Sepia Saturday 190: Come into the Garden Maud

The difficulty with providing an image for use as a Sepia Saturday prompt, particularly one that you've used previously, is that it's a little trickier to produce an interesting follow on article. Hence I'm going off on a somewhat different tack this week. Feel free to play the embedded sound track while you're reading, and it will hopefully provide an appropriate background to the photos.


Unidentified couple and baby with garden tent, c.1893-1898
Cabinet card (roughly trimmed) by unidentified photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne

Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, Night, has flown,
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
And the musk of the roses blown.

For a breeze of morning moves,
And the planet of Love is on high,
Beginning to faint in the light that she loves
On a bed of daffodil sky,
To faint in the light of the sun she loves,
To faint in his light, and to die.

Maud; A Monodrama
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

When Alfred - for surely that must be his name - charmed Maud with those silken words, it seems unlikely that he envisaged such an outcome: tea with Maud, but also a very alert baby, and a photographer in attendance to record the event. He is not amused!


The Miller house, shop and post office, c.1905-1910
Image republished from old postcard by unknown publisher
It wasn't just the faintly ridiculous pose which attracted me to the cabinet card, purchased on eBay, but also the tent. It is similar to one just visible in this image of the Weston Underwood garden of my great-great-grandparents John and Eliza Miller. When I last used this image, in the story of John's father James Miller, drainage man, I suggested that the tent might have been "used as a children's playhouse." Perhaps they were a common appearance in late Victorian and Edwardian gardens, and primarily protected tea drinkers from the harsh summer sun?

For more picnics and garden gatherings, please pay a visit to the 190th edition of Sepia Saturday.

Sepia Saturday 183: A Return Trip to Dovedale

This week's Sepia Saturday photo of a group of intrepid adventurers posing at the entrance to a limestone cave system in New South Wales gives me an opportunity to make a return visit to Dovedale in the English Peak District, which I have featured a couple of years ago: Donkey Rides at Dovedale and The Compleat Angler, a Derbyshire Fishing Trip.


Views of Ashbourne and Dove Dale
Published by Louis B. Twells, Ashbourne
This time I can use a couple of more recent acquisitions, purchased for very modest sums on eBay. The first, a large envelope made of green paper with a shiny, faux crocodile skin finish and gold print, contains 32 black-and-white and blue-tinted lithographic prints, each measuring approximately 205 x 151mm (8" x 6"). The title on the envelope simply states, "Views of Ashbourne and Dove Dale" - which indeed they are - published by Louis B. Twells of Ashbourne.

Louis Bosworth Twells (1829-1885) settled in Ashbourne (Derbyshire) around 1855, and over the next three decades conducted a variety of trades: hair cutter/dresser, perfumer, jeweller, silversmith, watch maker, importer of general fancy goods, sponges, &c., and proprietor of "large show rooms for glass, china, and earthenware." I have seen a single example of a carte de visite portrait which he also "published." There is no direct evidence that he took any photographs himself, but he may well have done. After his death in 1885 his widow and son, also named Louis B. Twells, continued to operate the business until 1903.


View from the Doveholes, Dovedale (Ref. W. 1424)
Original photograph publ. by James Valentine & Co.
Lithographic print publ. by Louis B. Twells, Ashbourne
This view of Dovedale from the mouth of the limestone cave known as Dove Holes is one of 16 prints of excellent quality which don't carry the name of either photographer or publisher. A detailed examination of the prints reveals artefacts suggesting that they were reproduced from carefully retouched photographic prints.


After some deliberation I've decided that the text so carefully pencilled out in this image included a negative number and the original publisher's initials:

1424 JV + Co. Ltd

in the characteristic cursive script used by famous postcard publisher James Valentine & Co. of Dundee. However, I've yet to find an example of the original photograph published by Valentine.


Thorpe Cloud, Dovedale (Ref. 3921)
Original photograph publ. by George Washington Wilson
A second group of 16 prints show similar landscapes. Although of slightly poorer reproduction quality, these views are still very professionally composed, and are annotated with the initials "G.W.W." This indicates that they were originally published by George Washington Wilson & Co. of Aberdeen, another Scottish photographer who became one of the largest publishers of photographic prints in the world, rivalling the business of Valentine and Sons.


