Sepia Saturday 167: In Search of Mammoths - Journey to the Coldest Place on Earth

A few months ago Diana Burns sent me some scans of photographs in an album that she had just purchased. Taken during the northern hemisphere summer of 1914, the 22 snapshots appear to depict a trip down the River Lena in a remote part of Siberia. Although I did some research at the time Diana sent me the images, my work at the time precluded anything more than a cursory hunt on the net. This week's Sepia Saturday photo prompt includes a steam-powered river boat, which stimulated me into some further exploration, resulting in a breakthrough which I'd like to share with readers.

The twenty two photographic prints are housed in a red bound album with a gilt art nouveau title and black pages, a style that became very popular in the first couple of decades of the 20th century, as amateur photography took off with great gusto. The prints measure roughly 3½" x 5", which probably equates to the 122 film used by a No. 3A Folding Pocket Kodak camera.

Taken on the Buriatric Steppe, on the road from Yakutsk to Irkutsk (#2)
Paper print (roughly 95 x 126mm/3½" x 5") by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Diana Burns (Yakutsk Album)
Right from the start it is made clear by the compiler of the album that the journey documented in these pages is no ordinary one. The first image is at the very least bizarre, showing four dead sheep or goats mounted on the tops of some spindly trees, perhaps poplars or a similar species [silver birch family, thank you Mike].

A caption handwritten in pencil on the back of the print specifies the location - "on the Buriatric Steppe, on the road from Yakutsk to Irkutsk" - but leaves the interpetation of the subject matter completely up to the viewer. Although the term "Buriatric" does not seem to have entered common usage, the Buryats are the largest indigenous ethnic group in Siberia, living in the region surrounding Lake Baikal.

11 am 24 June Oost Eelgeenskaya, View of posting boats, River Lena (#3)
Paper print (roughly 95 x 126mm/3½" x 5") by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Diana Burns (Yakutsk Album)
The next two photos in the album quickly move on to the means by which this remote and inhospitable region was accessed, the Lena River. This view of "posting boats" is followed by a blurry shot in which a man standing on top of a boat is identified as "Digby," with the added information that it was taken at 3.15pm on 24 June 1914.

View of Paddle S/S "Yakut" off Oostkootsk. 30th June (#8)
Paper print (roughly 95 x 126mm/3½" x 5") by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Diana Burns (Yakutsk Album)
By 30th June, they had transferred to a paddle steamboat the Yakutsk, which took them all the way downstream to the town of Yakutsk, in a region often described as the coldest place on earth. For a westerner to make a journey into the Siberian heartland in 1914 seemed to me rather unusual. Large deposits of gold and other minerals were discovered in Siberia in the 1880s and 1890s, resulting in the development of Yakutsk as a significant centre, but westerners were still the exception, even by 1914.

Image © Brett Payne & Google Maps
The diary transcript of an expedition by intrepid Australian ornithologists Robert Hall and Ernie Trebilcock down the River Lena a decade earlier (Robin & Sirina, nd) shows that they must have taken the same route, probably because it was the easiest way to get into Siberia at the time. Given the fragmentary record of Diana's Yakutsk album, I've taken the liberty of including extracts from the diary and some additional photographs taken by them. Transport technology is unlikely to have changed much in the intervening years, so the length of the journey (14 days) was probably similar, and the added detail will help to illustrate the 1914 journey. The full transcript of Trebilcock's diary, for those who are interested, may be found here.

