Sepia Saturday 165: Sojourn in Swanage

In the past I have frequently mined my own family photograph collection for both inspiration and subjects for articles on Photo-Sleuth. Hunting for appropriate images or interesting topics often involves looking at the photographs in greater detail, or perhaps from a different point of view. Occasionally this results in the unearthing of new clues regarding the people in the photo or the events depicted, part of the process that Alan Burnett has referred to as "photographic archaeology."

The Sepia Saturday prompt this week invites us to share "unknowns" from our collections. My contribution is the result of an investigation into a series of three amateur photographs from my family collection from geographical, genealogical and photohistorical perspectives.


Charles Hallam and Sarah Payne promenading at Blackpool, c.1900-1904
Cabinet card by H. Pawson, Promenade Studio, Blackpool
Image © and collection of Barbara Ellison
My great-great-uncle Charles Hallam Payne (1870-1960) and his wife Sarah Emma Payne nee Parker (1870-1946) retired from running the Payne family grocery in June 1914, when they were in their mid-forties, moving from Normanton to Dale Cottage near Ingleby. Retiring at such a young age was probably facilitated by a substantial inheritance from Hallam's father, and perhaps precipitated by the death of his mother earlier that year.

The lease on Dale Cottage was signed four days before Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, and when war was declared against Germany six weeks later, Hallam and Sarah must have wondered if they'd made a mistake. No doubt the privations and hardships brought on by the Great War impacted on far more than just their tradition of having regular summer holidays at the seaside, such as that captured by Harold Pawson at the Promenade Studio portrait above, taken shortly after the turn of the century.


Charles Hallam Payne (far right) and friends, Swanage
Postcard print by unidentified photographer, 10 June 1929
Image © and collection of Barbara Ellison
They resumed their outings some time after the war had ended and, according to inscriptions on the backs, these three amateur prints were all taken in the summer of 1929 at Swanage on the southern coast of Dorset, England. This was after one of the most severe winters of the last three decades and a notably dry spring, but in typical English fashion they are dressed for inclement weather, quite a contrast to the German family holidaying in Sorrento which I featured on Photo-Sleuth six weeks ago.

It was also less than a fortnight after the General Election, the first in the United Kingdom in which women under 30 were allowed to vote, and therefore often referred to as the "Flapper Election." Did the young women perched not far from the edge of a cliff in this photograph vote? I like to think so, although perhaps they were a little young.


Reverse of K Ltd postcard, probably taken with a No. 3A Folding Pocket Kodak or similar, using 122 roll film and processed by Kodak Ltd.
The backs of two of the postcard-sized photographs in this series display a generic "K Ltd" format which Ron Playle lists as in use from 1918 until 1936. Although he doesn't state the name of the firm who printed them, I believe these very commonly used postcards are very likely to have been produced by Kodak Ltd., like the similar "K" design from the late 1930s and early 1940s which was from Kodak, and which I wrote about last week.

This excerpt from an article by Merril Distad provides more background to Kodak's early involvement in the postcard industry:

Kodak’s greatest boost to the postcard craze really began in 1903 with the introduction of the Kodak Folding Pocket Model 3A camera. Produced until 1941, it was a small, folding bellows camera, priced from as low as $12, that yielded postcard-size negatives (3.25 x 5.5 inches / 83 x 139 mm). Kodak distributed its photo print papers, both the “Velox” and (after 1904) the cheaper “Aso” brand, precut to the same size, with the standard postcard grid format printed on the backs. Despite competition from other companies’ photo papers in postcard format, such as Ansco’s “Cyko,” Artura’s “Artura,” Burke & James’ “Rexo,” Defender’s “Argo,” and Kilburn’s “Kruxo,” Kodak papers accounted for 70 percent of such sales prior to 1914, while it sold an annual average of 45,000 Model 3A cameras during the same period.

Many of Derbyshire's commercial photographers used "K Ltd." postcard papers for their own photos in the 1920s. Some firms, such Boots Cash Chemists, which had four branches in Derby and a further 11 throughout Derbyshire, would also have provided a service which developed and printed roll film from cameras such as the No. 3A Folding Pocket Kodak.


Sarah (2nd from left) & Charles Hallam Payne (far right) et al, Swanage
Postcard print by unidentified photographer, 10 June 1929
Image © and collection of Barbara Ellison
Buoyed by the recent successful identification of the Sorrento coastline, I wondered whether it might be possible to pinpoint the spots where these photographs had been taken, even though I am as unfamiliar with England's southern shoreline as I am with the Italian coast.

Although not the best in terms of clarity, the first shot shows Uncle Hallam with a young man and two young women - one with a hat, one without - posing on what appears to be the edge of a cliff, overlooking a body of water with some rocks just visible at centre left.

The second has the same group, with the addition of Aunt Sarah, standing at the edge of a road bordered by an untrimmed hedge. The chimneyed roof of a cottage is visible at centre right, and a view of the sea at centre left, with a possible "notched" headland in the distance.