In Dovedale Looking Up Entrance to Dale, (Ref. 3923)
Glass plate negative 220 x 170mm by G.W. Wilson & Co. of Aberdeen
Image © and courtesy of University of Aberdeen Library, Special Collections and Museums
The University of Aberdeen Library has an enormous collection of 45,000 of George Washington Wilson's glass plate negatives, the original photographs taken between 1853 and 1908, with digitized images online. There are 488 views of Derbyshire alone and the web site is well worth a visit. I wasn't able to find the same view, but I did find a similar one, with a negative number (3923) suggesting that it was probably taken on the same occasion.


Views of Ashbourne and Dovedale
Images © and collection of Brett Payne
The remaining views from the Ashbourne & Dovedale collection can be seen in this slideshow created with Picasa. It's difficult to know now if all 32 of the prints were originally sold in this wallet, or whether the G.W. Wilson prints were added later by a previous owner. However, from what I can tell, they appear to have been taken over roughly a decade from the mid-1880s through to the mid-1890s. Photographs mounted on glossy card of the particular shade of dark green used for the envelope were very popular in the 1890s, and I suspect that Louis Twells Junior was selling this collection at this time.


Unidentified group at Twelve Apostles' Rock, Dovedale, c.1900-1910
Lantern slide (83 x 83mm) by unknown photographer
Images © and collection of Brett Payne
My other purchase was a small group of lantern slides, almost certainly taken by an amateur, two of which depict an outdoor excursion by a small group of young men and women. Although not annotated, the view above is identifiable as the River Dove in the vicinity of Twelve Apostles' Rock, also shown in one of the prints by G.W. Wilson in the slideshow above.


Unidentified group, probably at Dovedale, c.1900-1910
Lantern slide (83 x 83mm) by unknown photographer
Images © and collection of Brett Payne
A second image shows three men and four women seated on a hillside, judging by the nature of the scree, probably the lower slopes of Thorpe Cloud or one of the adjacent hills flanking the entrance to Dovedale. If, as seems likely, the group consisted of four young couples, a fourth man is probably taking the photograph. One of the other slides in this small collection is dated 1906, and the clothing fashions of the women in the photo suggest that these are from a similar time period.


Magic Lantern Projector
Image © and courtesy of the Tauranga Heritage Collection
The second half of the nineteenth century saw a huge expansion in the number of people taking trips to the seaside and day excursions into the country. Pictorial mementos available to the everyday tourist included scenic images in the form of stereoscopic cards, carte de visites and unmounted prints published by both local firms and by larger enterprises such as Valentines and G.W. Wilson.

During the 1890s and early twentieth century advances in camera design and technology made them considerably cheaper and more portable. As a result, excursionists were able to create their own mementos as they enjoyed their holiday. These lantern slides were most likely produced by direct printing on thin glass slides from original glass-plate negatives, and would have been displayed with a magic lantern projector similar to that shown above.

References

Postcard Publishers, Printers, and Distributors of Note by the Metropolitan Postcard Club of New York City.

The George Washington Wilson and Co. Photographic Collection, University of Aberdeen Photographic Archive.

George Washington Wilson Collection online.

Sepia Saturday 182: William Snowdall Anderson of Ilkeston and Lorne

It's not often that a Sepia Saturday image prompt gives me the opportunity to include a profile of a Victorian Derbyshire photographer, and it seems unlikely that this week's photograph of a horse rider in the Australian bush should do so. Thanks to sharp-spotted fellow photohistorian Marcel Safier, I am able to present a Derbyshire photographer who emigrated to Australia, and spent most of his life in a remote town on the coast of Victoria.


Granby Street, Ilkeston, 1964 (Ref. DCER001377)
Image © NE Midland Photographic Record, courtesy of Picture the Past
William Snowdall Anderson was born in 1867 in Surfleet, a small village in rural south Lincolnshire (coincidentally only a couple of miles from the village of Pinchbeck, a name which featured in an article here last week). He was the third child of a wandering blacksmith; by his early teens the family had lived in at least five different villages. Little is known of his early career as a photographer except that by late 1886, when the 1887 edition of Kelly's trade directory was published, and by which time he was not yet 20 years old, he had opened a photographic studio in Granby Street, Ilkeston, Derbyshire. Adamson shows him operational at this address for at least a year until 1888.