I've also read Sokolnikov's account of a journey to Siberia in 1899 for further background material. My task was was complicated by the multitude of spellings of place names:

• Vercholensk = Verkholensk
• Gigalowa = Zhigalov = Zhigalovo
• Oostkootsk = Oustkoutsk = Ust-Kut
• Olekminsk = Olyokminsk
• Jarkutsk = Yakutsk

Horse and wagon transport Siberia, 1903
Glass plate negative by Hall & Trebilcock
Image © State Library of Victoria and courtesy of Robin & Sirina
The travellers would have started their journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway, which reached Irkutsk in 1898. The first stage of the journey from Irkutsk by post horses, shown in the image above, took about three days:

Left Irkutsk early in morning by post horses – two conveyances ea having three horses. Bells – two small bells suspended from the top of the arch over the middle horse. Carriage slung on poles, no springs! Each stage is about 20 to 35 versts long. At the end of each there is a real house where a supply of fresh horses is always ready, & where the traveller can get a samovar, or if necessary free shelter for 24 hours. The horses travel very quickly, their drivers often urging them into a gallop, much to the discomfort of the traveller if he is not well provided with pillows & cushions ... Bells on arch above horse have to be tied up while in towns to prevent their ringing.

3.15pm 24 June 1914, View of Boat, Digby standing on top of boat (#4)
Paper print (roughly 95 x 126mm/3½" x 5") by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Diana Burns (Yakutsk Album)
From somewhere in the vicinity of Zhigalovo - I wasn't able to find the place referred to as "Eelgeenskaya" - they would have transferred to a long, thin, shallow bottomed boat (Sokolnikov refers to them as pauzki):

This distance (335 versts) we did in a boat, mainly by drifting with the current, in four days & three nights. Our boat, which was one of the usual kind used on the Lena for such purposes was about 40 ft. long, & had a deck house wh. though not high was large enough to shelter us & our luggage at night.

11.30am 25 June. P S/S Alexandra & barge in tow, River Lena (#7)
Paper print (roughly 95 x 126mm/3½" x 5") by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Diana Burns (Yakutsk Album)
Our intrepid explorers passed the paddle steamer Alexandra towing a barge upstream, similar to those described by Trebilcock:

Passed a number of merchants barges drifting down stream. These are veritable floating warehouses, doing both a wholesale & a retail biz at an enormous profit, giving credit & charging for it.

Music aboard the Lena River barge 1903
Glass plate negative by Hall & Trebilcock
Image © State Library of Victoria and courtesy of Robin & Sirina
When they reached Oost Kootsk (Ust-Kut) the Lena became considerably wider and they were able to board the more spacious and comfortable paddle steamer Yakut for the remainder of the journey downstream. In 1903 the company included a couple of women, a samovar was on the boil, and even musical entertainment was provided.

Very comfortable considering locality – very little diffce betn 1st & 2nd class except in price. But third class! Meals not supplied for the fare – meal tariff very high. Boat travels very fast. Russians cross themselves on starting their journey ... Had a very pleasant evening of a social nature. French was the language. Got on very well with two young Russian ladies.

One hopes the later travellers enjoyed similarly salubrious company.

12.00pm 5th July. Olekminsk. View of the church (#13)
Paper print (roughly 126 x 95mm/5" x 3½") by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Diana Burns (Yakutsk Album)

Спасский собор, Olyokminsk
Image © 2008 voluntas_tua and courtesy of Panoramio
During the 1914 journey a brief stop was made on Sunday 5th July at the riverside settlement of Olekminsk (Olyokminsk), perhaps to attend a church service. This snapshot produced in 1914 shows a church that has changed remarkably little in the century since.

Wooden building, gateway and courtyard in unidentified location (#15)
Paper print (roughly 126 x 95mm/5" x 3½") by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Diana Burns (Yakutsk Album)
A few days later, they reached the town of Yakutsk. There are no photographs in the album that are captioned with the town's name, although there is a view (shown above) which includes a substantial wooden building with very ornate window frames, a courtyard with what might be stacks of firewood, just visible through a large signposted gateway, flanked by street lamps, and adjacent to an unpaved road. It is almost certainly the premises where the next four images were taken.

Displaying a collection of fossil bones (#18-21)
Paper prints (roughly 4" x 5") by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Diana Burns (Yakutsk Album)
Among the last few photographs in the album are four slightly larger images (roughly 4" x 5", used by a variety of roll film formats) which have less of a sepia tint. In fact, their quality is so much better than the others, in terms of focus, composition, exposure, even processing, that I find it difficult to believe they were taken with the same camera, even by the same photographer. They depict a man (in one photo he is accompanied by three others) with a trilby hat and pipe displaying a number of fossil bones; using my rudimentary knowledge of palaeontology I have been able to identify tusks and jaw bone of the woolly mammoth, as well as a woolly rhinoceros skull and horn.

