Friday 29 May 2015

Sepia Saturday 281: Home Duties

Sepia Saturday by Alan Burnett and Marilyn Brindley

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."

Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne

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 © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
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 © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
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 © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
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 © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
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 © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
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 © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
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 © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
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 © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
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 © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
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 © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
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 © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
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 © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
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 © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
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 © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
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 © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
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.

28 comments:

  1. Would photos like that be taken by an itinerant photographer? It seems like they wouldn't be so few and widely spaced if they were taken by a family member.

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    1. Postcardy - Thanks for the insightful comment. It's possible, but they don't have the very characteristic feel of photos taken by an itinerant photographer to me, and it would be very unusual for an itinerant to use glass plate negatives in the early 1900s. I think they are a selection that has been weeded out from a much larger collection. It's possible that one of the children selected those which they wanted, the other family members got the rest.

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  2. What wonderful photographs. I always feel sad about the photos I find in antique shops with no identification - nameless castoffs no one in the family wanted to keep. Or perhaps there was no one left in the family to keep them which would be sadder, yet. I have several I've rescued & have given the nameless "names". Makes me feel a little better. :)

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    1. Gail - Generally what happens is that items like these come from a deceased estate, with no family members either claiming them or wanting them. With prints, they are often split up and sold on auction sites individually, in which case there is little chance of their provenance ever being recovered, but some collections do survive intact, and perhaps there's hope.

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  3. Brett, I don't know about your feelings towards the folks in the photos, but just with your analysis they became real to me. Also I really like reading about how you go about your analysis.

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    1. Joan - I do feel somehow attached to them, now that I've thought about them so much and, in a way, I am at present the only family they have. If, in due course, their real family is uncovered, no doubt I'll feel a pang of loss in releasing them to their rightful home, but until then I'm happy to claim them as my own.

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  4. Who knows, Brett? Somebody, somewhere, might see this post and recognize the faces as the same ones HE has on HIS smaller collection of glass plates! I hope you can find them...

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    1. Let's hope so, Deb, and thanks for commenting.

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  5. A lovely family collection, whoever these people are. I especially like the studies of "Doris" on the verandah and of Agnes in uniform. Wish I could claim photographs like this for my NZ ancestors!

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    1. Jo - I thought so, too, and that's why they'll remain in my collection until I find a confirmed relative.

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  6. Oh my goodness, it's like bring back the good old days, what a treat to view all these happy people in their moment of the day! Beautiful.

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    1. Karen - One wonders if they would have felt the same way if they'd known their portraits would be plastered over the internet.

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  7. What a find Brett! Aren't they just fantastic photos. What a treat. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. And thank you for your kind comments, Alex.

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  8. Your analysis is most interesting as is the cast of characters all sorted out. After I read your posts I'm always inspired to look more carefully at my own old photos which has added greatly to my enjoyment of them.

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    1. Helen - Well, it's just my take on it, and I'm sure there are a good half a dozen other, perfectly valid, potential analyses, but I think it will make a good enough starting point.

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  9. These were most enjoyable, including your astute remarks. Thanks.

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    1. Barbara - Thank you, too, for your kind comments.

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  10. A beautiful series of photos and a fascinating logic puzzle, Brett. Your probable sequence and relationship make sense, but of course the photographer remains a mystery. My first guess is that father held the camera but it's not unreasonable that one of the women took some of the photos. Whoever it was, they had a good eye.

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    1. Mike - I agree, a good eye for composition, and not a bad knowledge of photographic principles either. I came to the conclusion it was the Dad, mainly because he doesn't appear anywhere in them.

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  11. Mike could be right, as you know Brett, the Dad often doesn’t appear in the photos! I enjoyed the story of these three, and their assorted outfits, whoever they were.

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    1. Marilyn - I agree, it's interesting to see the same individuals at various ages, dressed in different clothes.

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  12. I'd love to see #17 Doris splashed across the front page of a newspaper. Someone would be sure to say that she looks just like me and start looking at her family. Just a thought but you said you bought them recently. So the town is ... Is there a Facebook page for TowmName in Historical Pictures ? I see some very good results here in Victoria, particularly with the buildings. And these photos have parts of the house showing.

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    1. boundforoz - Yes, that might be an idea, although I haven't subscribed to a newspaper for some years, and New Zealand is a big place. If I had some idea of the location within New Zealand, I might try that.

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  13. I like that you assigned names appropriate for the period too. I find guessing ages of people in photos of this period very difficult to do. I have a photo of my great-grandmother and her sisters that I assumed was taken when they were OLD, but having seen photos when they really were old, I have to assume they were in their 30s and 40s. So I have to wonder if that "middle-aged" woman as you called her was really "middle-aged" or just 20. I'm terrible at this!

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    1. Wendy - It is difficult. I often find myself changing my mind numerous times before settling on an age ... and then changing it again.

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  14. This was fascinating watching the story unfold. I have a few glass negatives that I've bought. How did people view them? Did they generally get prints made or simply view the negs?

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    1. T+L - They would have had prints made, or even made prints themselves using Printing Out Paper (POP) and a printing frame. Difficult to view the negatives. Glad you enjoyed the story, even if it was something of a fabrication.

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