Camperdown Chronicle, Saturday, 20 April 1895, page 2
Image courtesy of Marcel Safier
In November 1889 Anderson emigrated to Australia on the steamship Port Caroline, arriving in Victoria in early 1890, and was married to Bertha Wardle later that year. He worked as a photographer, initially with a studio in South Yarra, later touring Victoria as an itinerant photographer in a mobile caravan.


Mount St. George, Lorne, 1901 (Acc No H96.160/606)
Silver gelatin print (210 x 160mm) by W.S. Anderson, Lorne
Image © and courtesy of State Library of Victoria
In December 1898 he purchased a photographic business from J.S. Norman and J.W. Brown in the township of Lorne on the coast south-west of Melbourne.


Phantom Falls in flood, Lorne, 1902 (Acc No H96.160/682)
Silver gelatin print (157 x 210mm) by W.S. Anderson, Lorne
Image © and courtesy of State Library of Victoria
Lorne was then a fairly remote community, situated at the mouth of the Erskine River on the shores of Louttit Bay, accessible only by sea or by a long dusty road journey through the forested hills of what is now the Great Otway National Park. Anderson was not the only one drawn to it; Rudyard Kipling penned the following after a visit in 1891:

Buy my hot-wood clematis,
Buy a frond of fern,
Gathered where the Erskine leaps
Down the road to Lorne.

The Flowers, 1896

W. Mountjoy's Coach, Erskine River, Lorne, c. late 1890s-early 1900s
Mounted albumen print (165 x 107mm) by William Anderson of Lorne
Image © and courtesy of Museum Victoria
Judging by the number of similar photographs of Mountjoy's coach full of passengers crossing a bridge over the Erskine River, complete with characteristic Eucalyptus-clad backdrop, in the collection of Museum Victoria, these customers must have formed a significant part of Anderson's business. Over time, however, his output varied considerably, picturing both the beauty of the landscape surrounding Lorne and the lifestyle and character of its inhabitants and visitors.


View Larger Map

The same view today is different, naturally, but still recognisable.


Unidentified woman, c.late 1920s-early 1930s (Ref. MM 109704)
Silver gelatin print (89 x 137mm), attrib. William S. Anderson
Image © and courtesy of Museum Victoria
The following is from Museum Victoria:

From 1898 until his death in 1948 Anderson photographed the changing surrounding landscapes and visitors of guest houses in the area. His practice also included panoramic photography, stereoscopic photography, portraiture and experiments with trick photography.

Wagon, team of oxen and dog, 1905 (Acc No H96.160/1042)
Mounted silver gelatin print (205 x 150m), by W.S. Anderson
Image © and courtesy of State Library of Victoria
William S. Anderson died at Ormond, Victoria on 2 July 1948, aged 80, leaving four children and a legacy of five decades' worth of photographs, many of which survive in the State Library of Victoria, Museum Victoria and, no doubt, tucked away in innumerable family archives.

References

Barrie, Sandy (nd) Biographical notes for William Snowdall Anderson, (pers. comm., courtesy of Marcel Safier)

Sepia Saturday 171: Before the humble postcard

Although the picture postcard is almost as old as the postage stamp, it wasn't until the 1890s that postcards with pictures of scenic views and landmarks were published in large numbers. After the United Kingdom and United States postal services gave a green light to the use of divided backs, in 1902 and 1907 respectively - message on one half, address on the other, thus freeing the entire one side of the card for the picture - the craze reached fever peak in the decade up to the Great War. Due to two world wars and the introduction of the telephone in most private households, postcards were never again produced in quite the number and variety as during the pre-war heyday, but they remained enormously popular for most of the remainder of the century.

The widespread availability of email, text, skype and smartphone services has understandably been followed by a decline in the use of postal services, and postcards have likewise diminished in popularity. A study last year claimed that the proportion of British tourists sending postcards home had declined from a third in the 1970s to an astonishing 3% (although another survey gives a more believable figure of 16%). Similar trends have been reported elsewhere, such as in India, and I can report that I struggled to find any postcards, let alone decent ones, in Honiara last year.


