Sepia Saturday 225: Photomatic in the Antipodes, the original Selfies

I'll use the coin-operated jukebox in this week's Sepia Saturday image prompt to post a follow-up to the article on Photomatic booths and photos that I wrote a year ago.


Original Photomatic photo booth, Machine No. DP 3
Image © and courtesy of The Powerhouse Museum
Based on an advertisement in Wellington's Evening Post dated 23 January 1940 and a battered instruction plate in the Tauranga Museum collection, I have deduced previously that at least one Photomatic photobooth, such as the well preserved original shown above from Sydney's Powerhouse Museum, was exported to and operated in New Zealand.


Catherine & Errol Morton, Wellington, New Zealand, January 1940
Silver gelatin print in crimped metal frame with printed card backing
Taken by Photomatic (Wellington) Ltd.
Images © and courtesy of Margaret Parkes
I now have direct evidence of that. Margaret Parkes kindly sent me these images of two Photomatic portraits of her parents, probably taken on the eve of her father's departure for service overseas in the Second World War, possibly at the Centennial Exhibition.

I have a pair of prints of my mother and father taken in Wellington before his departure to WW2. To the best of my knowledge they were taken early in January 1940 as the troops boarded the ship on the 5th. My parents Errol and Catherine Morton were living in Taranaki so the time she was most likely to have visited Wellington was for his departure, although I see that the Centennial Exhibition was on at the time.

Advertisements from Ellesmere Guardian, 19 November 1937,
and Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, 16 November 1937
Images courtesy of Papers Past
A detailed search in the online newspaper archives of the period shows that Photomatic Limited was formed in May 1937, shares in the company quickly being listed for sale by brokers in Auckland. In November that year, the department store of Hay's Ltd in Christchurch advertised the new Photomatic as the only one of its kind in the South Island, "a wonderful machine ... takes your photo, develops, prints, and FRAMES it ... in ONE MINUTE."


Advertisement from Evening Post, 2 July 1938
Image courtesy of Papers Past
Between 11 June and 6 August 1938 Photomatic (Wellington) Limited were seeking "smart young ladies" and "smart youths" to apply in person for positions as attendants for Photomatic portrait-taking machines. The advertisement for 2 July 1938 described the booth as being located in Selfridge's Department Store, Cuba Street.


Advertisement from Evening Post, 23 January 1940
Image courtesy of Papers Past
Then there is nothing until early 1940, when the company appears to have operated a Photomatic booth at the Centennial Exhibition in Wellington. Various trade directories show the company operating from premises at 315 Cooke's Building, 58-60 Queen Street, Auckland Central in 1937-1938, from 182 Featherston Street in 1941, and at 23 Waring Taylor Street in 1948-1949, both in Wellington.

Which leaves us with a few questions that I hope we'll be able to answer some day. Why are there so few references to Photomatic booths in New Zealand? Were the booths hired out, complete with operaters, to franchisees in the various locations, or did the firm maintain control of each one? How many were there? Where did the instruction plate in the Tauranga Museum Collection come from, and where is the rest of the booth? How long did the firm remain in business? Were they really still going in 1948? Where are all the portraits taken in these booths? There must be many remaining in private collections, but I haven't been able to find any in public collections listed online.


Bud Payne, Durban, South Africa, 4 April 1968
Photomatic photobooth portrait (65 x 68mm)
Images © and collection of Brett Payne
There are few signs of Photomatic booths being exported to other parts of the world, but I found evidence that they were, somewhat bizarrely, in my own family photo collection. This photobooth portrait of my father was taken in the coastal city of Durban, South Africa in 1968, which is pretty late in context of the heyday of the American Photomatic. Although the silver card backing has no identifying marks indicating that it emanated from a Photomatic apparatus, the metal frame, card type and apparent method of manufacture are identical. It has occurred to me that it may have been produced from a refurbished Photomatic machine after the demise of the business elsewhere.


