Sepia Saturday 161: Anyone for a pork pie?

Apart from the very welcome comments on individual posts here on Photo-Sleuth, I receive a good deal of correspondence from readers all over the world, sending scans of their photographs, giving their thoughts concerning subjects that I've written about, identifying people or places, or merely sharing their enthusiasm for photohistory. Over the last year or so, due to work commitments, I've not done much in the way of follow up articles, so hope to remedy the situation over the next few weeks. I will make the most of Alan's shopfront photo prompt over at Sepia Saturday this week to follow up on some feedback received relating to an image that I published here in 2011.


Shopfront of W. Barnes & Co., general drapers, undated
Unmounted paper print (149.5 x 109.5 mm) by unidentified photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
In August 2011 I posted this image of a paper print depicting W. Barnes & Co.'s draper's shopfront as my contribution to Sepia Saturday 89. I estimated that it had been taken around the time of the Great War, probably at the onset of winter. Fellow Sepians had a good bash at trying to identify the town, with Alan suggesting perhaps he remembered it from his "time spent living in Wimbledon/Merton 40 years ago." My friend and fellow photo-sleuth Nigel Aspdin suspected it was from somewhere in the English Midlands, but we were unable to pin down a location.


Market Place, Melton Mowbray, c.1950
Image © and collection of The Francis Frith Collection
Then in May last year Paul Finch left a comment and emailed me to say that he had successfully pinpointed the location as the Market Place, Melton Mowbray, (dare I say the home of the delicious pork pie?) as shown in this c.1950 Frith's postcard scene. This excellent piece of sleuthing was not a simple or easy exercise, as I discovered for myself when I tried to find a contemporary image of Melton Mowbray's Market Place showing the building in question.


Market Place, Melton Mowbray, 2012
Image © and courtesy of Google Earth's Streetview
The best that Google Earth's Streetview can do is this view from Cheapside near the intersection with Church Street, with the building in question mostly obscured by a tree. At the very least this building, now occupied by Boots Pharmacy, has been significantly modified since 1950, but I suspect it has been completely replaced.


Kelly's Directories
Image © and courtesy of Durham University
The demolition of a building that features in an old photograph of course makes it the photohistorical detective work harder, but the dedicated enthusiasts will usually find a way. I asked Paul how he had deduced the location of the Barnes & Co. shopfront:

For about 30 odd years I've been accumulating UK shopfronts mostly on postcards. I try and buy unlocated cards as I enjoy tracking down their locations ... over this period I've hunted down editions of Kelly's Trade Directories. They are very scarce especially the dates I really need. I guess I acquire about 2/3 a year if I'm lucky. The Grocery trade volume still eludes me. You'd think with the amount of grocers/provision merchants around from 1900-WWII there would be plenty of such books but I think there's less than a dozen in the UK ... I have bought only two editions of the Textiles editions: 1906 and 1920. It took a few minutes to look up Barnes in the drapery sections and they appeared in both years. After a quick search on the Kelly's website it looks as though it was a fairly long running family business.

It sounds simple, but one should never underestimate the amount of time and patience involved in hunting down those trade directories. I'm grateful that Paul took the time to help with this quest.


Based on the photo prompt, I suspect there will be many more shopfront contributions to Sepia Saturday this week, some of which may need identification. Pay them a visit and see if you can assist - yours may be the clue which solves the case. As for me, all this has made me hungry - I'm off to find a pork pie.

"Your King & Country Need You" - Scarratt's Call to Arms

The Barracks, Derby, No. 993, publ. 1915
Albumen Glass Negative, by F.W. Scarratt of Derby
Image © and collection Brett Payne
This is the second of the two glass plate negatives purchased recently on eBay, both of which turned out to be originals from Derbyshire's first locally based picture postcard publisher, Frank W. Scarratt. It is not over-exposed, as the previous one was, and therefore required little in the way of digital manipulation to produce the image above, apart from inversion and desaturation of the original 24-bit colour scan. It depicts a group of young men waiting in line at the gates of Normanton Barracks, Derby, attended by a single soldier standing to attention, and with several onlookers - among them women and children - to the left of the entrance.

Gateway and Entrance, Normanton Barracks, 1915
Image © and courtesy of Picture the Past Ref. DRBY000681
This particular postcard is not listed in Rod Jewell's Yesterday's Derby and its Districts, the authority on Scarratt's work, so presumably not many examples of the postcard print have survived intact. I did find a rather inferior, unattributed version of the image on Picture the Past (Ref. DRBY000681). The barracks were built between 1874 and 1877, and became the headquarters of the Sherwood Foresters in Derby until 1963; they were demolished in 1981-1982.