Sarah (2nd from right) & Charles Hallam Payne (far right) et al, Swanage
Amateur paper print by unidentified photographer, June 1929
Image © and collection of Barbara Ellison
The third shot appears to have been taken at a similar location to the first, although Aunt Sarah and Uncle Hallam, his hat now carefully placed on the ground, are now standing with two young men and one young lady. It seems likely that the young woman without a hat who appears to be wearing a man's dark jacket in the first cliff-top shot was the photographer in this third photograph.


Amateur print (60x88mm) on Velox paper by unidentified photographer
Probably taken with Folding Pocket Kodak or No. 2 Brownie, June 1929
Image © and collection of Barbara Ellison
The quality of this paper print, clearly marked with Kodak's VELOX brand, is somewhat inferior to the other two and it is a smaller format. It measures roughly 2¼" x 3¼", which equates to Kodak's 105 or 120 formats, and therefore probably taken with either a Folding Pocket Kodak or a No. 2 Brownie.


Swanage and Peveril Point
Image © and courtesy of Google Earth
Next ... the location, which I investigated, as usual, using the imagery provided by Google Earth. To the east of Swanage's town centre, at the southern end of a large bay, is a peninsular called Peveril Point, which seemed to me the most obvious place to go looking for cliff tops that tourists might visit.


View of Broken Shell Limestone Reef, Durlstone Bay from Swanage Coastguard Hut, Peveril Point
Image © Al Dunn and courtesy of 360 Cities
Close to the tip of Peveril Point, not far from the Coastguard hut, and right on the cliff edge, Google Earth shows a small red icon which represents a 360 degrees panoramic view. Double-clicking on the icon takes one into the panorama, and provides the image above, apparently taken from precisely the same spot as the first cliff-edge photograph.

The rocky outcrop known in geological circles as the Broken Shell Limestone Reef is clearly visible, even at high tide, as are the the white shells or pebbles which litter the ground at the cliff top. This forms part of the geological type-section of the Purbeck Group of the Upper Jurassic, visited frequently by geologists and geological students since its first description by Thomas Webster in 1816, and well known for its reptile and early mammal fossils (West, 2012).


Coastguard cottages overlooking Swanage Bay
Image © Andy Jamieson, courtesy of Geograph.co.uk and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence
Despite the loss of two of the building's chimneys in the intervening eight decades, it is easily identifiable as the Coastguard Cottages which are situated immediately above the RNLI Swanage Lifeboat Station.


The Coastguard Cottages on Peveril Point, Swanage
Image © Bressons_Puddle and courtesy of Panoramio

Peveril Point Road, Swanage
Image © and courtesy of Google Streetview
Unfortunately Google's StreetView camera didn't quite make it that far along Peveril Point Road, but the cottages and their chimneys are just visible poking out to the left of the small tree in the centre of this view above (click on the image to be taken to StreetView). Very close to the blue gate set into the stone wall in front of the tree is where the group of five were standing on that summer evening.


Swanage and Peveril Point, with the two camera positions marked
Image © and courtesy of Google Earth
I write "evening" because the photographer is facing towards the north-east. The characteristic profile of the cliffs at Ballard Point and Old Harry's Wife, on the other side of Swanage Bay, are just visible - the "notched" headland to which I referred earlier. The shadows are long and pointing towards the east, and since in Dorset the sun sets around 9:20 pm in mid-June, I estimate this was perhaps between 5 and 7 pm.


The Promenade, Swanage, Postcard postmarked 1931
Although other visitors aren't visible in any of these photographs, Swanage was a popular destination between the wars, as evidenced by the number of postcards from that era boasting of its amenities, such as the view of The Promenade above, posted on 1931.


Mary and Ella Chadwick, 1927
Postcard print by H.A. Aylward of Alton, Hampshire
Image © and courtesy of Una Palmer
Lastly to the identification of Hallam and Sarah's fellow sojourners on Swanage. Hallam and Sarah didn't have any children of their own. So whose kids did they have, then (you might ask, if you're a Spike Milligan devotee)? Well, they were very fond of their nephews and nieces, grand-nephews and grand-nieces, including my grandfather and father.

One of the two young women was, I think, Mary (born in 1912, shown above left), a daughter of Hallam's sister Lucy Mary (aka "Maggie") Chadwick (1876-1953), probably the one wearing the sensible hat. Maggie's younger daughter Ella (aka "Bay" and born in 1916, above right) was only twelve years old at that time, so I think the other young woman - the one I suggest may have wielded a camera - is probably a friend. The Chadwicks were living at Headley Down in Hampshire at this time, which would have been two or three hours' drive from Swanage in Hallam's Citroën purchased in July 1921 (either a Type A, the first motor car mass-produced in Europe, or a Type B).


