Sepia Saturday 281: Home Duties

I recently purchased a box containing nineteen exposed 4" x 5" glass plate negatives. They depict various women and children, some of whom appear to be members of the same family. Sadly there are no notes or provenance to provide clues as to their origin but, as I will show, the batch appears to have survived as an intact collection. In other words, they probably belong together. They have little in common with this week's Sepia Saturday theme, except that two of the images show children engaged in what might with some latitude be called "home duties."


As with my recent studies of small photographic collections, A Grand Tour of Europe and Summer Holidays in Derbyshire, this group appears to have been taken in the early years of the twentieth century. Unlike the other two groups, these 19 photographs appear to have been taken over and extended period of time, covering several years in the lives of a family living somewhere in New Zealand. None of the photographs are annotated, nor is the box that they arrived in, so all provenance has unfortunately been lost.

One of the purposes for my showing these images is to demonstrate the process that I go through when researching such collections, in an an attempt to decide whether they are linked to each other in any way and, if so, then to try and establish a theoretical framework around the subjects. In many cases this may never lead to an positive identification but occasionally I have breakthroughs.


Image #09 - Three teenage children ("Agnes," "Charlie" and "Bertha")
5" x 4" (127 x 102mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
I'll start with this nicely focussed snapshot of three teenage children, two girls and a boy, seated on a grassy bank in the shade of tree. Just for convenience I'l call them "Agnes" (left), "Bertha" (right) and "Charlie." The girls have taken their hats off, while the boy, who looks as though he never bothered with one, is eating what looks to me like a dark-skinned plum. The clear images of these three individuals allows us to follow them through several years.


Image #14 - Three young children ("Agnes," "Bertha" and "Charlie")
4" x 5" (102 x 127mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
This image is partly out of focus, possibly blurred from movement and slightly over-exposed, but I think that the same three children are pictured hanging up the washing, although this must have a few years earlier. "Agnes" is handing a peg to "Bertha" and barefooted "Charlie" appears to have carelessly dropped the tin of pegs on the ground.


Image #05 - Three young children ("Bertha," "Agnes" and "Charlie")
5" x 4" (127 x 102mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
The trio are probably at the beach on this occasion, younger still, with one of the girls wearing a rather impractical cap which must have been difficult to control when the wind got up. "Charlie," seated with legs apart at right, is "unbreeched."


Image #16 - Young boy ("Charlie"), possibly with his mother ("Doris")
4" x 5" (102 x 127mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
Young "Charlie," here dressed in a Fauntleroy suit popular in the 1890s and early 1900s, appears with a young woman aged in her late twenties or early thirties, seated on a wicker chair, who I think might be his mother and who we will call "Doris."


Image #08 - Young child with doll on wicker chair (possibly "Charlie")
4" x 5" (102 x 127mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
An even younger child sits confidently in a different wicker chair placed on the lawn, holding a doll. Despite the presence of the doll, the child's facial features suggest to me that this, too, is our "Charlie."


Image #10 - Young boy in school uniform ("Charlie")
4" x 5" (102 x 127mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
Here is "Charlie" dressed in somewhat smarter attire, perhaps ready for his first day at school. The background to this photograph includes the wall of a house, possibly on a verandah or adjacent to an extrance, an upholstered straight-backed chair and a floral carpet.


Image #04 - Older woman ("Eliza") & teenage girl ("Frances") on verandah
4" x 5" (102 x 127mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
An almost identical background, only the chair having been changed, appears in two further photographs depicting three more women. In the first portrait an older woman (I'll call her "Eliza"), perhaps in her sixties, is sitting on the chair, while a different teenage girl (say "Frances") is seated on the carpet at her feet.


Image #17 - Middle-aged woman seated on verandah ("Doris")
4" x 5" (102 x 127mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
The third verandah portrait shows the middle-aged woman - I'm guessing she is in her late thirties to early forties - we've previous identified as the boy's mother ("Doris") sitting in the same chair. Unlike the others photographed on what may be the same occasion, who face directly into the camera lens, her gaze is off to the right of the photographer.