Detailed examination of the posters pasted to the columns of the gateway reveals the announcement of the Embodiment of the Territorial Force and the General Mobilization of the Army Reserve, these having taken place in August 1914. I can't claim to have read all that from the indistinct scanned image, but there was enough to make out the general form of the poster and the Yanks, naturally, came to the rescue once again for the rest. I found exact facsimiles of three, and one similar to the fourth, in the fine digitized collection of war posters and postcards from the University of Minnesota Media Archive.

Territorial Force, poster 43x34cm, 3 Jun 1914
General Mobilization Army Reserve, Poster 54x41cm, 11 Aug 1914
Images © and courtesy of University of Minnesota Media Archive
Scarratt had maintained his prolific output during 1914 (139 views), somewhat reduced to 79 views published in 1915, but this was his first postcard which betrayed any sign that there was a war on. Judging from the dates of publication of the posters and the postcard's series number, it could have been taken any time from late 1914 until mid-1915.

Your King & Country Needs You
Another 100,000 Men Wanted, poster 76x51cm, Aug 1914
A Call To Arms, poster 152x102cm, 24 Aug 1914
Images © and courtesy of University of Minnesota Media Archive

Great War recruiting posters
Images © and courtesy of Library of Congress
There is another poster or signboard at the right hand edge of the postcard view. Sadly, it's not clear enough to make out anything much, but it might well be a recruiting poster along the lines of the two displayed above, of which there were a huge variety produced during the course of the war.

Initially I wondered if the glass plate was a copy negative made from a postcard, since an artifact on the image appeared as if it had resulted from a fold or crease. However, closer examination of the emulsion side of the glass negative shows a slightly darker stain over the bottom quarter.

Donington Hall and Entanglements, No. 1020, publ. 1915
Postcard by F.W. Scarratt of Derby
Scarratt produced very few views with subjects readily identifiable as having been taken during the Great War. Soon after the Normanton Barracks shot in 1915 he visited Donington Hall, Leicestershire, where the conversion of the grand building and estate into a German Prisoner of War camp, complete with barbed wire entanglements and sentry boxes, resulted in several published postcards (1006/1020/1021). Apart from these few examples, he appears to have left the coverage of wartime and military subjects to other local photographers such as W.W. Winter, Frederick K. Boyes, Pollard Graham of Derby, Albert Heath of Clay Cross, Henry Hinge and H.P. Hansen of Ashbourne, Fred Holbrook of Belper, Alfred Rippon of Chesterfield.

Sentry Box & Entanglements, Donington Hall, No. 1020, publ. 1915
Postcard by F.W. Scarratt of Derby
His production then dwindled considerably; 35 views in 1916, 33 in 1917, and a single view in 1918, and none in 1919, probably due to a combination of shortage of materials and a reduced market. When he resumed publishing in 1920, one of his first photographs was of the War Memorial in his home town, Barton-under-Needwood (1130).

Sepia Saturday 81: All the Fun of the Fair

The picture prompt for this week's Sepia Saturday theme shows five glum Irish ladies rather determined not to have a good time while selling their bric-a-brac at an early 20th Century stall. Perhaps the thought of carrying around all that hat for the rest of the day was just a little too much. Whatever the cause, it doesn't convey the feeling of festivity that I associate with show week and the Luna Park of my youth.


Fair Day in Morledge, Derby, 1882, by C.T. Moore
In an article about Derbyshire fairground photographer Charles Warwick posted three years ago, I used this image of a painting by C.T. Moore, a lively scene of an Easter fair taking place in the Morledge, Derby in 1882.


Detail: Itinerant Photographer's Tent
Closer examination of the painting reveals, parked amongst numerous hawkers, swings, an "Aetherscope" and several other attractions, an itinerant photographer's tent offering "Carte de Visite" on the far right, adjacent to a caravan. After further investigation, I identified several photographers accompanying a large group of travellers who toured the Midlands in the 1870s to 1890s, and who regularly attended the Easter Fair in Derby. These included Samuel Whiting (later a swing boat proprietor), Charles Warwick, Charles Antill and Charles Tyler. Although I'd come across all of these photographers previously, and had compiled profiles for three of them, I had no examples of the work of Antill or Tyler. Since then I've received several contributions of images, purchased a photo by Charles Tyler, and learnt a lot more about the life and careers of both him and his son Albert Charles Tyler.