Conway (Conwy) Castle, Wales, c.1890-1900
Photomechanical print by the Detroit Photographic Company, 1905
Image courtesy of Library of Congress
I think it's still a little early to assume the complete extinction of the postcard - viz. Alan and his Twitter for Gentlefolk campaign, and the huge Postcrossing project, responsible for almost half a million postcards a month - but I'll sadly admit the chances of a major revival are slim. On a more positive note, and prompted by this week's Sepia Saturday Photochrom image of Conway Castle in Wales, I thought we'd take a look at what people kept as mementos from their vacations before the advent of postcards.


The Great Pillars, Baalbek, Lebanon, c. 1857-1860
Albumen silver print, 203 x 153mm, by Francis Frith
Image courtesy of National Gallery of Canada
Albumen-based cartes the visite were the first popular and affordable medium for portraits in the early 1860s, which tends to overshadow the fact that albumen prints were already well established in photography by then. Developed in 1850 by Blanquart-Evrard the albumen print quickly superseded the calotypes or salt print. Paired with the wet plate collodion process, many print copies could be made of a single photographic glass plate negative. One of the first to take advantage of this was Francis Frith, who established a huge business selling both mounted and unmounted prints of views produced from three trips to the Middle East between 1856 and 1860.


Dovedale, Derbyshire, c. 1850s
Stereoview by the London Stereoscopic Company, 54 Cheapside
Image © and courtesy of John Bradley
The sale of paper prints was boosted considerably by displays of the stereoscopic photograph at the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace in 1851, and the subsequent production of views in enormous numbers by firms such as Francis Frith and the London Stereoscopic Company. The stereoview - also referred to as a stereogram or stereocard - used two images of the same scene, taken from slightly different view points, mounted side-by-side on card which, when viewed with a special device with lenses, gave the appearance of a three-dimensional picture.

After a revival in the 1890s, stereoviews remained popular well into the twentieth century, but seem to have fallen from favour after the Great War.


Buxton Crescent from The Slopes, Derbyshire, c.1860s
Carte de visite by Francis Frith (Frith's Carte Series)
Image © and collection of Brett Payne

Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, c.mid- to late 1870s
Carte de visite by William Potter of Matlock Bath
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
For the duration of the carte de visite's heyday, in the 1860s and 1870s, many countrywide firms like Friths, as well as local photographers such as William Potter of Matlock Bath produced views of the countryside in great numbers. These two Derbyshire views showing the popular Victorian tourist destinations of Buxton and Chatsworth are typical examples.


View of unidentified building, possibly in Derbyshire, c. mid-1880s
Cabinet card by Alfred Seaman of Chesterfield
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
The larger format of the cabinet card, first introduced in the late 1860s, but which did not really catch on until a decade or so later, lent itself to scenic views, so it is perhaps a little surprising that they are not more common. This example from Chesterfield photographer Alfred Seaman depicts an unidentified building, possibly a hotel or a hyrdopathic establishment and presumably somewhere in northern Derbyshire; it is from the mid-1880s.


Wallis' Furnishing Ironmongers shop, Bakewell, Derbyshire, c.late 1880s
Collodion positive (ambrotype) by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Nino Manci
It is clear from Seaman & Sons' display of mounted scenic photographic views in the shop window of Wallis' Furnishing Ironmongers shop (click image above for a more detailed view of the display) in Bakewell, where they did not have a branch studio, that they did offer scenic views.


Ashby Castle, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, c.late 1860s-early 1870s
Albumen print by J.W. Price of Derby & Ashby-de-la-Zouch
(mounted on card, later roughly trimmed)
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Seaman and many others published loose and mounted prints of landscapes and other views in a large variety of formats. This example of a mounted print (roughly trimmed) depicts the ruined Ashby Castle and has the backstamp of photographer J.W. Price. At 138 x 98mm, it is slightly larger than the size of a postcard. A scene in Sir Walter Scott's popular historical novel Ivanhoe is set in Ashby Castle, and this attracted visitors to the town of Ashby throughout the 19th Century. Harrod & Co.'s 1870 directory states,

Ashby is highly celebrated on account of its baths and springs, and its ancient castle ... Tradition states that Mary Queen of Scots was confined within one of the upper chambers.

