wedding" card folder
W.W. Winter Ltd. Midland Road Derby
The series of three 6⅛" x 4½" prints, one showing the wedding party standing outside the church in landscape format, the other two of the bride in portrait format, have their corners inserted in diagonal slits in pre-printed and embossed pale blue card folders (177 x 133mm or 7" x 5¼") with white decorated edging.


Reverse of paper print
Negative number "59165 A," surname "Edwards"
The prints have the standard W.W. Winter signature logo blind stamped in the bottom right, while a negative number and the surname "Edwards" are written in pencil on the reverse.


Reverse of card folder
Inscribed with negative number "59165 A" & surname "Edwards"
The same negative number and surname are inscribed in pencil, albeit apparently a different hand, on the back of the blue card folder.


Unidentified bride, c.1950s
Paper print (114 x 156mm) by W.W. Winter, Derby
The portraits of the bride show her holding the bouquet in a similar position outside the church.


Photographic "Wedding" card folder
Inscribed with surname "Edwards" & Negative number "59167B"
W.W. Winter Ltd. Derby
One of the folders has the pre-printed studio name in a different font, although it is otherwise identical.


Unidentified bride, c.1950s
Paper print (114 x 156mm) by W.W. Winter, Derby

Unidentified bride, possibly "Dordy," c. 2 February 1959
Paper print in embossed card folder
W.W. Winter, Derby
But it is an inscription on the inside cover of the folder housing the third portrait which provided the only clue left by the presumed original owners.

To Lily
with Love
Dordy +
Peter
2.2.1959

I can't be absolutely sure about the name "Dordy," but that's my best guess, based on a comparison with the remainder of the text, e.g. see how the "o" is written in the word "Love."


If I were to have any chance of identifying the subjects, it was clear that I would have to make some deductions, assume they were correct, and test the theory by seeing where that led. So perhaps ...

- the wedding took place on 2 February 1959,
- since it was captured by W.W. Winter, it was most likely taken somewhere near Derby
- "Dordy" was the bride, Peter the groom,
- their married name was Edwards,
- "Dordy" was a pet name, perhaps short for Dorothy or Doreen, and
- she gave the wedding photos to a close friend or relation named Lily.


Unidentified wedding group, c.1950s
Paper print (167 x 119mm) by unknown photographer
The last of these seemed plausible since accompanying the W.W. Winter wedding portraits in the same eBay lot were three further wedding portraits, similar in size and shape, but in plain card folders (with no photographer shown) and obviously a different wedding. However, the bride in these three portraits (above and below) is clearly the same woman who appeared as a bridesmaid in Dordy's group wedding photo.


Unidentified wedding group, c.1950s
Paper print (167 x 119mm) by unknown photographer

In order to find a suitable marriage record for Dordy I turned to FreeBMD, which has to be one of the most useful, and used, free UK genealogical research tools currently available on the net. Although this unofficial database of the GRO Birth, Marriage and Death Index, compiled by voluntary indexers, is not yet complete, the coverage for the 19th Century and first half of the 20th Century is very good, and growing. A quick check of the graphs (or charts if you prefer) for marriages shows that both transcription and validation for 1959 are estimated as complete, which will give us a good degree of confidence that we are likely to be searching a full set of records.


The basic FreeBMD search page has a very simple, and versatile, interface where I inserted the following details of the presumed wedding:

Type: Marriage
(Groom's) Surname: Edwards
(Groom's) First name: Peter
Spouse's First name: Do
Date range: Mar (Qtr) 1959 - Mar (Qtr) 1959
Counties: Derbyshire

N.B. Since I wasn't sure about the bride's first name, I decided to specify only the first two letters. This search engine matches all first names in the database with start with these letters and fit the other specified criteria, i.e. a wildcard after the specified letters is assumed. All other details were left blank.


Searching using these parameters produced a single hit, a marriage entry for one Peter A. Edwards, spouse's surname Sewell, in the Shardlow Registration District (near Derby).


Clicking the GRO Reference Page number gave a list of all the names listed on that page of the register, including that of Peter's bride Doreen N. Sewell.


I then used the FeeBMD Index of birth registrations to look for a Doreen N. Sewell born somewhere in Derbyshire between 1910 and 1930 (assuming that she was in her 30s or early 40s at the time of her marriage. Finding one whose birth was registered in the Belper R.D. in the September Quarter of 1919 (Dordy would have been thirty-nine years old when whe was married), and whose mother's maiden name was NEALE, I was able to search for potential siblings. Indeed there were at least five Sewell sisters (shown above) including, conveniently, the youngest named Lily V.


Unfortunately, searching the FreeBMD marriage index for marriages for a Lily V. Sewell, even without any constraining dates or location, produced not a single hit. However, bearing in mind that her wedding would probably also have taken place in the 1950s (or thereabouts), we already known the coverage for that decade is patchy (we hit lucky with 1959).


I therefore turned to the comprehensive subscriber-only Ancestry database, which was far more successful, turning up a marriage for Lily V. Sewell and Albert H. Young in the Woolwich R.D. (Kent) from the September Quarter of 1952. Lily was apparently married six or seven years earlier than her older sister, when she was thirty-two years old.


The photograph of the happy couple signing the register was of fairly decent quality, so I tried some digital manipulation of a detailed scan (click image above for a more detailed version), in an attempt to decipher the handwriting in the register. Unfortunately, while I think I can make out the name, Lily Victoria Sewell, that's about the extent of it. I sadly haven't been able to determine the name of the parish church, but it is likely to be in one of the parishes of Charlton, Kidbrooke, Plumstead or Woolwich.


So, you might well ask, we've had the two weddings, but where is the funeral? When I was trying to identify as many people as possible who appeared in both wedding parties - can you see Dordy and her husband to be, Peter, in Lily's wedding photo? - there was one man who, although he appears to have taken the place often reserved for the father of the bride, looks too young for that role. Perhaps he's an uncle, or other member of the family? There is an older woman, also present on both occasions, who looks old enough to be Dordy and Lily's mother.

As shown by the above entry in the National Probate Calendar, Walter Edward Sewell of 298 Boulton Lane, Alvaston, Derbyshire (a pig iron carrier by trade) died on 12 July 1948, and was sadly not able to attend either of these two daughters' weddings.

For more weddings, and possibly a funeral or two, try Sepia Saturday's other offerings this week - I can guarantee you'll not be disappointed.