William & Sarah Hall with their daughter Eliza, Swanwick, c.1867-68
Image © and courtesy of Judith Brennan
Charles Tyler (1837-1908) started working as a confectioner with the family business in the small village of Wymeswold, near Loughborough in Leicestershire. The 1861 Census (7 April) shows Charles and his father living in a caravan parked at the Morledge, Derby. They were presumably winding down after a busy time the previous Easter weekend holiday hawking sweets (Easter Sunday was 31 March). In late 1864 he married Alice Suett, the daughter of a fellow traveller, and not long after appears to have taken up the photographic trade. By the late 1860s, when the above carte de visite portrait was taken in Swanwick, Derbyshire, he and Alice were living in a van and travelling to various fair around the Midlands.


Generic card mount design overprinted "MR. C. TYLER Market Place WHITWIGK" [sic]
Image © and courtesy of Judith Brennan
The card mount is a generic one, overprinted with his name and "home" address, complete with spelling mistake - it would not have been produced by a high end printer! The Market Place in Whitwick was also not far from Loughborough, and was possibly where he set up shop when there were no country fairs to attend. I do have some doubts whether Tyler was, in fact, capable of reproducing copies of any previously taken portrait from the original negative as claimed, since glass plate negatives were bulky and heavy, and space would have been at a premium in his van.


Market Place, Grantham
Image © and courtesy of Google StreetView
Birth locations for Charles' and Alice's children over first two decades of their marriage show a wide distribution, indicating that they ferried their growing brood from village to town throughout the Midlands, following the country fair circuit through the 1870s and 1880s. Census night on Sunday 2 April 1871 found Charles, Alice, three young children and a servant in "booths and caravans" in The Yard of the Blue Lion in the Grantham Market Place, Lincolnshire. It seems likely that they were already packing up in preparation for a move to Derby to attend the Easter Fair on the following weekend. Further locations visited included Hinckley, Long Eaton, Nottingham and Burslem. They were back in Grantham on census night 3 April 1881, this time with two weeks to spare before the Easter fair in Derby, which they presumably attended.


Four young men (and a dog) of Bollington, Cheshire, c.1885-1890
Image © and courtesy of Frances Quinn
This remnant of a carte de visite portrait depicting four young men and a well behaved dog, sent to me by Frances Quinn, was probably taken in the late 1880s at Bollington, north of Macclesfield in Cheshire. It was perhaps close to the northern limit of the Tyler's range, but appears to have been a regular haunt, because his fifth son Edwin was born there in the summer/autumn of 1873.


Carte de visite by Charles Tyler, "here and at Wymeswold," c.1885-1890
The card mount used is by now far more elaborate, with classical design elements common to many being published in the late 1880s. He advertises that he is able to take portraits of fidgety children "by the instantaneous process" which essentially means that he is taking advantage of the faster emulsions commercially available by that time to employ quicker exposure times. Most interesting to me, however, is the tell-tale mark of an itinerant tradesman, unable to specify a permanent studio location: "Here and at Wymeswold, ..." Unfortunately, any other locations that might have been listed must await the appearance of a more complete version of this particular carte de visite design.


Possibly Catherine (Kate) Quinn of Billington, c.1876
Fragment of ambrotype by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Frances Quinn
Frances also sent me these images of a fragment of an ambrotype or collodion positive portrait, believing it might be of her father-in-law's great aunt Catherine Quinn (1873-1959) of Bollington, Cheshire. What little I can see of the studio setting is typical for the the early to mid-1860s, with a diamond patterned carpet, and a wood panelling backdrop (although I think this backdrop is actually painted canvas, rather than real wood panelling). The seated pose of the man, probably facing directly forwards towards the camera, and with his legs apart, was common in the 1850s and 1860s.

Collodion positives were introduced in the 1850s, but their popularity started to decline in the 1860s, during the heyday of the carte de visite. However, due to their convenience and low cost, they were still favoured by some itinerant photographers, even as late as the 1890s. I found a picture of a very similar girl's outfit, with woven checked or tartan dress and jacket, dated 1874 in Jo Ann Olian's Children's Fashions 1860-1912: 1,065 Costume Designs from "LaMode Illustree," (publ. 1994, Dover Publications, New York). The portrait could therefore easily have been taken in the late 1870s, as Frances suggests. Whether the portrait was taken by Charles Tyler or some other photographer may well remain a mystery. We know that he was visiting Bollington in the mid-1870s, but I'm not sure how many other photographers in the general area.