Harry and Clarence Benfield Payne, c.1919-1921
Postcard print by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Una Palmer
As for the two young men, I feel sure they are the sons of Hallam's younger brother Fred Payne (1879-1946) and drove down with them from Derby. Henry (aka Harry and born in 1906) and Clarence Benfield (born 1907) both lived in Derby, where their parents had been running the grocer's shop/offlicence in St James' Road, Normanton ever since Hallam and Sarah's retirement. Their sister Christine was captured walking with her uncle and aunt twice by street photographers in Bournemouth four years later.

References

Gustavson, Todd (2009) Camera, A History of Photography from Daguerreotype to Digital, New York: Sterling, 360 pp.

Distad, Merrill (nd) The postcard – a brief history, on Peel's Prairie Provinces, from University of Alberta Libraries.

Milligan, Spike (1961) Word Power, on Milligan Preserved, LP publ. EMI (NTS 114), courtesy of YouTube.

West, Ian M. (2012) Durlston Bay - Peveril Point, Durlston Formation, including Upper Purbeck Group: Geology of the Wessex Coast (Jurassic Coast, UNESCO World Heritage Site), Internet geological field guide, by Ian West, Romsey and School of Ocean and Earth Science, National Oceanography Centre Southampton, Southampton University.

Sunrise and Sunset in Bournemouth

Historical Weather Events

Excerpt from Kelly’s Directory of Hampshire 1931, courtesy of John Owen Smith

The AA Road Book of England and Wales, publ. c.1936 London: The Automobile Association, by kind courtesy of Nigel Aspdin,

Edward Smith of Derby: Enlargements and Portraits in Oil

Following on from a charcoal-embellished portrait discussed in the previous article on Photo-Sleuth, an further example of a photographic portrait embellished to a high degree would, I think, be instructive.


Mary Ellen Storer (1873-1957) of 24 Talbot Street, Derby
Enlarged and coloured print by Edward Smith of Derby
Image © and courtesy of Chris Underhill
There is little evidence from the appearance of this potrait of a seven year-old girl, painted in oils on an oval piece of thick card measuring 182 x 231mm (slightly larger than 7" x 9"), that it is anything other than a simple oil painting. That is, except for the unpainted bits at the top and bottom of the oval which reveal the unexposed photographic emulsion on a thin paper print pasted to the card, and a hint of the girls clothing showing through the border of pale brown wash. The rough nature of this pale brown border suggests that it would have been mounted passe partout and framed behind glass.


Reverse of print by Edward Smith of Bramble Street, Derby, dated 1881
Image © and courtesy of Chris Underhill
The back of the card, however, reveals a printed label (measuring 118 x 171mm) for the West-End Photographic Studio of Edward Smith:

WEST-END PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIO Bramble Street, Curzon St., Derby --------------------------------------------------- EDWARD SMITH, PROPRIETOR. --------------------------------------------------- CARTES-DE-VISTE 4s. PER DOZEN Portraits for Lockets, Brooches, &c. Cartes, Vignettes, Cabinet Portraits, PORTRAITS IN OIL, WATER COLORS, CRAYONS, &c. Copying & Enlarging expeditiously and cheaply executed. --------------------------------------------------- EDWARD SMITH, PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIO BRAMBLE STREET, DERBY. --------------------------------------------------- The Rowditch Buss runs by every Half-hour. Simpson, Printer, St. Peter's Street, Derby.

Edward Smith was a former jeweller who operated a photographic studio from his home, first in Upper Brook Street, later Bramble Street, in Derby's West End, from 1861 until at least 1901. His entries in the 1871 and 1881 Censuses show him as an artist so, even though his photographic portraits tend to be competent rather than inspiring, it is not surprising to find an example of his advertised "portraits in oil," handily dated 1881, midway through his career. The photographic print on which the painted portrait is based would probably have been enlarged from a cabinet portrait format to roughly double the original size of the glass plate negative.

Apart from the photograph/painting, the advertisement on the label may also be used to illustrate the affordability of portraits to ordinary folk. He advertises cartes de visite at four shillings per dozen, and a single portrait could be had for a shilling. Given that the average weekly cash wage for the ordinary agricultural labour in England at this time was between 11 and 15 shillings, and that of a high end skilled industrial worker was 30 shillings, it was perhaps still something of a luxury, but was definitely affordable to a large majority of the population.

I make this point because I often come across the assertion by family historians that their ancestors were probably too poor to afford such luxuries as having their portraits taken in a photographic studio, used on occasion to explain an absence of such portraits from the family archives. From what I have read, both in contemporary and current literature, during the heyday of carte de visites in the late 1860s, 1870s and 1880s such portraits were well within the reach of most families.


1872 carte de visite mount by A.L. Henderson of London
It is also informative to compare this advertised price with the 5s./doz from the well known and prolific A.L. Henderson of London in 1872, and a similar 5s./doz from F.W. Broadhead of Leicester in 1887. It seems likely that Smith catered for the lower to middle section of the market, perhaps one step above an itinerant photographer whose name might be absent from the card mount. Certainly his portraits do not have quite the professional finish that studios such as those of Pollard Graham and W.W. Winter.