Russian newspapers or broadsheets (#22)
Paper print (roughly 126 x 95mm/5" x 3½") by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Diana Burns (Yakutsk Album)
The final image in the album is perhaps merely a curiosity. It depicts a couple of pages from a Russian newspaper or broadsheet pinned up on boards, leaning against the wooden boards of a wall. It is not well focussed and my understanding of Russian is slim to non-existent, but I think I can make out the following (what it really means, I haven't a clue):

YAKUTSK CIRCUIT ... RENTING BICYCLES

Apart from the mention of "Digby" and "D." in the captions to three of the photographs, there are no clues as to the identity of the subjects, or to the owner of the album. Nor is there any real indication as to the purpose of the trip. Given that Europe was on the cusp of war, it would have been a tricky time to be travelling abroad. Prior to doing further research my own impression was that the tusk/horn/fossil photos, despite being at the end of the album, actually provided a focus point and could have formed the primary reason for the expedition.

Bassett Digby, correspondent for the Chicago Daily News, 1918
Glass plate negative (4" x 5") of paper print tacked on board
Chicago Daily News neg. coll., DN-0003451, courtesy of Chicago History Museum & American Memory from the Library of Congress
I won't relate the full story here, but using the words Digby, mammoth and Yakutsk in a Google search yielded the first clues: a book written in 1913 recounting a trip through Siberia by R.L. Wright and Bassett Digby, a paper on "the provenance of Bassett Digby's contributions to the Natural History Museum, London, and the British Museum" written by his grand-daughter, and a book written in 1926 by Bassett Digby himself, "The Mammoth and Mammoth-Hunting in North-East Siberia."

Woolly mammoth model at the Royal British Columbia Museum
Image © 2011 Flying Puffin & courtesy of Flickr
Bassett Digby was a journalist who followed in the footsteps of Mark Twain and others by funding his adventures with travel writing. After the publication of Through Siberia: an Empire in the Making in 1913, Digby returned to Siberia the following year. It is not clear what the primary purpose of the trip was but, as is clear from his book and research carried out recently by Susan Digby (2004 & 2008), mammoths featured prominently. Apart from the scientific interest, there was also a significant commercial trade:

In the early twentieth century there was an active market for mammoth ivory, and Yakutsk was the location of tusk yards maintained by middlemen who bought ivory and other fossil finds from native peoples for sale to southern traders. Good quality mammoth ivory was used as an alternative to elephant tusks for such things as piano keys, combs, jewellery, chess sets and billiard balls.

Although Digby provided the "first written comprehensive English-language information on [the mammoth]," Susan notes:

Digby’s involvement in this financial side of mammoth ivory collection is unknown ... [his] journey to Yakutsk was definitely enmeshed with the story of trade and potential riches. His acknowledgement read: "I wish to make my acknowledgements to a certain genial and enterprising gentleman who took a sporting chance on my being able to find a big hoard of mammoth-ivory for him." This acknowledgement, together with a collection of photographs in an album, suggests that he funded his travel and collecting interests by locating ivory for an ivory trader.

Valuation of mammoth jaws and tusks, Ivory trade in Yakutsk, July 1914
Series of paper prints (3" x 2") mounted on black card album page
Image courtesy of Susan Ann Digby, Adsbol family album
The following extract from Digby's 1926 book describes his discovery of a hoard of mammoth ivory in the trader's store room, later arrayed, photographed and valued in the yard outide, as depicted in images #15, #18-#21 from Diana's Yakutsk album. A further series of photographs of the hoard was discovered by Susan and her brother, in an album originally owned by Martinus Adsbol, who had accompanied Digby on the journey to Yakutsk.