View Charles Tyler (1837-1908), itinerant photographer in a larger map
On Sunday 5 April 1891, the weekend after Easter, Charles and Alice were back at the Morledge, Derby, two of their sons Arthur and Edwin and now working as photographic assistants. Their eldest son Albert Charles Tyler, aged 25, by now was operating separately from his own caravan, then parked at Mantle Lane, Whitwick. Over the previous two and a half decades they had covered an impressive area, illustrated by the location map of the English Midlands above.


Unidentified woman, unknown location, c.1894-1896
Image © and courtesy of Gillian Jones
When this portrait of a young woman was taken in the mid-1890s, Charles Tyler had retired from an active role in the photography business and had become a publican. He owned and ran the Engineers' Arms in Coalville while Albert, now married to Swadlincote girl Lucy Smedley, operated the nominal "father and son" portrait venture from the van. The backdrop used is a rudimentary one, consisting of an unornamented, light coloured sheet, and Albert has taken little care to disguise its appearance. In additon the bright sunlight, probably coming from a skylight in the caravan roof directly above the subject, has heightened the contrast between the woman's dark clothing and the light backdrop, thus revealing little detail on her fine dress.


C. Tyler & Son, here and at Swadlincote & Coalville
Printed by publishers Adams & Co. of London the card mount demonstrates by the caption "here and at Swadlincote & Coalville," that they used Lucy's and Charles's parents' abodes respectively as home bases.


Three, unidentified women, c.1895-1900
Carte de visite portrait by A.C. Tyler of Coalville
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
The final portrait was taken, judging by the fashion of the dresses worn by the three women pictured, some time in the late 1890s. They are clearly dressed for an outing, with lavishly decorated hats, and umbrellas in case of the occasional light shower. Albert, now working on his own as "A.C. Tyler," has by now acquired a painted backdrop which lends something to the atmosphere with a little perspective, but it is probably still taken within the cramped confines of a photographer's caravan or tent.

There are several tell-tale signs to look for which might indicate a photographic portrait has been taken by an itinerant.
- There may be several locations listed, without a qualifier indicating that they were permanent branches.
- The words "Here and at ..." with no definite statement where "here might be, is presumably indicative of a traveller.
- Alternatively, there might not be a location listed at all.
- Rudimentary or out-of-date backdrops, carpets and other accessories used, edges poorly disguised and often with grass or bare earth showing.
- Portraits often taken outdoors.
- In the United Kingdom, collodion positives were predominantly used by travelling photographers after the mid- to late 1860s, but rarely by studio photographers.
- Tin types were generally the preserve of itinerants after the end of the 1870s.

Many thanks to Judith Brennan, Frances Quinn and Gillian Rhodes for permission to use their images.

Recent additions to the Scarratt postcard archive

In the last month or so I've added some new images of postcards by the Derbyshire photographer Frank Scarratt to the gallery. Several of these were not listed in Rod Jewell's excellent Yesterday's Derby and its Districts, so I thought I'd share these from shortly before and after the Great War, even though they are low resolution images found mainly on eBay. Their appearance in the short time since I started this project demonstrates that there are probably still many more of the "missing" numbers in the catalogue sequence yet to be "discovered."


799. Wirksworth Road, Duffield
Sepia postcard, F.W. Scarratt, 1913
Frank Scarratt's bicycle is parked at the kerb and he has managed to capture several residents attending to their daily business, as in so many of his shots from this period.


Wirksworth Road in Duffield hasn't changed much in the last century, apart from the removal of a couple of large trees. I guess there are far fewer bicycles and prams, and a few more motor vehicles (Click the image for Google Maps' Street View).


902. Barton-under-Needwood Church
Sepia postcard (narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1914
Three girls happily pose for Frank in this pre-war view of Barton-under-Needwood, in adjacent Staffordshire. Perhaps they were even relatives, as his father was born in Barton and he still had a cousin living there in 1901.


The parish church of St James in Barton-under-Needwood is still surrounded by substantial trees, which makes for a pleasant environment but renders Google's Street View car a little hampered.