Mystery Photobooth Portraits
Image Collection of Donald Lokuta and courtesy of Rutgers Today
Lastly, I thought I'd direct readers to an article that appeared recently regarding an exhibit titled "445 Portraits of a Man" currently on display as part of "Striking Resemblance: The Changing Art of Portraiture," an exhibition showing at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University in New Jersey until July. It's an extraordinary collection of Photomatic images, all of the same man, taken over three decades from the late 1930s until the 1960s. The man's identity and why the portraits were collected, remains a mystery.

If you haven't had enough of coin-operated machines after that, you may well find a few more among the remaining Sepia Saturday contributions this week.

References

Relevant advertisements and share price listings appeared in several New Zealand newspapers on the following dates:
Auckland Star: 15 May 1937, 17 Jul 1937, 11, 18, 22 & 23 Feb 1938, 2, 11, 15 Mar 1938
Ellesmere Guardian: 16 & 19 Nov 1937
Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser: 16 & 19 Nov 1937
Evening Post: 11 & 21 June 1938, 2 Jul 1938, 6 Aug 1938, 23 Jan 1940

Auckland Libraries Photographers Database, entry for Photomatic Wellington Ltd.

Payne, Brett (2013) Andy Warhol looks a scream, Hang him on my wall, on PhotoSleuth, 3 May 2013.

Verbanas, Patti (2014) Mystery Photobooth Portraits Baffle Historians, Rutgers Today, 27 March 2014.

Sepia Saturday 189: Ode to the Rickshaw-wallah

This week I'll take you globe-trotting once again. While I suspect you'll be treated to a myriad of contraptions powered by the internal combustion engine by other Saturday Sepians, I'm choosing to use a more environmentally friendly, if not particularly pc, means of transport.


Jinnirickshaw, undated probably c.1880s, unidentified photographer
Albumen print (141 x 95mm) mounted on printed card (155 x 112mm)
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
This mounted albumen print of a non-standard format was purchased on a whim, partly because it's a well composed and exposed photograph of an interesting subject, representing a way of life that's pretty much disappeared, but also because it doesn't merely reinforce the colonial stereotype of white sahib being conveyed from one shady verandah to another by a rickshaw-wallah.

Judging from the style of print and mount, I estimate that it was probably printed in the 1880s or 1890s, and I think it may have been taken somewhere in the Indian sub-continent. The printed text at lower left appears to relate to the subject, rather than the photographer or publisher, and suggests that the photograph may have been produced in some numbers. Indeed, I found another copy of the image here, dated 1895.

The derivation of jinnirickshaw is suggested by The Free Dictionary to be from three Middle Chinese words, jin (person), lik (strength) and chai (vehicle) via the Japanese word jinrikisha. My Concise Oxford Dictionary states that the variety of spellings one finds are archaic forms of the more familiar rickshaw, which they define as a:

Light two-wheeled hooded vehicle, drawn by one or more persons.

Wikipedia claims, quite plausibly, that the rickshaw is thought to have been invented in Japan in 1869 after the removal of a ban on wheeled vehicles during the Tokugawa period. After a popularity explosion in that country, it spread quickly to other Asian countries, being introduced to India around 1880.


Kingwell in a rickshaw, Durban, South Africa, c.1920s
Souvenir postcard portrait by unidentified photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Although the popularity of hand-pulled rickshaws waned in the Third World throughout the twentieth century, particularly after the Second World War, there was one country where this mode of transport took on a life of its own. South Africa's first rickshaws were imported into Natal in 1892 and within a decade had become the main mode of transportation, with over 2000 of them in Durban's streets. Gallery Ezakwantu tells a fascinating and well illustrated story of how the rickshaw puller's simple, unadorned calico uniforms and traditional Zulu feathered, bovine-horned headwear have evolved, over time, into outrageous enormous multi-horned headdresses and costumes spectacularly decorated with beads, sheepskins and a variety of other accessories.