Our luck was in. One morning we located a really big hoard. A key was turned in a massive padlock. With a muffled clang the sheet-iron door was flung open. We stepped out of the blinding July sunshine into pitchdarkness ... and, dimly at first, then more and more clearly, this great heap of Arctic loot appeared, like the slow developing of a photographic plate. Huge horns that curled this way and that ... No, not horns; but tusks, mammoth tusks by the dozen, by the score – hundreds and hundreds of them, cairn upon cairn, stack upon stack. Tons and tons of prehistoric ivory.

The snapshots in the Adsbol album are smaller, measuring approx. 3" x 2" although they are roughly trimmed. This may correspond to the 129 film format developed by Kodak for the Houghton Ensignette No 2 and Deluxe cameras first produced in 1912-1913.

Woolly rhinoceros depicted in rock art at Chauvet Cave, southern France
Image © 2006 Inocybe and courtesy of Wikipedia Commons
Susan has worked with Natural History Museum staff in London to successfully identify several specimens and artefacts in the museum's collection as being those which her grandfather provided upon his return from his second Siberian trip. The woolly rhinoceros horn in particular was an especially rare find.

Mammoth-hunting in Siberia, by Bassett Digby
Published in The Graphic, 6 March 1915
Whilst the identity of the photographer of the majority of the photographs in the Yakutsk album remains unknown, if there is any doubt whatsoever that they were taken on the same trip, this is dispelled by another find on the net. An article written by Bassett Digby and published by The Graphic in 1915 includes two of the photographs which appear in Diana's album.

Like the Adsbol family photos discovered by Susan Digby, Diana Burns' Yakutsk album plays an important role in piecing together the history of the early 20th Century exploration of Siberia. We can be fairly sure that there were three separate cameras recording the trip, and probably three men participating in the expedition - the search to identify the "third man" continues.

If you've survived this far, then have a quick look at the remaining photos in Diana's Yakutsk Album before adventuring further afield in search of more Sepian discoveries.

Yakutsk Album

Acknowledgements

Diana Burns has very kindly shared many of her "photofinds" with me, and I'm grateful for permission to use scans of the photographs in her private collection here on Photo-Sleuth. It's not very different from the crowdsourcing collaboration between various archival institutions and members of the public through Flickr's "The Commons" project.

Staff of the State Library of Victoria responded most promptly to my request for further information regarding Hall & Trebilcock's glass plate negatives.

I am also indebted to Susan Digby for giving me access to her engaging Ph.D. dissertation about her "ordinary" grandfather's extraordinary life and travels, as well as excerpts from articles that he wrote about the trip to Siberia, and for pointing me to other resources relating to Bassett Digby.

References

Buryats, River Lena, Trans-Siberian Railway, Yakutsk, Woolly mammoth and Woolly rhinoceros, from Wikipedia.

No. 3A Folding Pocket Kodak, from Historic Camera

The Ensignette Camera, from Early Photography

Roll film, from Camerapedia

Photograph of Chicago Daily News correspondent Bassett Digby, DN-0069953, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago History Museum, from American Memory (The Library of Congress Archive)

Letter to the Times - #2, from Gimcrack Hospital

The Ninety-Foot Plum Tree, Filling Some Gaps, by Mammoth Tales

Digby, Bassett (1915) Mammoth Hunting in Siberia, The Graphic, 6 March 1915, p.312.

Digby, Bassett (1916a) Along a great Siberian river, Travel 25 (June): 18–21, 46, 47.

Digby, Bassett (1916b) Yakutsk – A Siberian outpost, Travel 25 (July): 18–21, 45–48.

Digby, Susan A. (2004) Mammoths and wars, travel and home: The geographical life of journalist and natural historian Bassett Digby (1888-1962), unpubl. Ph.D. Dissertation (Geography), University of California, Los Angeles.

Digby, Susan A. (2008) Early twentieth-century collection of extinct mammals from northern Siberia: the provenance of Bassett Digby’s contributions to the Natural History Museum, London, and the British Museum, Archives of Natural History 35 (1): 105–117.