1241. Tank, Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby
Sepia postcard (narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1925
This must be a rare one, because it fetched a pretty good price. In the Bygones section of the Derby Evening Telegraph, republished here, a staff member of the Derby Museum and Art Gallery asked readers for information about a First World War British Mark IV tank presented to Derby in recognition of the town's "fund-raising efforts to help pay for the production of Britain’s new secret weapon." Leslie Simnett of Belper recalled its arrival at the Normanton Recreation Ground on a warm sunny day in 1919 or 1920:

I cannot recollect any ceremony taking place but I do clearly remember an invasion of little and not-so-little boys, all eager to fight mock battles, happy to bang their heads and graze their bare knees on this new-found plaything.

Reg Ward of Sinfin, a former resident of Normanton, had more information about its removal:

I watched the military cutting it up with acetylene welders for scrap metal just before or in the early years of the Second World War. I used to live in the Normanton area and spent a lot of time on the park.

1403. Tennis Courts, Osmaston Park Road, Derby
Sepia postcard (narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1929
I couldn't locate this scene with any certainty. I'm not even sure whether it was in Derby or at Osmaston Park, but perhaps a Derby resident can help. No doubt the tennis courts are long gone.


1481. Shardlow Road, Derby
Sepia postcard (narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1931
With all the development that has taken place to the south and south-east of Derby in recent years, it will probably be difficult to locate this image, but I suspect it was somewhere near Alvaston.


1730. 5x-multiview, Castle Donington
Sepia postcard (Multiview with palette, narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1936
One of the popular multiviews, this contained five scenes at Castle Donington just across the county border in Leicestershire, several of which were also published as individual postcards (1537 - Hall with Deer; 1809 - Key House).

If you have any Scarratt postcards that you'd like to share, I'd be very happy to add medium to low resolution images to the gallery. (Email)

Sepia Saturday 70: A boy and his toy

This boy's parents may have scrimped a little on Christmas presents by putting off buying him a new suit, but they spared nothing in acceding to his demands for the latest in locomotory accessories. I exaggerate a little, of course, since most of the several hundred Google images of "antique horse tricycles" are full-bodied models, close cousins to the fancy rocking horse featured in a previous Photo-Sleuth article, and far more elaborate than this pared down version. Judging by the number of horse tricycles that seem to have survived, they were not that uncommon. Sadly, the identity of the proud young lad, caught in the moment before he escapes down the driveway to show it off to his friends, is unknown.


The photographer's name, on the other hand, is clearly displayed on both the front and reverse of the card mount. By the time he took this photograph, perhaps in the mid- to late 1880s, Frederick William Broadhead (c1846-1925) was a well established Leicester photographer, although the bulk of his commissions were conventional studio-based portraits, rather than outdoors shots. This example was clearly taken outdoors, but whether outside the studio premises or in the boy's own garden is unknown. It is perhaps a useful reminder that we should always examine the background to such outdoors photographs in our family collections for clues as to their location.


"View of Castle Cornet St Peters Port Guernsey Taken from the Hights" by F.D. Broadhead, oil on panel, c.1870
Image © and courtesy of Christies
Broadhead's father Frederick Dodson Broadhead (c1812-1878) was a portrait and landscape artist, and the son also occasionally advertised as an artist. Although he was born in Kennington in London, Frederick William's family moved frequently, so that by the time he started work aged 14 as a lithographer in Litchurch, Derby, they had already lived in London, Bath and Nottingham, where his father presumably found commissions.

The Broadhead family moved again in the late 1860s to Leicester. Frederick junior was working as a photographer by November 1869, when he announced his removal to "more convenient premises [at] 14 Welford road." Cartes de visite were advertised from 6s per dozen, and portraits in oil from one guinea upwards. It is not clear whether the portraits were photographs finished in oils or miniature oil paintings, although I suspect the latter, as an article in the Leicester Chronicle in 1876 reported his having painted "a pair of life-size bust portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Thornton."

According to a newspaper article in 1879, F.W. Broadhead was one of the early practitioners in the use of artificial light in studio photography.

Leicester Chronicle & Leicestershire Mercury, 11 January 1879.

Night Photography.
Mr. Broadhead, of 65 Welford road, has secured a patent luxograph, by means of which portraits can be taken at night, and by which daylight and the sun's rays are not rendered indispensable accessories to the production of a good picture. The process is apparently very simple; the principle upon which it is worked being the concentration of the rays emitted from a series of carefully arranged reflectors directly upon the sitter. The light is produced by the ignition of chemical powders, and is of pale blue colour. Although for an instant its brilliancy is rather dazzling, it softens down into a soft mellow hue, void of all garishness, and rather pleasant to the eyes than otherwise. By this artificial means a portrait can be taken in from seven to twqelve seconds, and even this period is decreased to about five seconds when it has to be taken on a ferrotype plate. At present there are only two or three machines in use throughout the kingdom, but when its properties are well known they cannot fail to be highly appreciated.