References

Jay, Bill (1980) Prices of Photographs, from Bill Jay On Photography

Robert Hirsch (2009) The Carte de Visite and the Photo Album, in Seizing the Light: A Social History of Photography, Second edition (McGraw-Hill, 2009), Chapter 4, Section 5, reproduced on Luminous Lint.

Payne, Brett (2007) The carte-de-visite - fit for the Queen and commoners alike, on Photo-Sleuth, 28 August 2007.

Payne, Brett (2011) Sepia Saturday 70: A boy and his toy, on Photo-Sleuth, 15 April 2011.

Portraits in Sepia ... and Charcoal

Joan Hill has a blog Roots'n'Leaves through which she shares memories, family history, and of course old photographs, many of which form part of her regular contributions to Sepia Saturday. Joan recently sent me some images of an old photographic portrait, framed and mounted behind glass. She was wondering whether the subject could be her great-grandfather, and was therefore looking for an approximate date that it could have been taken.


The frame is a fairly typical moulded and painted papier-mache on wood frame, common in the latter part of the 19th Century. The moulding appears to have worn or broken off on the two lower corners, revealing the plain wooden base underneath, again not unusual for a frame of that age and quality.


Joan was able to remove the picture from the frame, but at 16" x 20" (400 x 500mm) it was too large to fit on her scanner so she photographed it. She also noticed an unusual feature of the photograph:

I was surprised when I took the picture out of the frame; it appeared to have a charcoal overlay on all of the dark surfaces. (When my finger tips brushed the edge of the picture, there was a dark residue and the picture actually felt like charcoal.) Was this charcoal overlay a style? If so, about when was this popular? There is a halo effect around [the head], but that is created primarily by how the "charcoal" was applied.

The portrait is of a style quite commonly produced in the late 19th and early 20th Century. I believe it was originally a photographic portrait, almost certainly with a camera which used glass plate negatives (probably 4" x 6"), but then enlarged roughly by a factor of four to produce the print which you now have in your possession.

One of the side effects of such enlargements from smaller negatives is that any blemishes or imperfections in the original, including a lack of contrast between light and dark shades, would be enlarged and/or enhanced in appearance. As a result, such enlargements were often retouched or embellished in a variety of ways. In some cases the customer might even have requested, for example, a special colouring of the portrait, whatever the quality of the black & white or sepia version.

These effects were achieved using pencil, charcoal, pastels, water colours or oil paints, and I've discussed a number of examples of retouched or otherwise modified portraits previously on Photo-Sleuth:

• Collodion positives: Early coloured portraits in Derby
• Gilding the lily: Hand colouring of carte de visite portraits
• A coloured portrait by Lawrence Brothers of Cape Town: A carte de visite finished in oils
• The Man with Piercing Blue Eyes: Retouching of early albumen prints
• Annie Orchard's crowning glory: A coloured opalotype from Derby
• "Portraits enlarged up to life size": Enlargement, framing and colouring from cabinet-sized glass plate negatives
• Hand coloured enlargements of a Yorkshire sailor and his wife: Enlargements finished in oils
• Crimson curtains and carpets of burgundy: Photographic portraits finished in oils
• A family tintype portrait from the 1890s: Retouching of cheap tintypes
• Jerome - "Studios Everywhere": Postcard portraits finished in water colour

Sometimes the retouching was so extensive that little was left of the original photograph. Usually the medium used for the retouching would later be "fixed," but in this case that does not seem to have happened, perhaps because it was to be mounted immediately under glass. Besides, they wouldn't have had access to the wide variety of fixatives that are available today.

As far as a date is concerned, it is difficult to be very precise, but I estimate from the style of portrait and the man's clothing that it was taken in the mid- to late 1880s or early 1890s. Part of the reason for my uncertainty is that this particular style of enlargement/retouching with charcoal was a good deal more common in North America (particularly the United States) than in England.

Sepia Saturday 164 : Wedding group protocols

Once again I'm straying somewhat from the theme of this week's Sepia Saturday image, in that only my first image has anything in common, a military uniform with moustache accessory dating from the Second World War. It gives me an excuse, if I ever needed one, to use scans of a couple of recent purchases by Derbyshire photographers, as well as to dip once again into the archives of Gail Durbin's Flickr photostream (aka lovedaylemon).


Unidentified newly married couple and flower girl, c. early 1940s
Postcard portrait by H.I. Hawkes of 19, Chestnut Ave., Derby
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
The happy couple in this postcard portrait are unidentified, but they also appear in a group wedding portrait, below, that was part of the same eBay purchase, taken by Derby photographer H.I. Hawkes.


Unidentified wedding group, Derbyshire, c. early 1940s
Postcard portrait by H.I. Hawkes of 19, Chestnut Ave., Derby
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Judging by the groom's uniform and the clothing styles of the other attendees, this was probably taken during the Second World War. From a brief researching of his cap badge and collar dogs, I think he must have been serving with the Royal Engineers.