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

Robin, L. & Sirina, A. (nd) Siberian ornithology - Australian style, 1903, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University.

Sokolnikov, Prokopy N. (1899) Wives and Children of the Doukhobors (translation), from the Doukhboro Genealogy Website.

Tolmachoff, I.P. (1935) The carcasses of the mammoth and rhinoceros found in the frozen ground of Siberia, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 24 (Part 2, June 1935), 11-74.

Trebilcock, R.E. (1903) Diary of Expedition to Siberia (transcript), from the State Library of Victoria (MS 9247).

Wright, R. L. and Digby, B. (1913) Through Siberia: an Empire in the Making, New York & London: McBride, Nast & Company, Hurst & Blackett.

Sepia Saturday 165: Sojourn in Swanage

In the past I have frequently mined my own family photograph collection for both inspiration and subjects for articles on Photo-Sleuth. Hunting for appropriate images or interesting topics often involves looking at the photographs in greater detail, or perhaps from a different point of view. Occasionally this results in the unearthing of new clues regarding the people in the photo or the events depicted, part of the process that Alan Burnett has referred to as "photographic archaeology."

The Sepia Saturday prompt this week invites us to share "unknowns" from our collections. My contribution is the result of an investigation into a series of three amateur photographs from my family collection from geographical, genealogical and photohistorical perspectives.


Charles Hallam and Sarah Payne promenading at Blackpool, c.1900-1904
Cabinet card by H. Pawson, Promenade Studio, Blackpool
Image © and collection of Barbara Ellison
My great-great-uncle Charles Hallam Payne (1870-1960) and his wife Sarah Emma Payne nee Parker (1870-1946) retired from running the Payne family grocery in June 1914, when they were in their mid-forties, moving from Normanton to Dale Cottage near Ingleby. Retiring at such a young age was probably facilitated by a substantial inheritance from Hallam's father, and perhaps precipitated by the death of his mother earlier that year.

The lease on Dale Cottage was signed four days before Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, and when war was declared against Germany six weeks later, Hallam and Sarah must have wondered if they'd made a mistake. No doubt the privations and hardships brought on by the Great War impacted on far more than just their tradition of having regular summer holidays at the seaside, such as that captured by Harold Pawson at the Promenade Studio portrait above, taken shortly after the turn of the century.


Charles Hallam Payne (far right) and friends, Swanage
Postcard print by unidentified photographer, 10 June 1929
Image © and collection of Barbara Ellison
They resumed their outings some time after the war had ended and, according to inscriptions on the backs, these three amateur prints were all taken in the summer of 1929 at Swanage on the southern coast of Dorset, England. This was after one of the most severe winters of the last three decades and a notably dry spring, but in typical English fashion they are dressed for inclement weather, quite a contrast to the German family holidaying in Sorrento which I featured on Photo-Sleuth six weeks ago.

It was also less than a fortnight after the General Election, the first in the United Kingdom in which women under 30 were allowed to vote, and therefore often referred to as the "Flapper Election." Did the young women perched not far from the edge of a cliff in this photograph vote? I like to think so, although perhaps they were a little young.


Reverse of K Ltd postcard, probably taken with a No. 3A Folding Pocket Kodak or similar, using 122 roll film and processed by Kodak Ltd.
The backs of two of the postcard-sized photographs in this series display a generic "K Ltd" format which Ron Playle lists as in use from 1918 until 1936. Although he doesn't state the name of the firm who printed them, I believe these very commonly used postcards are very likely to have been produced by Kodak Ltd., like the similar "K" design from the late 1930s and early 1940s which was from Kodak, and which I wrote about last week.