An example of one such Zulu rickshaw puller with his conveyance and a client is pictured in the postcard above, probably taken in a makeshift outdoors studio on Durban's waterfront some time in the 1920s. The scene somewhat clumsily painted on the backdrop is easily identifiable as Durban's sweeping beachfront, with The Bluff forming a backdrop to the harbour entrance, as this Streetview shows. The message handwritten on the back of the postcard merely identifies the occupant of the rickshaw as "Kingwell," presumably a surname. I feel that the uniform he is wearing is possibly merchant marine, or perhaps from a colonial administration, but I haven't been able to pin it down.


"Rickshaw Boys" - Durban, South Africa
Postcard by unidentified publisher, posted 1966
In early 1968 my family had an extended holiday in South Africa, photos in the family albums showing that we spent time in Potchefstroom, Simonstown, Bredasdorp, Durban and Umhlanga Rocks. The only memory of that trip that remains with me is an extremely vivid one of the rickshaw drivers on the Durban waterfront. By that time their costumes, and their playing-up-to-the-tourists antics, were probably at their most extravagant. Unfortunately I don't have a family photograph to go with it, which reinforces my idea that it is a real memory rather than one prompted by later tales of the event related by my parents. In my mind's eye, however, they looked very much like the three posing for this mid-1960s postcard.

An excerpt from a 1967 article in the New Age provides a taste of the experience to be expected:

As pictorial attractions for tourists go probably no city in the world would care to challenge Durban ... at the spin of a 20c piece ... some 15 Zulu ricksha boys, who ply their trade along the sweeping Durban Esplanade between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. ... offer outstanding value. They out-Twiggy Twiggy with the number and variety of their poses ... [take] a swing along the sea shore ... [and] spread their regalia like peacocks.

As a six year-old country boy who had never come across anything like this in my life, I was terrified and absolutely refused to go near it. When one of my parents and my younger sister Diana went off down the Esplanade for a ride, complete with the see-sawing, twirling gyrations and strange chants of the "driver," I was convinced I would never see them again. I suspect tears ensued although time, thankfully, has wiped those from my memory.


Bud Payne, Durban or Umhlanga, 4 April 1968
Photomatic photobooth portrait (65 x 68mm)
Images © and collection of Brett Payne
Although, as far as I am aware, no photograph exists of that particular scary ride, there is a photobooth portrait of my father which could have been taken on the same day. It doesn't have any identifying studio marks or printing on it, but by comparison with similar thin-metal-framed prints from the 1950s which I discussed in a previous article, I can tell it was taken in a Photomatic photobooth. It's possibly the latest example of a Photomatic portrait that I've seen.

Getting back on topic, this series of photos suggests that Durban's rickshaw drivers are still attracting the tourists, although I suspect they're no longer offering rides for twenty cents. I don't think I would fancy expending that amount of effort, even for a considerably greater sum.

References

Japanese Rickshaw, at the Powerhouse Museum.

Zulu Ricksha, 1892-2000, Power Carriages of the Mandlakazi Clan, from Gallery Ezakwantu.

Ricksha Boys of Durban, The Age, 11 September 1967, p.11, courtesy of Google Books.

Sepia Saturday 186: Jack and Gill, a Christmas Pantomime?

Although by far the majority of carte de visite and cabinet photographs were run-of-the-mill studio portraits of people in their Sunday best, browsing of old photo collections shows that even from the early 1860s many visited the studio wearing costumes. Some of these are clear representations of a particular character popular on the stage or in folklore, perhaps imitating the copyrighted photographs of actors published in significant numbers which have become sought after collectibles, while others are not quite so obvious.

I have previously written about such portraits from the mid-1880s by Derbyshire photographers Schmidt and Brennen, possibly depicting characters from a Gilbert and Sullivan musical (Dame Hannah and Ruddigore). Later examples from my collection include group photos with costumes from G+S's The Mikado and Tennyson's poem-play Dream of Fair Women.