Postcard portrait from H.I. Hawkes of 19, Chestnut Ave., Derby
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
The back of the postcard is of an unusual, but generic, "K" Kodak design dating from the late 1930s (Playle's list has a similar example from 1936) with Hawke's stamp at upper left indicating that he was operating from 19 Chestnut Avenue, Derby. Since this is, and was then, a residential address of terraced houses, it is likely that he did not have a studio on the premises, perhaps only a processing dark room.


Double wedding of Dorothy Hirst and her brother George, Derbyshire
Postcard portrait by H.I. Hawkes of 19, Chestnut Ave., Derby, early 1944
Image © and courtesy of Marilyn McMillan
Another example of this photographer's work sent to me by Marilyn McMillan also depicts a wedding party, that of the double marriage of sister and brother Dorothy and George Hirst in early 1944. A third Hawke wedding portrait taken at St James' Church, Dairyhouse Road, Derby in early 1951 is shown in a 2008 Derbyshire Telegraph article (This is Derbyshire).

But is not the photographer as much as the subjects of these wedding group portraits that interest me this week. I have spent some time looking at the members of the Royal Engineer's Derby wedding party, trying to decide who was related to whom, and that led to further thoughts on what protocols are prevalent around the positioning of family members in formal wedding group portraits. I suspect that fellow Sepians will have a far better idea of such conventions in their own necks of the woods than I do, so I would welcome any contributions, either by email or as comments at the end of this article.


Unidentified possible wedding group, c. 1864-1866
Carte de visite by John Burton & Sons of Derby
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin
Photography was used as a technique to capture wedding parties from as early as the 1850s, in the form of daguerreotypes. This format, however, was expensive, and the much cheaper cartes de visite introduced in the 1860s were not really large enough to display large wedding groups effectively. One such portrait by John Burton & Sons shows a large group at Derby in the mid-1860s, but the faces are hardly identifiable, and it's even difficult to pick out the bridal couple with any certainty.


Wedding group at Upper Blakenhall Farm, c.1868-1870
Carte de visite by William Farmer of Barton-under-Needwood
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Long time devotees of Photo-Sleuth will recognise this portrait of an wedding group as a carte de visite which I discussed almost four years ago in the "Mystery marriage" series. My identification of the couple being married is now under some doubt, the marriage of a younger sister of the suggested bride having been offered as an alternative possibility by a reader and potential family member. However, the location of the portrait - as co-sleuth Nigel Aspdin will be pleased to hear - is probably not, and it is an nice early example of the white bridal gowns popularised by the Queen Victoria and her daughters from the 1840s onwards.


Wedding of William Hodgkiss & Charlotte Stirland, 16 August 1904
Large format mounted print by J.N. Perks of Swadlincote
Image © and courtesy of Ben Hodgkiss
The introduction of the larger cabinet card in the late 1860s helped, but it wasn't until the popularisation of larger format mounted prints in the 1890s and early 1900s that studios commonly produced decent sized prints of large groups, such as this 1904 example by Joseph Perks of Swadlincote, in which people could easily recognise themselves.


Wedding of Louisa Rice and George Storr, 1 July 1914
Postcard portrait by Harold Burkinshaw of New Road, Belper
Image © and courtesy of Robert Silverwood
The postcard format was first used for photographic portraits around the turn of the century, after which it rapidly superseded the carte de visite as the cheapest option available. The increase in size meant that large groups could be accommodated quite comfortably, although the difficulties in coping with lighting conditions indoors meant that formal portraits were taken usually on the steps of the church, or in the garden of the ensuing reception.


Unidentified wedding group, 1925
Postcard portrait by F. Clark of Belper
Image © and courtesy of Adrian Farmer
Even in the slightly less formal garden portraits, there appear to be very definite conventions on the arrangement of people within the group. I conducted a survey of one hundred group portraits from Gail Durbin's huge Vintage weddings Flickr set in which the bride and groom are clearly identifiable, in a wide variety of settings. The groom is placed to the right of the bride (facing the photographer) in 87% of them - in other words, only 1 or 2 out of every 10 arrangements has the groom standing or seated to the bride's left. A similar ratio emerges from an analysis of fifty portraits showing only the wedding couple: 81% have the groom standing to the right of the bride.

An 1893 description of wedding etiquette includes the following:

When the ceremony is performed in church, the bride enters at the left, with her father, mother, and bridesmaids; or, at all events, with a bridesmaid. The groom enters at the right, followed by his attendants. The parents stand behind, the attendants at either side.

My guess is that photographs taken after the ceremony tended to follow the same conventions as those observed inside the church.