Price no doubt sold this print and others from his studio on Ivanhoe road.


All Saints Church and St Mary's Gate, Derby, 1884
Albumen print (126 x 171mm), attributed to Richard Keene of Derby
(mounted on album page)
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Loose prints, such as this 1884 view of All Saints church - now Derby's cathedral - were sold by Derby photographer, printer, publisher and stationer Richard Keene from his premises just around the corner at number 22 Irongate, still within full view of the church. A visitor could then paste the print into a large format album together with others from his trip. This particular print sits alongside two other Derby views on an album page, with photographs of Bournemouth on the reverse.



(Left) Unidentified view of ruined building on cigarette box, by Davis & Sons, Barrow-in-Furness (Right) View of The Promenade, Matlock Bath on glass, mounted on velvet frame, by William Potter of Matlock Bath
Images © and collection of Brett Payne

Cover of Buxton and Derbyshire booklet of views, publ. F. Wright, Buxton


Matlock Dale and High Tor, Derbyshire, c.1892, published mid-1890s
Photomechanical print by Valentine and Sons of Dundee
Images © and collection of Brett Payne
It was also possible to buy sets of photographs, either loose or in booklet form, such as this collection of 24 Derbyshire views published by Francis Wright, stationer and bookseller of Buxton. The photographs were taken and printed by the Dundee firm of Valentine and Sons, and sold by Wright from his premises at 1 Spring gardens and Devonshire colonnade.


High Tor and Dale, Matlock, c.1892
Colourised postcard by Valentine & Sons, Dundee
View #17206, registered 1892, published c.1905-1906
A decade or so later this exact view was republished a number of times by Valentine and Sons in postcard format, a colourised example from c.1905-1906 being displayed above. Although other print formats would continue to be sold, nothing would rival the postcard for many decades.

Next time you're on holiday and send a postcard to someone back home - and I hope you do (a few each year can't be too bad for your carbon footprint) - spare a thought for its forerunners. If you head over to Sepia Saturday, you may well find a few more ancestors to the postcard on display amongst this week's contributions.

References

Spiro, Lisa (2006) A Brief History of Stereographs and Stereoscopes, on Connexions

J.G. Harrod & Co.'s Postal and Commercial Directory of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland and Staffordshire, 2nd Edition, 1870, from the University of Leicester's Historical Directories

Kelly's Directory of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire & Rutland, 1895, Kelly & Co. Ltd., from the University of Leicester's Historical Directories

Sepia Saturday 170: The Gamekeeper

I trust that Sepia Saturday readers will forgive my contribution this week having little in common with the photo prompt, except in the sense of two men loitering around a doorway. Actually there's not even a doorway in my photograph, although the sharp-eyed will note that there used to be one.

This cabinet portrait is the first photograph in an album given to me several years ago by Jack Armstrong, which is the subject of an ongoing (albeit not very recent) series of Photo-Sleuth articles devoted to documenting, researching and conserving old photograph albums:

• Researching an album from Cleveland, Ohio - Introduction
• Researching an album: (1) A digital photographic and scanned record
• Researching an album: (2) Documenting the album and photographs

Unidentified men outside house
Cabinet card by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne (Jack Armstrong Album)
The cabinet mount is glossy green card with no printed indication of the photographer or the location, which is unfortunate. Based on a geographical analysis conducted of the contents of the album - due to appear as the next article in the series mentioned above, in due course - and careful scrutiny of the building's brickwork style by fellow Sepian Nigel Aspdin, it seems likely that it was taken somewhere in the English Midlands, probably in north-east Staffordshire or southern Derbyshire.


Both men stand with their left hands on their hips and are wearing trousers, jacket, waistcoat and flat caps, superficially very similar, but on closer examination a number of differences are apparent setting them well apart. On the left, the slightly older, moustachioed man has a nicely cut jacket with matching waistcoat, a cravate and what appears to be a pair of check Tweed trousers (perhaps even the Prince of Wales check, commissioned first by Edward VII). His shoes are highly polished, his flat cap (possibly also made of Tweed) sits at a slight angle and he carries a cane in his right hand.