"Jack & Gill," Capt. Marshall & Miss Pepworth, c.1881-1883
Cabinet card by H. Kisch, Maritzburg, Natal, South Africa
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
This week we have a South African couple, he at least dressed in costume, and an inscription on the reverse informs us that the subjects, identified as Captain Marshall and Miss Pepworth, are masquerading as "Jack & Gill." Whether this was for a stage performance - perhaps even a Christmas pantomine - or to attend a fancy dress party, will probably never be revealed. The portrait was almost certainly taken outdoors, although the latticework window, rocks, branches and plants appear to have been at least partly arranged by the photographer. The nature of the "second edge" close to the lower edge of the print suggests to me that it is a copy of a slightly earlier print mounted on card.


Reverse of cabinet card mount by Henry Kisch
with inscription handwritten in black/dark blue ink
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Although the portrait is undated, Bensusan's comprehensive list of South African photographers shows that Henry Kisch operated photographic studios in Maritzburg (now Pietermaritzburg) between 1877 and 1885, after which he moved to Durban. The arrangement on the reverse of the card mount, with a diagonal signature, large ornate initial letters and ivy/scroll work, is typical of the "large letter" designs by Marion Imp of Paris that Roger Vaughan describes as being commonly used in the late 1870s and early 1880s.


Captain George Marshall (centre), Pietermaritzburg racecourse, 1890
Image © and courtesy of David Hill
A search on the net quickly led me to David Marshall's family history web pages, which include biographical details of his great-grandparents George Marshall (1850-1921) and Sarah Eleanor Pepworth (1859-1890). After an education at Rugby school, George went into the family business as a timber merchant. From 1873 he served with the Middlesex Yeomanry Cavalry, and in 1878 went with them out to South Africa where they fought in the Anglo-Zulu War in that and the following year.


Sarah Eleanor Pepworth, c. late 1870s
Image © and courtesy of David Hill
After the conclusion of the war he settled in Natal and on 4 July 1883 married Sarah Eleanor Pepworth, daughter of a prominent local resident and former mayor, Henry Pepworth, J.P. George started a timber business in Natal, while he and Sarah lived on a farm in the Dargle Valley, in the foothills of the Drakensberg mountains. Sarah died in August 1890, a few weeks after giving birth to their second child, and two years later George Marshall returned to England with the two young children, ending their association with South Africa.

References

Bensusan, A.D. (1963), 19th Century Photographers in South Africa, Africana Notes and News, Volume 15, No. 6, pp. 219-52, from South African Photographers of the 19th Century, on Ancestry24.

David Murray Marshall Hall's Ancestors and their Descendants

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.

Three Men and a Pipe ... to say nothing of the dog!

And Montmorency, standing on his hind legs ... gave a short bark of decided concurrence ...

Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome

Mr. Gilchrist finds it uproariously funny - possibly he made the joke himself. Pilkington, cigarette in hand and standing somewhat aloof from it all, is amused enough to crack a smile. Poor Old Joe has to contain his mirth for fear of losing the pipe clamped firmly between his teeth. We could make any number of guesses as to what they're laughing about but, more importantly, who the heck are they?


This photograph, simultaneously delightful and perplexing, has proved a conundrum for my father and I for many years. There is no doubt that it emanates from the family photo collection - that is to say my family from Derbyshire, England - but nobody recognises the subjects or the location, or has any idea of its early provenance or history. It's always nice to have annotations on a photograph, but in this case they raise more questions rather than providing answers. Neither Gilchrist nor Pilkington are names that I've ever come across in my family history research, and my father, when he was alive, said they meant nothing to him either. Joseph, the presumed proper name of "Poor Old Joe," is one that our family does not appear to have been very keen on. Among my ancestors I have plenty of Johns and Jans, a few James's, even a Jabez alive in the last century or so, but only one Joseph way back in the relative obscurity of the 1600s.