Wedding of Charles Leslie Lionel Payne and Ethel Brown, Derby, 1926
Loose amateur 116 (2½" x 4¼") film print
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
This amateur portrait of my grandparents' wedding party, taken in the bride's parents' garden (probably with something like the No 1A Folding Pocket Kodak camera), shows the typical standard convention for small family group wedding shots: the groom's parents are immediately to his right, while the bride's parents are to her left. As is often the case, both mothers are seated.


Wedding of Leslie Falconer and Edith Smith, 1934
Postcard portrait by W.W. Winter of Derby
Image © and courtesy of Kevin Rhodes
This wedding photo and that displayed below, both from the Derby studio of W.W. Winter, were taken indoors. By the mid-20th Century lighting technology was sufficiently advanced such that being indoors no longer presented much difficulty to photographers. Winters in particular had a large, well appointed studio in Midland Road, Derby with modern lighting apparatus and all of their studio portraits were of excellent quality.


Wedding of Fred Garner and Gertrude Trueman, Chaddesden, 1944
Postcard portrait by W.W. Winter of Derby
Image © and courtesy of Kathleen Garner
It may be, however, that the Garner-Trueman portrait was taken in Chaddesden. Winter's photographer Hubert King describes taking wedding portraits "on location" using a hand-held 5" x 4" glass plate Press camera in the 1940s and 1950s (Winter, 1996).


Arrangement of guests in Garner-Trueman wedding group portrait
This photograph is particularly useful as the contributer supplied me with IDs of the entire group, including their relationships to the bride and groom. The recently married couple, with the groom (bright blue) conventionally standing to the right of the bride (bright red), are immediately flanked by a couple who were friends of the bride (pale pink), and presumably acted as best man and maid of honour during the ceremony. Surrounding them are the immediate members of the groom's family, comprising his father and four sisters (light blue), while the bride's parents (pink) have been relegated to the far right of the photograph. More distant members of the grooms family (pale blue) then complete the picture.


Wedding of Arthur Durbin to Hilda Scott, 10 July 1937, Stoke Newington
Unknown format and photographer
Image © and courtesy of Gail Durbin
Gail Durbin has kindly identified several family members in this 1937 photograph of her parents' wedding party.


Arrangement of guests in Durbin-Scott wedding group portrait
The happy couple (bright blue/red) are seated in front of this large group, with the best man and maid of honour (light purple), both friends of the couple, standing immediately behind them. The front row is dominated by the immediate family of the bride (pink), perhaps because both parents of the groom were deceased by this time, although his sister-in-law (light blue) and her children (pale blue) were present.

I should note that it is not unusual to see one spouse's family over-represented in a wedding group. This might have several reasons:

• a subsequent portrait in the series may have included more members of the other spouse's family,
• the under-represented spouse may have come from further afield, making it difficult for family members to attend the wedding, or
• an under-represented family may have been smaller to begin with, or some could have died.

Absence of a particular family member from any group portrait should not, however, be taken to mean that person is deceased. In the double Hirst wedding group by Hawkes above, it would be easy to assume from the absence of the siblings' mother that she was deceased, but this would be incorrect, as Thirza only died in 1951, seven years after the wedding.


Horace Watts Woolley and Phyllis M. Woolley née Hirst, 21 Sep 1942
Postcard portrait by Jerome studio, 26 Victoria Street, Derby
Image © and collection of Marilyn McMillan
After a week of perusing several hundred wedding photos, and dredging up memories of the weddings I've attended in the past, I've come up with some broad guidelines on the conventions around wedding group arrangements. I hope these may assist some researchers in the identification of family members in old wedding photos in their collections. I should note that these conclusions are largely taken from shots of English ceremonies, and may not hold elsewhere. I'd be keen to hear feedback from readers concerning similarities or differences in other parts of the world.

• The first thing to emphasize is that there are no hard and fast rules. As quick as I list a guideline, I find several examples showing something quite different. Quite a few less formal group portraits can be found, in which many or all of the guidelines are ignored.
• The bridge and groom are usually together and central to the group, but may be slightly displaced or even, in some groups, at one side of the group. In 8-9 out of 10 cases, the groom is seated or standing on the bride's right, but a significant number of cases show the reverse. It may be that the latter are mostly among less formal group photos.
• The best man and maid of honour, often friends of either or both the bride and groom, if present in the photo, are usually standing immediately adjacent to or behind them.
• Bridesmaids and flower girls are often standing or seated in the front row, particularly if they are carrying flower bouquets, presumably so that the arrangements are in full view.
• The next closest to the bride and groom, usually in the front row, are their immediate family, including siblings and their spouses, parents and nephews/nieces. Each branch of the family are not necessarily restricted to a single side of the group.
• Children generally stand in front of the adults or are seated on the ground.
• One person's hands on the shoulders of another usually indicates a close relationship.

WOOLLEY-HIRST. - On September 15, 1942, at Alvaston Parish Church, Derby. L/Bdr. Horace Watts Woolley, son of Mr. and Mrs. S. Woolley, of 138, Raynesway, Alvaston, to Phyllis M. Hirst, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. G. Hirst, of 176, Brighton-road, Crewton, Derby.