Image #02 - Middle-aged woman seated outdoors ("Doris")
4" x 5" (102 x 127mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
Within the same general time frame, but probably on a different occasion, "Doris" sat for another portrait outside her home. The same mouldings that appear in other images of their home are featured prominently in this shot, taken when the shadows were long, but still with enough light to make a decent picture. She has a low pompadour hairstyle and is wearing a leather-cased ladies' fob watch, both of which were popular in the decade immediately preceding the Great War, i.e. between c. 1905 and 1915. The jigsaw embroidery on the front of her blouse and hobble skirt with large buttons are typical of the same period.


Image #01 - Two young women reading ("Agnes" and "Bertha")
5" x 4" (127 x 102mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
Relatively few shots in this series show the surroundings of the house, but one that does is this view of the two girls ("Agnes" and "Bertha") seated in the garden, reading. "Bertha" has bagged the comfortable canvas folding deck chair, while "Agnes" has to make do with a dining room chair set partially in the shade. The presence of tree ferns indicates a strong likelihood that these photos originate here in New Zealand, where they were purchased. They both wear sensible wide-brimmed hats, Bertha's being of the distinctive cartwheel type. The house itself has a wide verandah along at least two sides, and a wooden railing in a stylish geometric pattern.


Image #12 - Teenage girl and apple tree ("Agnes")
4" x 5" (102 x 127mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
There are two further portraits of "Agnes" on her own. In the first of these she is standing next to what I believe to be an apple tree, dressed in the same clothing as Image #09, but with her hat on. More prominent in this photo is the narrow velvet choker around her neck, a fashion that arose with the appearance of lower necklines around 1905 to 1910.


Image #19 - Teenage girl, possibly in school uniform ("Agnes")
4" x 5" (102 x 127mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
In the next photo "Agnes" is seated in a chair, possibly on the verandah of the house, but in a different location from portraits #04, #08 & #10 displayed above. She is wearing what I think might be a school uniform, with a smart jacket or blazer, dark leather gloves, a tie with a shield and emblem embroidered on it, a straw boater with a broad striped hat band, and her hair tied up with a large bow at the back of her neck.


Image #11 - Three women in the garden ("Agnes", "Eliza" and "Gertrude")
5" x 4" (127 x 102mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
In a group portrait "Agnes" is seated with two older women, both on chairs placed on the path in front of the house, one of whom is "Eliza" from Image #04. She has a high-necked collar and is holding a pair of spectacles in her lap. The third woman, wearing a white blouse and tie, I will call "Gertrude."


Image #03 - Two women on the garden pth ("Gertrude" and "Eliza")
5" x 4" (127 x 102mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
A view of the garden path immediately to the right of the previous image shows "Eliza" and "Gertrude" dressed warmly in furs and large feathered hats walking towards the house.


Image #18 - Teenage girl on windowsill ("Frances")
4" x 5" (102 x 127mm) glass plate negative, unknown photographer
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
The third girl ("Frances") is depicted in another portrait, also taken on the verandah, although she is seated precariously on the wide windowsill. Her clothing and hair style are identical with that worn in Image #04, and the two photographs are likely to have been taken on the same occasion.



The Picasa album slideshow above shows the full set of images in the approximate order that I believe they were taken, probably over a period about a decade some time between the years of c.1900 and 1915.

My analysis of the family is as follows:
- Agnes, Bertha and Charlie are siblings, probably born in the late 1890s to early 1900s
- Doris is the children's mother, probably born in the mid- to late 1870s
- Eliza is the children's grandmother, probably born in the 1850s
- Frances is possibly a cousin of Agnes, Bertha and Charlie, and a similar age to them
- Gertrude may be a friend or a relative, possibly a maiden aunt
I must reiterate that these aren't their real names; I've merely invented them for the sake of convenience.

It's possible that a positive identification of this family may be made eventually but, in the mean time, if you spot any further clues or even disagree with any of my rather tenuous deductions, please don't hesitate to get in touch or leave a comment below.