Barker & Co.'s Directory for Leicestershire & Rutland, 1875
Trade directories, census, Royal Photographic Society registrations, newspaper entries and advertisements provide a detailed record of his studio addresses during the thirty years he was in business:

1869: 84 Humberstone Rd
Nov 1870-1875: 74 Welford Rd
1876-1877: 72 & 74 Welford Rd
1877-1885: 65 Welford Rd
1884-1892: 55 Welford Rd
1888: 24 Gallowtree Gate
1892: 44 London Rd
1895-1896: Stanley Chambers, 30 Gallowtree Gate
1898: Stockdale Terrace, 19 London Road
1900: 55 Chestnut St & 102 Welford Rd


Directory entries and designs on the reverse of his card mounts demonstrate that he also operated periodically in the nearby towns of Loughborough and Market Harborough, although the evidence for his presence in these places is more patchy. It appears that he may merely have visited periodically, as an 1883 trade directory entry indicates weekly attendance:

Broadhead Fdk. Wm., artist and photographer, High street (attend Tu.), Market Harborough

Leicester Chronicle & Leicestershire Mercury, 10 June 1882
In addition to opportunistic shots of Royal processions and general views of the town and local tourist spots, Broadhead was not averse to seeking other photographic commissions away from his studio premises:

Leicester Chronicle & Leicestershire Mercury, 16 August 1879.

The Leicestershire Volunteers in Camp ... at Willesley Park ... Mr. F.W. Broadhead, Welford-road, Leicester, camped out with the volunteers all the week, and took a great variety of views of the camp, and of the men when on parade, by an instantaneous process, and he appeared to do a "roaring" trade under his "special appointment as a photographer to the camp.

Wright's Directory of Leicestershire, 1887-88
Leicester Chronicle & Leicestershire Mercury, 8 July 1882.

The Australian Cricketers. Mr. F.W. Broadhead, photographer, of Welford-road, has produced a pair of excellent group portraits of the Australian and Leicestershire teams who took part in the match lately played on the Aylestone-road Ground. The work has been carefully executed in variou-sized photographs, and give a life-like representation of the players ... No doubt a large number of these photographs well be secured in commemmoration of Leicestershire having played so well against the antipodeans.

He also gave evidence regarding photographic matters to the Leicester courts on several occasions.

Leicester Chronicle & Leicestershire Mercury, 12 April 1884.

Charge against a photographer ... according to the evidence of Mr. Broadhead, photographer, it was impossible for Daniels to have taken the photo from the condition of the camera and under the circumstances detailed by Mrs. Glover and the groom who attended prisoner. Mr Broadhead, however, admitted that the camera would take a negative, but it would not be passable .... Frederick William Broadhead, photographer, said that he had tested the lenses in question, and found that the lens produced perfectly fitted Professor Colton's apparatus.

Records of the Copyright Office, Stationers' Company:

Photograph of the Mayor & Council of Leicester, consisting of 50 persons including the Mayor". Copyright owner and author of work: Frederick William Broadhead, 35 Welford Road, Leicester. Form completed 12 November 1892. Registration stamp: 14 November 1892.

Wright's Directory of Leicestershire, 1889-90
In 1889 he celebrated his twentieth year in business. He appears to have retired not long after moving to Coalville a decade later. Frederick W. Broadhead died in 1925 at Farnham, Surrey, aged 78. He was married twice, and had two sons and two daughters with his first wife Sarah Ann Fisher, who died in 1898. His second wife Leah Reeves died in 1935.

This is my contribution to this week's Sepia Saturday. For more in a similar vein, head off there for a browse - I won't say quick, because you're likely to be there for a while!

References

Heathcote, B.V. & P.F. (1982) Leicester Photographic Studios in Victorian & Edwardian Times, Royal Photographic Society, The Photohistorian supplement.

Frank Scarratt and his Derbyshire postcards

I'm a devotee of postcards. It's that simple, really. Whether a modern multi-view showing where a friend spent theirs summer holiday, a scene displaying a historically significant building, an "arty" photograph, or a "real photo" posed studio postcard portrait, of the type that feature strongly in my Derbyshire Studios portfolios, I have always enjoyed both sending and receiving them.