A final cautionary note concerning dates on portraits which appear to be celebrating weddings: as demonstrated by the example above, the photograph may not have been taken on the day of the wedding. The portrait of Horace and Phyllis Woolley by Jerome studios of Derby is marked on the back with Jerome's usual purple date stamp, in this case Monday 21st September 1942. However, a newspaper cutting also affixed to the back of the portrait shown in the image sent to me by Marilyn McMillan demonstrates that the wedding actually took place at the parish church, Alvaston, near Derby, on Tuesday 15th September, six days earlier. Presumably they didn't have an opportunity for photographs on the day, and paid a visit to the studio a few days later to record their nuptials.

While clothing fashions changed continually, the conventions surrounding seating arrangements appear to have remained much the same over time and, from my own limited experience of weddings, survive largely intact to the present day. I'd be interested in hearing what your impressions are.

References

A Bride and Her Bridesmaids, 1851, by Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes, Whole plate daguerreotype, Smithsonian American Art Museum, in The Wedding Story, by Merry Foresta, 2009, The Smithsonian Institution Archives.

Rutherford B. Hayes and his wife on their wedding day, 30 December 1852, b&w film copy neg. of daguerreotype by unidentified photographer, Ref. LC-USZ61-900, Library of Congress.

Wells, Richard A. (1893) Manners, Culture and Dress of the Best American Society in Chapter: Courtship and Marriage, Springfield, Mass.: King, Richardson & Co.

Winter, W.W. Ltd. (1996) The Winter's Collection of Derby, Volume Two, Derby: Breedon Books.

Sepia Saturday 163: A photographer at the front door

The Sepia Saturday prompt photo this week shows a man standing in a deep bank of snow on a sidewalk in Keene, New Hampshire, "after the great storm, March 13, 1888." I'm sticking with the theme only peripherally, in the sense that it shows people in front of houses, and I'm once again grateful to Gail Durbin for giving me the idea for the topic.

Another area that fascinates me is images of people standing outside their houses in photographs that show the whole house. Was this a winter activity for beach photographer? I think one of my cards actually has a message saying that a photographer had come to the road that day.

Unidentified family in front of their home, postmarked Leytonstone, 1910
Postcard portrait by unidentified photographer
Image © lovedaylemon and courtesy of Flickr
On the reverse of this postcard in Gail's collection is written the following message.

A photographer came today to take the houses.

The family are posed along the short garden path in front of what is presumed to be their home. Whether the family or the house were the primary motive for the portrait is not clear, but it falls within a large genre of photographs of people taken in outdoors settings, and more specifically with their home featuring prominently in the view, apparently by photographers who roamed the suburbs touting for business.


Lovedaylemon's "Us outside our house" set at Flickr
Gail has a huge set of several hundred such images on Flickr, fittingly entitled, "Us outside our house," which are well worth a browse. The bulk of them are postcards, and probably date from the 1900s, 1910s and 1920s, with a few as late as the 1930s. I hadn't noticed previously, but Gail is quite correct that a large proportion of the portraits seem to have beeen taken in winter, as evidenced by the leafless trees and ivy. What is more unusual is to have a record of the circumstances surrounding the actual taking of the portrait.


Baker-Haseldine family in Derby, 1920
Mounted print by L.P. Hitchens
Image © and courtesy of Jane Porter
In an article written in April 2008 I discussed a family group portrait taken in an informal garden setting in the suburbs of Derby. According to the story told to photograph owner Jane Porter by family members:

It was 1920 in Derby. That was the year when my gran - Madge - was born. The story is that a photographer knocked the door and offered to take a photo of them. They rushed to get themselves tidied up and cut some roses from the back garden to hold. Ethel (the middle of back row) had just been doing the washing (she'd had her sleeves rolled up).

The photographer L.P. Hitchen (1877-1922) was a cotton weaver in Burnley, Lancashire for much of his life, and probably only tried his hand at photography for a brief period, not long enough even to have card mounts printed. I can find no other record of his photographic work apart from this portrait.


Portrait of unidentified family group and house, c. mid- to late 1860s
Carte de visite by Thomas B. Mellor of Belper, Derbyshire
Image © and courtesy of Cynthia Maddock
Cynthia Maddock sent me this image of a much earlier carte de visite portrait in the same vein, featuring a large family, complete with baby and cat, arranged in front of an old thatched cottage. Thomas Barker Mellor of The Butts, Belper, Derbyshire practised as a photographer in and around that town for roughly a decade from the late 1860s until the mid- to late 1870s. While he may have had a studio, I have yet to come across an example of his work which hasn't been taken outdoors. Even an 1874 group portrait of Butterly Company workers appears to have taken place in a hastily constructed makeshift studio in an outdoors setting. A garden at Pentrich Lane End formed the backdrop to the charming Fletcher family portrait taken c. 1867, as shown in a charming carte de visite in Robert Silverwood's collection.