So ... what to do with a photograph such as this one? The easiest course of action would be to assume that they were just family friends, that it has no great significance, put it at the bottom of the orphan pile and forget about it. The trouble is, I've already done that, several times, and it has resurfaced once again, so I've decided to post it here and see if crowdsourcing will prove a better means of solving the mystery.

The black and white print (155 x 107 mm or 6" x 4") is triple-mounted (if that's the correct term to use) on a large piece of greenish-grey card measuring 254 x 200 mm (10" x 8"), and is rather hastily annotated in black ink on the front. There is nothing on the reverse


My father and I both convinced ourselves that the photograph was taken somewhere in southern Africa. It is not just the colonial whites and Panama hat worn by Poor Old Joe that have brought us to this conclusion. Having grown up in southern Africa, the verandah or stoep, partially closed in by wooden framework festooned with ivy and other creepers, and the particular style of stonework, possibly dressed sandstone, is very familiar. This 17 September 1962 shot of me on the verandah of our house, originally built in 1906 for the manager of Cecil John Rhodes' Inyanga estate Fruitfields, shows very similar stonework, albeit granite rather than sandstone, and I'll grant that it may have been a common building style of that era all over the world. There is not much to make out within the shadowy confines of the verandah, except perhaps the panels of an internal door (or panes of a window, or even a pair of notice boards) on the left.


Pilkington's square-cut jacket and straight-leg uniform trousers, starched white collar, peaked cap, single chevron on his cuffs, cap and collar badges, and even a chain with fob watch (or whistle) tucked hurriedly into a waistcoat pocket, are very much suggestive of those worn by railway porters or ticket collectors. This has reinforced our feeling that the building may be a railway station. The rather rough and uneven nature of the boulders forming the higgledy-piggledy border of what might generously be termed a "flower bed" in front if the building suggest that it is probably not situated within a major town.


Elands Falls between Waterval Boven & Waterval Onder
Mpumalanga, South Africa, 13 June 2008
Image © and courtesy of Hallam Payne
Where could it be? Prior to my father emigrating to what was then Southern Rhodesia in 1952, and apart from brief forays to the United States and Canada in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, the family had been pretty firmly fixed in the English Midlands. The only time that my father could recall Africa being mentioned in connection with any family, was that a family member had been in a place called Waterval Boven or Watervaal Onder. Perhaps it was the strange sounding name that caused it to stick in my father's memory - sadly the name of the person and other details such as when it happened did not. These two small towns are in the eastern Mpumalanga (formerly Transvaal) Province of South Africa, at the top and bottom, respectively, of a dramatic escarpment over which the Elands River cascades, forming a backdrop to what my brother describes as a spectacular rock climbing destination.

From the style of the mount and the clothes worn by the subjects, this photograph looks to me as though it was taken around the turn of the century - but prior to the First World War - give or take a few years, say between 1895 and 1910. The railway being constructed from Delagoa Bay to Pretoria, via Komatipoort, reached the foot of the escarpment in March 1894, and a rack railway and curving tunnel were built to take the track up the steep gradient. Waterval Boven is also celebrated as where President Paul Kruger lived briefly in 1900, before going into exile in Austria. Could this be a railway station at one of the two towns?


Cabinet card of the family of Joseph & Phoebe Benfield
by Eric Morley of Walsall, c.1897-1898
Image © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
I have discovered, in the last few years of research, a family member who was in southern Africa at about this time, and his name was Joe! Joseph Benfield (1855-1900), otherwise known as Joe, was my grandfather Leslie Payne's first cousin, shown above with his wife Phoebe and their eleven children. The youngest child Ada, born on 25 June 1894, looks to me to be about three years old, which suggests a date of about 1897 or 1898 for the portrait. Joseph was, like his father, a blacksmith, his older sons all following him into various aspects of the family business in Walsall, Staffordshire, coincidentally the birth place of the author of the lines which adorn the head of this article.