It is sad that, over the last decade or so, postcards have been overtaken by the universal ease of text messaging and email. As most of us know, it wasn't long ago that they were the quickest cheap method of letting your family back home know that you were okay and enjoying yourself, or perhaps merely maintaining a "between Christmas cards" correspondence with old friends.


128. Victoria Avenue, Borrowash
Sepia monochrome colour wash postcard, F.W. Scarratt, 1907
Although I have featured scenic postcards previously on Photo-Sleuth, the articles have dealt largely with the subjects of the images, rather than the postcards themselves and the publishers or photographers. In this article, I'd like to discuss a Derby man whose name has become synonymous with postcards of Derbyshire. F.W. Scarrat is the subject of Yesterday's Derby and its Districts, Rod Jewell's excellent book published in 1995 by Breedon Books, featuring a wide variety of examples from his own collection. While he is arguably less well known than W.W. Winter and Richard Keene, the prolific Scarratt's postcard views spanned a period of over three decades.


96. Kedleston Road, Showing St Aiden's Church, Derby
Colourized postcard, F.W. Scarratt, 1906
Although invented in the 1870s, picture postcards only started being produced in any appreciable numbers in the United Kingdom in the late 1890s, after they had been authorised by the Royal Mail in 1894. By the time Frank Scarratt (1876-1964), a Derby stationer, started publishing postcards in early 1906 from his shop at 114 Abbey Street, using scenic photographs that he had taken himself, he was entering a well established market. Initially at least, his scenic views were printed in Germany, which perhaps offered cheaper and/or technologically superior options than were available in England at the time.


London Road, Derby
Colourized postcard, Valentine's Series, Postmarked Oct 1905
The first couple of hundred of his colourized and monochrome colour wash scenes followed fairly closely the styles of those already being produced and sold in large numbers by long stablished firms such as James Valentine of Dundee (example shown above). His townscapes generally included a view of a busy urban or quieter suburban street bordered by shops, houses or other notable buildings, trees, electricty lines and lamp posts.


148. Kedleston Road from Five Lamps, Derby.
Colourised postcard (grey frame), F.W. Scarratt, 1907
A large proportion of postcards from this period include a tram somewhere in the fore, middle or background, often accompanied by several other forms of transport, as well as numerous pedestrians, and Scarratt's are no different. The focus on trams is unsurprising considering the rapid expansion of municipal electric tram systems during the 1890s and early 1900s. Several writers have commented on the fact that Frank also managed to include his bicycle within the frame of a good many of his views.


107. Mill Hill, Derby
Colourized postcard (Brown frame), F.W. Scarratt, 1907
In 1907 and 1908 he produced a variety of views with simple wide brown (wood grain finish), white or gray frames, which again followed the trends set by other publishers such as Valentine, AE Shaw (Blackburn), JG Cox (Nottingham), Boots' Pelham Series, and the Grenville and Clumber Series (by unknown publishers), all of whom marketed a variety of Derbyshire scenes. During those first few years he built up a significant portfolio, with about 100 views published in 1906, 52 in 1907, and 108 in 1908, bringing the total to an impressive 260 by the end of his third year in business.


197. Rolleston Hall, Rolleston-on-Dove
Colourized postcard (Scroll frame), F.W. Scarratt, 1908
Then in 1908 he started experimenting with a series of more ornate frames. The first of these appears to have been an oval-shaped scroll type surrounding the picture, and with a brown, wood-grain background, used in at least six different views.


293. Canal Bridge, Weston-on-Trent
Sepia postcard (Ornate frame), F.W. Scarratt, 1909
While the colourized scenes were quickly phased out, the lavishly decorated frames became elaborate and varied, and soon developed into his signature style.

Distribution of Scarratt postcard scenes, 1906-1910
Rings show distance from Derby, at 10 km intervals
As the distribution map above shows, he was also venturing some distance from Derby in search of subjects. The majority of his 400 odd views up to the end of 1910 were taken within 20 kilometres of his home town, but he did on occasion travel a little further afield to places of particular interest, such as Quorn (Leicestershire), Alton and Mayfield (Staffordshire) and Polesworth (Warwickshire). It is possible that these were in response to special commissions. The almost complete absence of views from east of the River Erewash, even well within the 20 kilometre radius from Derby, suggests to me that he faced some significant local competition in that direction, perhaps from a Nottingham-based publisher.


213. The Vicarage, Barton-under-Needwood
B/W postcard (Narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1908
Scarratt made a number of visits to the small village of Barton-under-Needwood, not far from Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire, possibly since he was born nearby and still had family living there. The example shown above uses the simple narrow white border style that he employed only intermittently early his career, but which from about 1914 onwards started to dominate his production.