Sepia Saturday 280: The Pleasures of a First Pipe

The Sepia Saturday theme this week appears to be a postcard reproduction of a pen and ink drawing entitled, "The Leap Year: The ladies after a little wine and tobacco join the gentlemen in the drawing room," and the gentlemen, I must say, don't look particular pleased about the situation. My examples, in a somewhat related vein, are of magic lantern slides, a photographic format that was very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but then very quickly overtaken by the motion picture industry.


Magic Lantern Slide Projector, c.1900s
Image © and courtesy of the Tauranga Heritage Collection
Originally invented in the 17th century, the magic lantern was employed by conjurers, magicians and illusionists in the late 18th century to trick audiences into believing they had seen supernatural beings, commonly known as phantasmagorias. By the late 1800s, however, they were being used for the more mundane task of projecting images for entertainment purposes, these pictures covering a wide array of genres. The Magic-Lantern is one of web sites that has many examples displayed online, and is well worth a browse. By the 1890s, with the cost of photographic equipment no longer being prohibitive, the lantern slide format was even used for vernacular photography, and I have featured several such examples here on Photo-Sleuth.


The Pleasures of a first pipe, c. 1890s-1900s
Series of three lantern slides from negatives by W.W. Winter, Derby
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
Derby photographer W.W. Winter is best known for his prolific output of fine studio portraits produced during a lengthy career from the late 1860s until his retirement from the business in 1909. The firm still operates today from premises on Midland Road, near Derby's busy railway station, and with assistance from the Heritage Lottery Fund, an archivist, an artist-in-residence and a team of volunteers is currently undertaking a project to rescue and digitize many thousands of glass plate negatives from the cellar.


No. 1 Lighting Up


No. 2 In Full Blast


No. 3 The Final Result
Magic lantern slides by W.W. Winter of Derby
Images © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
These three lantern slides are not from W.W. Winter's cellar, but rather a serendipitous find on eBay a few years ago. Not only are they the only lantern slides from this studio that I have come across, but the comic subject is somewhat unusual for W.W. Winter. I suspect it was a experiment which was subsequently abandoned as being commercially unsuccessful. Sadly, the third and last in the series is cracked, and partly masked by tape, rather detracting from the image, but at least it has survived.


W.W. Winter Ltd studio, Midland Road, Derby, 14 Sep 2013
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
I was very fortunate to be able to visit the premises of the W.W. Winter studio when in Derby in 2007, and particularly honoured to be given a personal tour by Hubert King, whose association with the firm began as an apprentice when he was a teenager. Hubert's father had started working for W.W. Winter as a photogrephic assistant in 1896, later becoming sole proprietor. At the time of my visit, Hubert was still working part-time for the firm.


Barbara Ellison, Brett Payne & Hubert King, 14 Sep 2013
In the W.W. Winter Ltd studio, Midland Road, Derby
Image © Copyright & courtesy of W.W. Winter Ltd
The portrait (above) of Hubert with my aunt and me in the studio gallery (although I'm not sure if they still call it that) was kindly taken by one of the studio photographers. The gilt-framed portrait of King Edward VII around which we have been carefully positioned, by the way, was taken by Mr Winter in that same studio well over a century earlier.

Sepia Saturday 279: Looking for the Bonanza

In the introduction to last week's edition of Sepia Saturday, Alan Burnett asked whether the meme is becoming old and tired, perhaps prompted by a recent reduction in the number of participants. Personally, I find the stimulus of a fresh sepia image chosen by someone else each week is just what I need to keep me blogging regularly, that is when I'm not too submerged in work or other projects to find the time. Following the theme is not a requirement, which gives me plenty of leeway to sail off on another tack when the mood takes me, or on the odd occasion that I fail to be inspired by the chosen image.