The more hirsute man on the right, however, has a thicker jacket and waistcoat to protect from him from the elements, and with plenty of pockets, well-worn, faded and creased working trousers tucked into calf-length gaiters, which in turn cover the upper parts of a pair of clean, but slightly duller working boots with thick soles. His flat cap, like the rest of his clothes, is unpatterned and rather utitlitarian, covering his hair and with the peak horizontally set above his eyes. His only concession to flair is a spotted cravate, just visible beneath a roughly trimmed beard.


Gamekeepers and dogs at Wemmergill, undated, probably c1900s
Image © Freda Longstaff and courtesy of Lunedale Heritage Image Archive
It occurred to me that the man on the left was probably a landowner, while the other, probably his employee, is most likely a gamekeeper. A dog - possibly a spaniel, although I'm no expert on breeds - the one accessory that a gamekeeper could not do without, sits patiently at his feet. Searching for images of Victorian and Edwardian gamekeepers on the net produced a brace of similar examples, including the group above, complete with a very similar breed of dog, but I remembered that I have another in my collection of images contributed to the archive for Derbyshire Photographers.


Unidentified gamekeeper
Carte de visite by Thomas Roberts of Albert Street, Derby
Image © and courtesy of John Bradley
This full length portrait from the early 1860s is almost certainly of a gamekeeper with his shotgun, sadly without a spaniel, but wearing similar working clothing except for a flat cap, replaced by a fairly low-crowned, practical top hat. His gaiters are almost identical to those worn by our putative gamekeeper in the first image. Unfortunately the subject this one is likewise not identified, leaving us to assume that he was employed on an estate somewhere near Derby.

Thomas Roberts, Derby's first resident photographer, operated studios in Victoria Street, Oakes' Yard, St James' Lane and Albert Street from 1843 intermittently until 1876. His studio was situated in Albert Street in the latter part of this period, from c.1862 onwards, giving us an earliest date for the portrait.


Unidentified subject with gun and dog, c.1865-1867
Carte de visite by Disdéri & Co, 70-72 Brook Street, Hanover Square W.
Finally I include an image that I've had on file for a while, having found it on eBay (although it was too pricey for me to consider purchasing). The carte de visite was produced by, and presumably taken at, the Westminster branch studio of renowned photographer Disdéri, who operated from this particular address (70,71,72 Brook Street) for a relatively short period of three years, providing a narrow date range for the portrait. Disdéri is credited with the introduction, in 1854, and later popularisation of the carte de visite format.

The young man pictured sitting rather unceremoniously on an what appears to be an upturned tub or half-barrel has all the trappings of a gamekeeper, including stout shoes, shoulder patches, a double-barrelled shotgun and a dutiful dog at his feet.


H.R.H. Albert Edward, Prince of Wales
(Left) Detail from portrait by Abdullah Freres, Constantinople, c1868
(Right) Carte de visite portrait by Sergei Levitsky, c1870
Images © The Royal Collection and The Di Rocco Wieler Private Collection
His face looked to me rather familiar, and I wondered if he was a young Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, later to become King Edward VII. Certainly he looks very similar to these two portraits of him taken in the late 1860s.


Carte de visite portraits of H.R.H. Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh
by (Top) James Russell & Sons, Chichester, 1866 (Lower left) S.B. Barnard, Cape Town, August 1867 (Lower right) Johnstone, O'Shannessy & Co., Melbourne, 1867-1868
Images © and courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery
However, while searching for images of the young Prince in the right time frame (1865-1867) I came across several of his younger brother, Prince Alfred, from May 1866 the Duke of Edinburgh and later the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. During the period in question he was serving as a Captain in the Royal Navy, in command of the frigate HMS Galatea, and sailed on a voyage around the world from January 1867 until June 1871, interrupted by a trip back to England after a failed assassination attempt in Sydney, Australia.

The National Portrait Gallery has a number of portraits of Prince Alfred, including the four above taken in various studios from 1866 to 1868. It is these portraits that have convinced me that the Disderi CDV is indeed of Prince Alfred, not really masquerading as a gamekeeper, but ready to go out for a spot of pheasant shooting.

To end this addition to my intermittent series of Victorian portraits depicting occupations, I'll leave you with a description of an encounter with a gamekeeper and his dog.