375. Police Courts, Burton-upon-Trent
B/W postcard (Palette style), F.W. Scarratt, 1910
Introduced in 1910 a frame in the form of a painter's palette was perhaps designed to lend a more artistic air to the postcards. It was used in a number of different forms until 1913, so was obviously popular.


260. 3 Views of Derby
B/W postcard (3x-multiview), F.W. Scarratt, 1908
At the same time Scarratt published postcards in a number of multi-view formats. The early example shown above is slightly unusual, the more common types having four or five panels with rectangular and palette-shaped outlines (below).


380. 5 Views of Derby.
Sepia postcard (5x-multiview), F.W. Scarratt, 1910
The year 1911 brought a move from Abbey Street to Normanton Road; around the same time he opened a shop in the Market Hall, Derby, which quickly became the main trading premises.

Distribution of Scarratt postcard scenes, 1911-1915 (green)
Scarratt's peak production was between 1911 and 1914, when he photographed an average of roughly 140 new scenes each year, so that by the outbreak of the Great War he had almost a thousand in his catalogue. This equates to about a dozen each month, which was no mean feat for a sole operator. The pattern of locations visited during this pre-war period roughly followed that of his first five years, with a few notable additions (Swadlincote, Kegworth, Heanor and Dovedale) and omissions (Belper, Mayfield and Alton).


Postcards published by F.W. Scarratt & Co., 1906-1938
Data from Jewell (1995)
However, output in 1915 was cut by almost half, followed by a sharp decline in production during 1916 and 1917, no doubt due to privations of war and the ensuing reduced demand. The graph above shows the variation in numbers of designs published by the firm over its 33 year period of operation, but it should be emphasized that this may not be an accurate relection of the volume of postcards ordered or sold.


1020. Donington Hall and Entanglements.
Sepia postcard (narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1915
During the war, his scenes on occasion show signs of the times, such as barbed wire "entanglements" around Donington Hall, then being used as a prisoner-of-war camp, and the War Cross in Barrow-upon-Soar (1916, not pictured).


1181. War Memorial, Market Place, Derby.
Sepia postcard (narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1925
After the end of the war, Scarratt's postcard publishing ceased almost completely for a few years. Although he did produce a small number of cards in 1920, including a couple depicting War Memorials in Barton-under-Needwood and Burton-upon-Trent, it must have been a very lean period. When he started up again in 1924, he revisited many of his old haunts, but also started to document the changing cityscape, such as in his view of the new bus terminus at Cheapside, and a couple of the recently erected bronze and stone War Memorial in Derby's Market Place (shown above). His lavishly decorated frames and artist's palette surrounds, once a significant point of difference for Scarratt, were sadly no longer fashionable, and they were almost completely abandoned them in favour of the austere narrow white borders which had already become the norm amongst other postcard publishers.


1537. Donington Hall with Deer.
B/W postcard (narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1931
In the late 1920s and 1930s, a steady but much lower level output was maintained, with an average of about 40-50 new views a year. Although still visiting some of the regular locations - such as Donington Hall (shown above) where the entanglements were now replaced with peacefully grazing deer - he concentrated on the larger towns i.e. Derby, Burton-upon-Trent and Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and tended not to travel so far afield as he had done previously. Judging by the fewer numbers of these later issues that are sold on eBay, I suspect that they may have been originally published in smaller batches than earlier issues.


1586. Derby in Flood, May 22nd, 1932 (Wardwick).
Sepia postcard (narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1931
When Derby was inundated by floods on 22nd May 1932 Scarratt was quick to record the effect that it had on the city, and his views of a Trent bus nosing its way down a flooded Wardwick (shown above), and very soggy Sadler Gate are probably among his best known images.


762. Halfpenny Lane, Derby.
Sepia postcard (no border), F.W. Scarratt, 1913
The firm of F.W. Scarratt & Co. ceased publishing postcards in 1938, when Frank sold the stationers business to his son-in-law and retired to his home in Mickleover.

I hope you have enjoyed this introduction to Frank Scarratt's Derby postcards. Please visit the profile/gallery on my Derbyshire Photographers web site, where I have compiled a comprehensive catalogue with some further examples of his work. If you happen to have some Scarratt postcards which are not displayed, and would be interested in sharing them with a wider audience, I would be happy to receive some low to medium-resolution scans for inclusion. (Email)