Many of my Photo-Sleuth articles are weeks or months in gestation, perhaps searching for that extra bit of information, cosidering the right angle to tackle a particular photograph, or waiting for the right image prompt, so always having images from a couple of weeks ahead to work on at the same time suits me well. My first SS contribution appeared four years ago (SS 64) and my 93 subsequent contributions have been made as and when the opportunity presents itself. I'm very grateful to Alan and Marilyn for the time and effort that they put in to making Sepia Saturday happen. I'd also like to acknowledge the body of fellow Sepians for the inspiring photos they post and thoughtful feedback regularly provided here. Without it, I fear that my blog would have fallen into disrepair long ago.


Unmounted paper print, 61 x 89mm
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
On the face of it, these two snapshots might appear a strange purchase for my collection of old photographs. Of unknown provenance, all contextual information apart from the captions handwritten on the backs has gone, leaving us with few clues to the identity of the subjects, even to where they were taken. It wasn't the challenge of sleuthing, though, that attracted me, but rather the content of the first image.

Even without the brief annotation on the back describing it as "The Mill," I recognised it as a three-stamp mill of the type commonly used in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to process gold ore, complete with heavy timber frame, driving wheel, cam shaft with tappets, stamper stems, mortar box with discharge screen, tables and amalgam plates. When I first started work as an exploration geologist in the Midlands of Zimbabwe during the mid-1980s, I came across a few of these antiquated but effective pieces of equipment still being used in remote bush locations, usually by equally aged smallworkers in a forlorn quest for their own bonanza.


Reverse of paper print
The caption identifies the subjects as 'Hamish,' with his back to the camera, 'January,' the mill foreman and presumably one of the two black men standing either side of the tables, and the two children 'A & J.'. The mere fact that January and the other gold mill worker are black doesn't necessarily mean that the photograph was taken in what was then called Southern Rhodesia (it became Zimbabwe after independence in 1980), but the countryside and vegetation depicted in the second of the two snapshots are very familiar to me, and I think it highly likely.

In 1945, after the end of the Second World War, the Southern Rhodesian government set up an ex-serviceman's rehabilitation scheme, whereby returning white soldiers were provided with training in small-scale mining at a former air force training facility at Guinea Fowl, near the town of Gwelo, now called Gweru. (As a sidebar, I might note that black soldiers also returning from the same war got absolutely nothing.) After completion of their training, they were given soft loans to re-open old gold mines closed during the war or start up new operations. With 221 men trained and 279 mines re-opened, the scheme was regarded as successful (Dreschler, 2001), and it seems quite likely that 'Hamish' could have been one of these smallworkers.


Unmounted paper print, 83 x 60mm
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
The second photo shows 'Joan, Heather & Andrew, on lawn, 1950, May' (resumably from right to left), so it was taken about four years later. Now there are three children, all wearing wide-brimmed hats to ward off the harsh African sun, and playing on a manicured lawn, rather than hanging around the dangerous mill site. The wide variety of toys suggests that Hamish had achieved at least some success at the mine.


Reverse of paper print
The snapshots are both roughly 2¼" x 3¼", equating to the 620 roll film format that was introduced by Kodak in 1931, and rapidly replaced the similarly sized 120-format film which used a slightly larger spool. By the mid-1940s various versions of the Six-20 Brownie box and Six-20 Kodak folding camera were probably the most popular options available to casual amateur photographers. Many of the folding models used an eye-level viewfinder by this time, and it looks to me that these shots were taken from the lower, waist-level view point characteristically employed with the box Brownies. In the first shot, the eyes of the older girl are on a level with Hamish's waist.


Kodak Six-20 Popular 'Brownie' box camera, 1937-1943
Image © and courtesy of Tauranga Heritage Collection
I suspect they were taken with something like the Kodak Six-20 Popular 'Brownie' which was manufactured from 1937 until 1943. It also seems safe to assume that the children's mother was both the photographer and the person who annotated the prints once they had been printed. Presumably Joan, Heather and Andrew were children of the said Hamish, and there is a remote chance that some member of the extended family of Scottish origin (after all, who else would have the name Hamish) will recognise them and get in touch.