Portrait of unidentified family group and house, c. late 1880s-early 1890s
Cabinet card by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin (Hewitt collection)
I am particularly interested in such examples, as they provide valuable information on a group of photographers who otherwise tended not to leave much in the way of documentary evidence of their work, even though their output was often prodigious. I can't be sure, and certainly can't provide any sources for it, but I believe some photographers may have specialised in this house-to-house trade. From as early as the 1850s there were itinerant photographers who would frequent country fairs, but I believe there were also plenty of practitioners who never had permanent studio premises, and sought out customers wherever they could find them. If that meant going from house to house in the suburbs, then that's what they did.


The Payne family at home, c.1894-1895
Cabinet card portrait by A & G Taylor of Derby
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
In spite of the photographer's imprint suggesting a studio in Queen Anne Buildings, New Briggate, Leeds, I believe this portrait of my grandfather and his parents to have been taken in the garden of their house (and grocer's shop) at 83 St James' Road, Derby, not long after their return from Chicago in late 1892. A greenhouse is visible in the background, and my great-grandfather is sitting on a newspaper to prevent his suit trousers from being ruined by sitting in the rockery. A & G Taylor was a huge firm with branches country-wide; several of these branch studios in the Midlands (Derby, Nottingham, Leeds & Sheffield) were run together by a manager William Middleton in the 1880s and 1890s. I suspect that they temporarily ran out of stock of card mounts for the Derby branch at this time, and used some old card stock, since the Leeds branch was by that time being managed by someone else. I think it likely that the photographer was touring the neighbourhood, and the Payne family made the most of the unexpected opportunity.


Uncle Hallam, Aunt Sarah & Leslie Payne, St James' Road, Derby
Postcard portrait by unidentified photographer, c. 1907-1909
Image © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
A decade later this postcard portrait taken on the street outside the same house and off-licence, then occupied by my grandfather's Uncle Hallam, was almost certainly taken by a similarly opportunistic photographer. It depicts, from left to right, an unidentified female shop worker, Sarah Emma Payne (1870-1946), Charles Hallam Payne (1870-1960), my grandfather Charles Leslie Lionel Payne (1892-1975) handling an early form of shopping cart - presumably used for transporting beer deliveries indoors - and an unidentified young man in charge of Hallam's horse and brewer's dray.


Charles and Maud Gunson at their house near Tauranga, c. 1911-1913
Postcard portrait by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of the Tauranga Heritage Collection
Part of my work as a volunteer at the Tauranga Heritage Collection involves scanning of old photographs in the collection. This image of a postcard is from a group which belonged to the Stewart and Gunson families of Tauranga and Katikati, and shows Charles and Maud Gunson in front of a wooden house with enclosing verandahs and a fenced garden with several shrubs. No photographer's imprint is shown on the back of the postcard. Since no children are shown, it is likely to have been taken shortly after their marriage in 1911. At that time, the most likely type of camera used to produce this format would have employed glass plates, and is therefore less likely to have been in the hands of an amateur, since roll film cameras were easily available by then and were far more portable. It is likely, therefore, that this too was taken by a travelling, or at least roving, professional photographer.


Various unidentified children, late 1890s - early 1900s
Cabinet card portraits by Frank Day of Heanor
Images © & courtesy of Alan Craxford and Terry Smith
Although his portraits concentrate on the human subjects and give little prominence to the houses and gardens, Frank Day was another Derbyshire photographer who made a practice of visiting customer's homes in Heanor from the late 1890s until about 1912. The Ray Street address given on some of his cabinet card mounts is where he was living in 1901, so perhaps he had a darkroom and processing facility at home, but no studio. It is interesting to note that in April 1911 the census shows him near Pontypridd in Wales. He described himself as a photographer working on his own account, so perhaps he was preparing for the influx of spring visitors to Wales. If so this would lend support to Gail's idea that such photographers may have followed the seasonal trade.


Child and caged bird in conservatory, c.1890s
Cabinet card by unidentified photographer
Image © & collection of Brett Payne
I have many portraits taken in similar settings, sadly now bereft of any documentation to demonstrate how the photographer and client found each other. More often than not, they don't even have the photographer's imprint or location to show where they are from. For a more affluent family, I suspect that a studio photographer might be summoned from his regular premises to the client's home, and would perhaps expect to charge somewhat above his standard studio rate for the extra effort involved. However, a less well known practitioner sans premises in the High Street, and consequently without the attached overhead expenses, who was touting for business by door-knocking in a residential suburb might be able to reduce his charges to somewhat less than the going rate in order to attract customers. I suppose it was a niche readily filled by those without the resources to rent and fit out expensive studios with backdrops, furniture and props.

I suspect I've moved well away from the theme that most Sepians will follow this week, so if you want some variety, please pay them a visit. There are a few to get around, so it might be an idea to bookmark Sepia Saturday and make it a regular haunt.