Detail from Patent No. 463,474, 17 Nov 1891, J. Benfield, Horseshoe
Image © and courtesy of Google Books
Joe Benfield was, it seems, something of a dreamer as well as entrepreneur. He journeyed to New York in October 1894 and March 1895, giving his profession respectively as farrier and inventor, so presumably the trips related to the patents (463474, 541956 and 543976) that he registered for nail-less, soft-tread and other horseshoes between 1891 and 1895. In 1897 He sailed with his second son Thomas from London to the Cape. The two of them returned from Delagoa Bay, in Portuguese East Africa (later Lourenco Marques, now Maputo in Mozambique) on board the Pembroke Castle, arriving in London in April 1899, and describing themselves as smith and fitter respectively. What they did while they were out there is not clear, but I believe it likely that they worked on the railways, which were at the time undergoing a period of rapid expansion. Joseph subsequently went out a second time on his own. According to his grandson Bill Benfield, "Thomas was to follow his Dad on his second visit but Joseph died out there, so Thomas stayed home to help Phoebe bring up the children."


Rua Conselheiro Ennes, Beira, c.1905
Postcard published by The Rhodesia Trading Co. Ltd., Beira.
Image courtesy of Wikipedia
His death on 17 February 1900 at Beira, Mozambique was reported to the British Consulate in that town by Messrs. Pauling & Co. Ltd by letter two days later. The profession was shown as "fitter," but no cause of death was given. George Pauling was a railway contractor, responsible for the construction of many of the railways in Southern and Eastern Africa after 1895, and it seems almost certain that Joe Benfield was employed on the widening of the Beira-Umtali portion of the Beira-Mashonaland Railway from 2'6" to 3'6" gauge. A more detailed discussion of that aspect of the story must wait for another time.


Could "Poor Old Joe" be Joseph Benfield? Comparing photographs of the two (above) make it seem unlikely, but if not then who else might it be?


A couple of years ago my aunt in Derbyshire kindly let my brother and I scan her entire collection of old family photographs. Among these were two loose sepia paper prints (above and below) about which she knew absolutely nothing, rather tatty, but clearly amateur efforts with some writing on the back (images here and here).

This is our house. The bay windows belong to our living room with the alcove on the left making a cosy corner. The fireplace in the building seen is our bedroom once a billiard room on the right the trees line Noord St down which the trams run to the centre of town & Park Station is only accross [sic] the road. Meade took this from the furthest corner of the Garden. the front door is on the other side showing an old fountain.

Mr. Napper has been trying to persuade Bobbie to go on the horse but he says no he will go another time.

A quick Google of "Noord Street" and "Park Station" shows that this address is right in the heart of what is modern day Johannesburg, South Africa, or as the residents might refer to it, "downtown Jo'burg." I vividly remember emerging from the Park Station to an very unfamiliar environment early one evening in the early 1980s. It was a daunting and potentially dangerous situation, from which I fortunately emerged completely unscathed, but very different to how it must have been some eighty years earlier, when I assume these photographs were taken, i.e. c.1900-1910.


Given that they appear to emanate from the same part of the world, and were taken around the same time as the "Poor Old Joe" photograph, I thought I'd compare the writing on the backs of these two photographs with the annotations on the front of the larger format mounted print.


The handwriting is similar, and while there are some differences, there is enough variation in the writing of individual letters in each cases to suggest that they might have been written by the same person. However, I've been unable to make up my mind conclusively whether or not they were.


Perhaps readers can have a look at these images, and the full images linked to above, and tell me what you think? I'm not familiar enough yet with South African family history resources to have found either maps of the central part of Johannesburg or city directories from that era, and while I look further I'd welcome any assistance or suggestions. If the names Gilchrist, Pilkington, Napper and Meade ring any bells with other South African researchers, I'd be very pleased to hear from you, either in the form of a comment below, or by email.