Visiting smallworker gold claims, Munyati River, Zimbabwe, 1985
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
You might have thought the scene of such a rudimentary mining operation might have long gone by the 1980s. I don't have photos of the mill - which were indeed very much like the one depicted above - but I do have a snapshot that I took of my sister and a friend visiting Uncle Bob Huntly's smallworking near the Munyati/Umniati River south of Kadoma in 1985. The equipment at the head of the mining shaft consists of nothing more than a bucket suspended on a rope around a hand-operated windlass - not even a ratchet in case the hands slipped. I can't believe it, but I went down there, probably without even a hard hat.


The Stamping Ground, Rocky Creek Railway
Working Model by Glen Anthony
I'll close off with this entertaining video of an incredibly accurate working model mine, made by a very clever man in Christchurch, New Zealand. Once you've finished watching that I'm sure the rest of this week's Sepia Saturday participants will keep you entertained a while longer.

Sepia Saturday 278: Ghostly images

While I have plenty of damaged and decaying photographs in my collection to fit with Sepia Saturday's image prompt this week, I'm going to instead focus on another "flaw" that occasionally appears on photographic prints and negatives, and in particular has surfaced in two sets of early amateur photographs that I've blogged about recently: A Grand Tour of Europe and Summer Holidays in Derbyshire.


"Haddon Hall Terrace," August 1903
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 75 x 101mm (rotated)
(Page 3, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
Bill Nelson pointed out that one of my 1903 Derbyshire album prints had what appeared to be a "circle with a '3' in it" in the lower right corner (lower left in the rotated image above).


Detail of image on Page 3
Even with some enlargement and enhancement of the image, I couldn't be absolutely sure of what it was.


Ship and tugboat arriving in unidentified harbour, 1904, Ref. #10c
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
However, when Bill sent me a scan of a slightly over-exposed frame from his 1904 Grand Tour negative album it had a very similar, but much clearer, artifact.


Detail of image #10c, inverted & normal (with some enhancement)
In this case, the number "5" in a circle is accompanied by a line on each side. Knowing what to look for, I think I can now see similar bars either side of the "circled 3" in the enhanced image of my own print.


Extract from manual for No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak
Courtesy of Mike Butkus' Camera Manual Library
The number in a circle is very similar to the numbers that were printed on the outside of the film's paper backing, which show through the little red window in the back of the camera to indicate when to stop winding on the film (see image above extracted from a No 3 FPK manual). In this case, by contact between the reverse of the backing paper and the side of the nitrocellulose film which has the photographic emulsion, my theory is that some transfer of the ink has taken place while the film was still rolled onto the spool, either before or after exposure.

In the case of my 1903 print, the "circled 3" is dark, and if it was brought through from the original negative - and, from careful examination of the print, I believe that it was - the implication is that it was reversed, and therefore showed lighter than the surrounding emulsion on the negative. The mechanism by which the ghostly "circled 3" was produced cannot have been a physical transfer of ink, and is more likely to have been a chemical alteration of the silver salts in the photographic emulsion by contact with the acidic compounds in the ink, thus bleaching the parts of the negative that were in contact with the ink on the adjacent paper backing.


No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak, Model A, 1900-1901
Tauranga Heritage Collection, Donation of Alf Rendell
Image © 2015 Copyright Brett Payne
The only reservation I have with this explanation is that I would have expected, by comparison with the window on the back of the No 3 FPK that I, quite by coincidence, photographed this week, for the number to have been lower down, closer to the bottom edge of the negative. The position is correct on my 1903 print, but is more centrally placed on Bill's 1904 negative.

Although the No 3 FPK was by far the most popular folding camera of this size, the No 3 Ensign Carbine was another which used 3¼" x 4¼" film (Ensign E18 format), but from what I can tell the window on this model was also located close to the bottom edge. What I'm now searching for to test my theory, but haven't yet found, is some examples of early roll film.


