Sepia Saturday 187: Ephemera and the preservation of family photo albums

The image prompt for Sepia Saturday this week gives me an opportunity to look at some of the non-photographic material often found in family photo albums, as well as to show off some of the photo-related ephemera in my collection. Although Victorian carte de visite and cabinet portrait albums contain largely that, i.e. photographic portraits - the purpose-designed sleeves weren't really suitable for flimsy pieces of paper and arbitrarily sized cards - one does often find a variety of family history-related ephemera in them.


Edith Mary Morton's photo album
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
This album was an eBay purchase a few years ago. It is in a rather dilapidated state, but in addition to 45 cartes de visite, five cabinet cards and a postcard format photo, the album also contains an ornate baptism card and a printed memorial card.


An inscription on the front page of the album demonstrates that it was a birthday gift to Edith Morton from her sister Amy.

May 19th 1895
To Edith Morton
With best wishes For a
Happy Birthday
From her sister Amy.

Baptism certificate for Sidney Stephen Sears
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Near the front of the album, and loose between the pages, I found a brightly coloured baptismal certificate for Sidney Stephen Sears, dated April 12th 1903 at St James Enfield Highway, filled in and signed by the vicar, J. Leonard Boulden. The baptismal certificate is of a type that appears to have been used quite commonly in parish churches in the early twentieth century. I have found almost identical examples from as late as 1933. [1,2] Boulden was vicar of St James until at least 1922. [3]


Entry in baptism register for Sidney Stephen Sears
Enfield Highway St James, Register of Baptism, Ref. DRO/054, Item 007
Image © London Metropolitan Archives and courtesy of Ancestry.com [4]
The entry in the baptism register for St James, archived at the London Metropolital Archives, is in the same handwriting. Not only does it confirm the baptism date, but it also provides the very useful information - not given on the certificate - that Sidney Stephen was born on 16th February 1903, the son of Stephen and Edith Mary Sears of 22 Durrants Road.


Edith Mary Sears, c. 1897-1901
Albumen print (96 x 139mm), probably detached from cabinet card
Attrib. Henry Bown, 31/33 Jamaica Rd & 43 New Kent Rd, S.E. London
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Using this information, I was able to identify the owner of the album as Edith Mary Morton (1874-1944). Edith was born in 1874 at Riverhead in Kent, to a railway clerk Frederick William Morton (1843-1891) and his wife Emily Wanstall née Andrews (1843-1896). She grew up with her six sisters and three brothers in Sevenoaks and Deptford in Kent and as a young woman worked as a book folder. [5]


Stephen George Sears, c.1896-1900
Cabinet card (107 x 166mm) by W.H. Fawn, 13 Evelyn Street, Deptford
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
On Christmas Day 1897 Eadie married Stephen George Sears (1875-1934). They lived at 22 Durants Road, Ponders End, Enfield Highway in Middlesex and had three children, Ethel Edith (born 15 November 1898), Helen Amy (born 27 August 1900) and the youngest Sidney Stephen.


Roadworkers in Church Street, Ashover, c.1900-1910
Mounted albumen print by J.J. Shipman of Ashover
Image © and courtesy of John Bradley
Stephen Sears' occupation is listed in various records (marriage, baptisms of children, etc.) as engine driver or engineer, but in 1891 he was employed as a "plowing portable engine boy," i.e. an agricultural traction engine, and by the time of the 1901 census he described himself as a "steam road roller driver." This gives me the chance to re-use this excellent image of a steam road roller at work, albeit in a small Derbyshire village, which I wrote about for Sepia Saturday a couple of years ago. The 1911 Census shows him as an "engineer fireman" working for the District Council.


Four unidentified women from Edith Sears' photo album
Cabinet cards from the studio of Henry Bown, S.E. London
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Sadly, the album doesn't seem to contain photographs of any children that I can identify unequivocally as Ethel, Helen or Sidney. In fact, the bulk of the portraits are of young women dressed to the nines, taken between the late 1880s and the late 1890s, probably Edith's sisters and possibly including some of her friends. There are a few photos of children, but I suspect they are Edith's nephews and nieces.


Frederick William Morton, c. December 1908
Postcard portrait (87 x 138mm) by unidentified photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
This postcard addressed to Edith was sent from Toronto, Canada by her younger brother Frederick William Morton in 1908.

124 John St, Toronto, Canada, Dec 8th 12/08.
Dear Eadie.
Just a line hoping you are quite well as it leaves me the same hoping steve and the children are the same and wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year we have got winter here now and the sleighs out with the Bells Jingling and nice frosty air hoping you will know this photo allright I remain your affectionate Brother.
Fred Morton

Memorial card for Emily Wanstall Morton (1843-1896)
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Also found loose in the album was this memorial card for Edith's mother, who died in August 1896, only fifteen months after Edith had received the photo album as a gift for her 23rd birthday.

IN LOVING REMEMBRANCE
OF
Emily Wanstall Morton,
Who died 12th August, 1896,
AGED 53 YEARS.
--x--
INTERRED IN BROCKLEY CEMETERY,
No. OF GRAVE 718A, PLOT P.

Probably Emily Wanstall Morton, c.1892-1896
Carte de visite portrait by Parisian School of Photography, London
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
There are two photographs in the album which could be of Edith's mother. This carte de visite portrait shows a middle-age woman dressed in rather heavy clothing, perhaps even mourning dress, and was taken in the early to mid-1890s. Emily was widowed in 1891.