She was watching a brown spaniel that had run out of a side-path, and was looking towards them with a lifted nose, making a soft fluffy bark. A man with a gun strode swiftly, softly out after the dog, facing their way as if about to attack them; then stopped instead, saluted, and was turning downhill. It was only the new game-keeper, but he had frightened Connie, he seemed to emerge with such a swift menace ... He was a man in dark green velveteens and gaiters ... the old style, with a red face and red moustache and distant eyes. He was going quickly downhill. 'Mellors!' called Clifford.

D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover

References

Archival Gamekeepers, from Archival Clothing.

Andre Adolphe Eugene Disderi (1819-1889), from the photoLondon database.

Hirsch, Robert (2009) The Carte de Visite and the Photo Album (Chapter 4.5), in Seizing the Light: A Social History of Photography, Second edition, McGraw-Hill, reproduced on Luminous Lint.

Biography of and Photographs by Disdéri on Luminous Lint.

Sepia Saturday 168: V-J Day in Church Gresley

Some years ago M.B. Venning sent me an unattributed image which I was unable to use at the time, but which fits this weeks Sepia Saturday theme very well, being a direct result of the Potsdam Conference and Declaration.


V-J celebrations in Regent Street, Church Gresley, 15 August 1945
Postcard photograph by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of M.B. Venning
15 August 1945 was V-J (Victory over Japan) Day, marking the end of hostilities in the Second World War, and commemmorated in this part of the world as V-P (Victory in the Pacific) Day.

Most of the children and some of the adults have found time to dress up, and it's an interesting variety of costumes. Church Gresley was a mining and pottery town, and the men on the pavement to the right have perhaps just been given time off work. There are the usual nurses, maids, sailor suits and nursery rhyme characters (I think I see Mary, Mary, quite contrary in the back row, at left, there are a couple of potential Little Bo Peeps, and the Knave of Hearts is carrying a tart right in the centre).

Towards the front there are two boys dressed in costumes of more topical interest: the young lad on the left is a miner, complete with pit helmet (presumably like his Dad), while the one on the right wears a hastily constructed "V" for Victory costume (with the rank of corporal, perhaps like his Dad), and brandishes a Union Jack. Perhaps readers can spot some other characters in the crowd.

By the way, the large vehicle in the background is a Trent bus, a couple of which appeared in a previous Photo-Sleuth article.


Crowds on VJ day, Auckland, 15 August 1945
B&W Still from Weekly Review 208. National Film Unit, 1945
(click image to see the full video)
Image courtesy of Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand
By way of contrast, these celebrations seem rather restrained compared with those that took place in countries surrounding the Pacific Ocean.

News of Japan's surrender following the dropping of two atom bombs was received in New Zealand at 11 a.m. on 15 August 1945. Sirens sounded immediately, and before long streamers were unfurled, and there were bands playing and people dancing in the streets.

Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Crowds on VJ day, Willis Street, Wellington, 15 August 1945
B&W film negative by John Pascoe
Image courtesy of Alexander Turnbull Library

There were parades, bands playing, thanksgiving services, bonfires, dances and community sports. Once more the beer flowed, and there were streamers, whistles and dancing in the streets. Again there were two days' public holiday ... In Auckland, where there were few organised events, the city went out to enjoy itself the moment the factory whistle sounded. At first it was simply people drinking, dancing and scattering confetti. Then some rowdy people began throwing bottles. Windows were smashed, and people were hurt. By the evening, 51 people had been taken to hospital and 15 tons of glass lay in the roads.

New Zealand History online

"The Kiss," Times Square, New York, 15 August 1945
B&W photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt
Image © Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
And of course there was plenty of kissing.

References

McGibbon, Ian (2012) Second World War - Final victory, from Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Crowds on VJ day, Willis Street, Wellington, Pascoe, John Dobree, 1908-1972 :Photographic albums, prints and negatives, Ref: 1/4-001830-F, Alexander Turnbull Library.

Victory over Japan (VJ) Day, from New Zealand History online

V-J Day, 1945 - A Nation lets Loose, from Life.Time.com

Sailor, nurse from iconic VJ Day photo reunited, from CBS