No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak, Model A, 1900-1901
Tauranga Heritage Collection, Donation of Alf Rendell
Image © 2015 Copyright Brett Payne
Since I have the opportunity, I'll share a little more about this recent donation by retired Tauranga commercial photographer Alf Rendell to the Tauranga Heritage Collection. This particular example of a No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak was produced some time between Oct 1900 and Jun 1901, and still has the original red cardboard bellows. The serial number 27421, as is usual on Kodak folding cameras, is engraved on the silver foot which folds out of the base plate and serves as a stand to support the camera when taking photos in the "portrait" position.

Cloth-lined bellows were fitted as standard from June 1901 onwards, since the older versions tended to tear, and from 1910 they were supplied with black instead of red bellows. Many older cameras were later retro-fitted with black bellows, and it is rare to find an old model still with the original red bellows in such good condition.


Eastman Kodak Co. advertisement for the No. 3 FPK
From Munsey's magazine, c.1901
Courtesy Duke University Advertising Ephemera Collection, Item K0560
George Eastman wanted "a camera in every household," and in the 15 years after the first Kodak was produced in 1888 managed to amass over 60 different models. The first in the series of Folding Pocket Kodaks was brought out in 1897, using the then brand new technology of daylight loading film. The No 3 FPK was introduced in April 1900 and rapidly became the most popular of the range, particularly in the United Kingdom, possibly since the negative size was identical to the already popular quarter-plate format used in many glass-plate cameras. Between 1900 and 1915, when production of this camera ceased, about half a million cameras were sold. The camera was produced with a wide variety of lens and shutter options, and went through a number of developments until production ceased with the Model H in 1914, it being replaced by the No 3 Autographic Kodak.

The construction of this camera "set the pattern for the design of popular roll-film cameras for the next fifty years." (Coe, Cameras, 1978) A smaller version, the No 0 Folding Pocket Kodak, eventually morphed into the Vest Pocket Kodak, the soldier's camera which became so popular during the Great War.

References

Standard Film and Plate Sizes, on Early Photography

Coe, Brian (1988) Kodak Cameras: the First Hundred Years, East Sussex, United Kingdom: Hove Foto Books, 298p.

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

Sepia Saturday 277: A Day at The (Boat) Races

I'm not really one for team sports, either as a spectator or participant, but I find I am able to rise to Sepia Saturday's image prompt on this particular occasion. In Bill Nelson's 1904 Grand Tour album which I featured here a couple of weeks ago, there is a sequence of photographs of boat races on the River Thames at Oxford.


One team pulls past the spectator barges, Ref. #09c
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
If it is the famous University Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge, which seems very likely, that traditionally takes place on the last weekend of March or the first week of April, the most recent of which was only two weeks ago - Oxford won by 20 seconds. In 1904, however, it took place on Saturday 26th March and Cambridge won by 4½ to 6 lengths (The Boat Race 1904).


Spectators watch two crews pass the Club House, Ref. #01b
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
Traditionally the teams are known as the "light blues" (Cambridge) and the "dark blues" (Oxford), from the colour of their jerseys, but it doesn't look, on the face of it, as though either of these two teams are wearing dark blue. The main race is preceded by a race involving the two reserve crews, called Isis and Goldie for Oxford and Cambridge respectively, and it is possible that these photographs include both the reserve and main race.


Rowers receive some coaching, Ref. #18a
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
Listed at number 7 (from the bow) in the main race in the Cambridge boat was New Zealand-born Harold Gillies, considered the father of plastic surgery for his pioneering work on facial reconstructive surgery during the Great War.


Spectators take to the water, Ref. #13a
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
Once the race was over, it appears that our photographer, along with many spectators, took to the water, recording the ongoing frivolities.


Barges overflow with spectators, Ref. #01a
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
I can well imagine that the day did not end without one or more of them getting a little damp. However, it is one of the younger spectators on the roof of the barge, at top left, in whom I am particularly interested.


Girl holds a No 1 Brownie box camera
Detail of negative #01a
The teenage girl with long hair wearing a straw hat is carrying a box camera and, after a lengthy comparison of this image with those illustrated in Brian Coe's Kodak Cameras: The First Hundred Years, I've decided that it is almost certainly a No 1 Brownie box camera.