Possibly Emily Wanstall Morton, c.1866-1871
Carte de visite portrait by Hellis & Sons, London
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Another carte de visite portrait, of which there are two similar copies, may also be of Emily. It was printed at one of the Hellis & Sons branch studios, judging by the addresses list on the reverse of the card mount, probably between 1899 and 1901. However, I can tell from the hair, clothing and pose styles, as well as the studio furniture, oval vignetting (a technique commonly employed to hide the edges of the original) and faded nature, that it was almost certainly copied from a much earlier photographic portrait, perhaps taken in the late 1860s or very early 1870s.


View Larger Map
22 Durants Road, Ponders End, Enfield
Sidney died in 1920, aged only 16. For the rest of their lives, his parents continued to love in the same house at Ponders End that they had moved into after their marriage in 1897 [6]. Stephen Sears died in 1934, aged 59, while Edith lived to the age of 70; she died in 1944. Ethel and Helen never married, and passed away in 1976 and 1991 respectively. Presumably the lack of any surviving descendants is what resulted in the album eventually finding its way onto eBay.


Morton-Sears Album
I find it interesting that there don't appear to be any photographs in the album of the Sears family after their marriage, except perhaps the portraits of Stephen and Edith Sears. Why would this be? After a lengthy contemplation of the album's contents I've come to the conclusion that it has survived largely intact since the most recent photograph (Fred's postcard sent from Canada in 1908) was inserted in it. There are some portraits taken after her wedding in 1897, but these are probably of her siblings and their children. Edith may have kept this album as a record of her life prior to becoming a wife and mother.


Sears family at 22 Durants Road, Ponders End, Sunday, 2 April 1911
Image © The National Archives and courtesy of Ancestry.com
Even though the album contains very few items with inscriptions - effectively three photographs and a further three pieces of documentary ephemera - I was able to identify the original owner of the album with a high degree of confidence. Using census and birth, marriage and death records, it was then possible to build up an extensive tree of both Edith and her husband's families. Quite apart from generating a list of potential candidates for the remaining photographs in the album, it also enabled me to locate and contact a descendant of one of Edith's sisters.


Group at front door of 22 Durants Road, Ponders End, c.1915-1920
Loose amateur print by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Ron Plumley
Ron Plumley is the grandson of Edith's sister Emily, and among his Nan's photographs he found this snapshot, which turns out to have have been taken outside the Sears family's front door at 22 Durants Road - compare this with the modern Streetview image above. Although it isn't a very high resolution scan, it's detailed enough to see that the clothing of the woman (at left), the man (at right) and three possible teenagers standing in the doorway equates with the fashions worn immediately before and during the Great War.

I estimate that it was taken between 1915 and 1920 and it's difficult to be sure, but I think this must be the Sears family. Apart, that is, from the man standing at the right, who seems to be too old to be Stephen Sears, then in his early 40s. Perhaps that is Ron's grandfather William Henry Plumley (1869-1919), who would then have been in his late 40s or early 50s, and the Plumleys could have been on a day visit to the Sears family on the northern outskirts of London from their home in Deptford, also in London, but just south of the Thames?


The Morton sisters: Grace Harriett Jenkins? (1870-1945), Agnes Helen Wright (1882-1947), Amy Maria Morton (1875-1963), Florence Maud Zillwood (1866-1946) and Emily Wanstall Plumley (1872-1958)
Postcard portrait by unidentified photographer, c.1930s
Image © and courtesy of Ron Plumley
Finally, this image also shared by Ron shows his grandmother (at far right) with her sisters. It's quite a contrast with the photographs of the Morton sisters taken four decades earlier, naturally, but they look like they are having a lot more fun.

One day this album will return to a family member, but it is only by a stroke of luck that this has been possible. It could easily have been broken up and offered for sale on eBay as individual photos, as many such albums in a somewhat worn state clearly are. If that had happened, almost all of the photographs would have lost all connection with the provenance, history and genealogy that it has been possible to deduce from them as an intact collection.


I cannot stress enough how important it is not to break up albums, even if the paucity of documentation suggests there is little chance of identifying the subjects of the portraits, as clues may only become apparent at a future date. Sadly, inevitable financial imperatives will result in the continued dissolution of many such family collections from deceased estates and yard sales via eBay, but we can all do our part to make sure those in our own families do not share the same fate.

I hope you'll join the other Sepia Saturday enthusiasts this week presenting their own family heirlooms, bibles, books, letters and a variety of other ephemera.

References

[1] Baptism certificate for Hilda Charlson, 12 April 1911, on Hindsford St Anne Parish Page, Lancashire Online Parish Clerk Project.

[2] Baptism certificate for Ian Brackenbury Channell, Easter Day 1933, St Michael's Framlingham, Website of the Wizard of New Zealand.

[3] Licence from Bishop of London to Joseph Leonard Boulden, Vicar of St James, (To officiate in the district chapel of St Peter and St Paul, Enfield Lock, in the parish of St James), The National Archives, Ref. DRO54/45/2, 18 Aug 1922.

[4] London, England, Births and Baptisms, 1813-1906 database, from Ancestry.com.

[5] 1881, 1891, 1901, 1911 Census records, UK Census Collection from Ancestry.com.

[6] London, England, Electoral Registers, 1832-1965, from Ancestry.com