No 1 Brownie camera, from 1903 Kodak Catalogue
Image courtesy of the Digitized Kodak Catalog Project

First introduced in October 1901 as a successor to the original model Brownie (1900), it sold for the grand sum of one dollar, produced 2¼" x 2¼" square prints from 117-format roll film, and was an immediate success. It isinteresting to note that of the hundreds of spectators visible in these photographs, the only one carrying a claerly identifiable camera was a young girl.



Packaging for the No 1 Brownie camera
Image © and courtesy of the National Media Museum Collection
Anyone could now afford a camera, but Eastman Kodak marketed the camera specifically towards children, inserting advertisements in popular magazines like The Saturday Evening Post and The Youth's Companion which showed even very young children using them. Even the Brownie name was based on the characters in a popular series of children's books by Canadian illustrator Palmer Cox.


Group in a rowing boat by unidentified photographer
2¼" x 2¼" mounted print, taken c. 1905, probably with a No 1 Brownie
Image © George Eastman House collection
This 2¼" x 2¼" print mounted on white card embossed with a decorative frame, fortuitously picturing a large group in a rowing boat, is from the George Eastman House collection and was probably taken with a No. 1 Brownie. I haven't been able to find many such examples online, and would appreciate hearing from readers who may have similar mounted prints in their own collections.


Oxford, Boys running, Ref. #01c
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
Another negative in this sequence shows a number of male figures running, although their attire doesn't suggest that they are in a race, more as if they are in a hurry to get somewhere, perhaps to get a good position to watch the start of "The Boat Race." However, it was a dark shape in the background that caught my eye.


Detail of negative #01c
It appears to be a figure standing on a platform, next to some sort of contraption, perhaps mounted on a tripod. Could this have been a camera of some sort? Upon searching the other boat race images, I discovered that the figure/contraption/platform appeared in front of the club house in the second view as well. This time, the figure is standing behind and partly hidden by the contraption, possibly with his head under a black cloth (below).


Detail of negative #01b
My next discovery was even more exciting. While searching the web for material relating to "The Boat Race," I came across a synopsis of a short documentary film in the IMDb entitled simply, "The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race," made in 1904 by the Charles Urban Trading Company. Charles Urban was a pioneering Anglo-American film producer who specialised in documentaries, travel and scientific films. Many of them have been "rediscovered" and are now available to view online, but sadly I haven't yet found the 1904 Boat Race.

I emailed Luke McKernan, author of Charles Urban: Pioneering the Non-fiction Film in Britain and America, 1897-1925, asking his view on the expanded images and received this informative response:

There were at least three films made of the 1904 Boat Race, by the Charles Urban Trading Company, by the Warwick Trading Company, and by the British Mutoscope and Biograph Company. Urban's film was, according to a catalogue record, filmed from the bow of the Sportsman (presumably a vessel following the race), though they would have had cameramen positioned elsewhere as well.

The blow-ups in the photographs are puzzling, because neither looks like a conventional cine camera, being much too bulky. It almost looks like a photographer's black hood, and there is an outside possibility I suppose that it could be a still camera. However, my thought on seeing the photos is that they show a camera employed by the British Mutoscope and Biograph Company, who employed 70mm film (unlike the 35mm used by Urban and Warwick) with bulky, electrically-driven cameras. An advertisement for the film states "We have secured negatives of the crews leaving Boat House, and made arrangements to take the finish of the race today". I had thought that they had ceased using 70mm by 1903, but this could be a last-gasp effort with the format.

I thought about the possibility of a still camera being used too, thinking the dark shape could be a photographer's hood, but considered the chances of something that size being used outdoors in 1904 was pretty unlikely. For the moment the identity of the cameraman, if that's what it is, will remain a mystery, but I'm very grateful to Luke McKernan for his help.

The rest of the Sepia Saturday team will likewise be featuring team sports and similar topics this week, and I suggest you you head over there to visit them before you get too carried away watching film clips on YouTube.