This excerpt from an article by Merril Distad provides more background to Kodak's early involvement in the postcard industry:

Kodak’s greatest boost to the postcard craze really began in 1903 with the introduction of the Kodak Folding Pocket Model 3A camera. Produced until 1941, it was a small, folding bellows camera, priced from as low as $12, that yielded postcard-size negatives (3.25 x 5.5 inches / 83 x 139 mm). Kodak distributed its photo print papers, both the “Velox” and (after 1904) the cheaper “Aso” brand, precut to the same size, with the standard postcard grid format printed on the backs. Despite competition from other companies’ photo papers in postcard format, such as Ansco’s “Cyko,” Artura’s “Artura,” Burke & James’ “Rexo,” Defender’s “Argo,” and Kilburn’s “Kruxo,” Kodak papers accounted for 70 percent of such sales prior to 1914, while it sold an annual average of 45,000 Model 3A cameras during the same period.

Many of Derbyshire's commercial photographers used "K Ltd." postcard papers for their own photos in the 1920s. Some firms, such Boots Cash Chemists, which had four branches in Derby and a further 11 throughout Derbyshire, would also have provided a service which developed and printed roll film from cameras such as the No. 3A Folding Pocket Kodak.


Sarah (2nd from left) & Charles Hallam Payne (far right) et al, Swanage
Postcard print by unidentified photographer, 10 June 1929
Image © and collection of Barbara Ellison
Buoyed by the recent successful identification of the Sorrento coastline, I wondered whether it might be possible to pinpoint the spots where these photographs had been taken, even though I am as unfamiliar with England's southern shoreline as I am with the Italian coast.

Although not the best in terms of clarity, the first shot shows Uncle Hallam with a young man and two young women - one with a hat, one without - posing on what appears to be the edge of a cliff, overlooking a body of water with some rocks just visible at centre left.

The second has the same group, with the addition of Aunt Sarah, standing at the edge of a road bordered by an untrimmed hedge. The chimneyed roof of a cottage is visible at centre right, and a view of the sea at centre left, with a possible "notched" headland in the distance.


Sarah (2nd from right) & Charles Hallam Payne (far right) et al, Swanage
Amateur paper print by unidentified photographer, June 1929
Image © and collection of Barbara Ellison
The third shot appears to have been taken at a similar location to the first, although Aunt Sarah and Uncle Hallam, his hat now carefully placed on the ground, are now standing with two young men and one young lady. It seems likely that the young woman without a hat who appears to be wearing a man's dark jacket in the first cliff-top shot was the photographer in this third photograph.


Amateur print (60x88mm) on Velox paper by unidentified photographer
Probably taken with Folding Pocket Kodak or No. 2 Brownie, June 1929
Image © and collection of Barbara Ellison
The quality of this paper print, clearly marked with Kodak's VELOX brand, is somewhat inferior to the other two and it is a smaller format. It measures roughly 2¼" x 3¼", which equates to Kodak's 105 or 120 formats, and therefore probably taken with either a Folding Pocket Kodak or a No. 2 Brownie.


Swanage and Peveril Point
Image © and courtesy of Google Earth
Next ... the location, which I investigated, as usual, using the imagery provided by Google Earth. To the east of Swanage's town centre, at the southern end of a large bay, is a peninsular called Peveril Point, which seemed to me the most obvious place to go looking for cliff tops that tourists might visit.


View of Broken Shell Limestone Reef, Durlstone Bay from Swanage Coastguard Hut, Peveril Point
Image © Al Dunn and courtesy of 360 Cities
Close to the tip of Peveril Point, not far from the Coastguard hut, and right on the cliff edge, Google Earth shows a small red icon which represents a 360 degrees panoramic view. Double-clicking on the icon takes one into the panorama, and provides the image above, apparently taken from precisely the same spot as the first cliff-edge photograph.

The rocky outcrop known in geological circles as the Broken Shell Limestone Reef is clearly visible, even at high tide, as are the the white shells or pebbles which litter the ground at the cliff top. This forms part of the geological type-section of the Purbeck Group of the Upper Jurassic, visited frequently by geologists and geological students since its first description by Thomas Webster in 1816, and well known for its reptile and early mammal fossils (West, 2012).


Coastguard cottages overlooking Swanage Bay
Image © Andy Jamieson, courtesy of Geograph.co.uk and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence
Despite the loss of two of the building's chimneys in the intervening eight decades, it is easily identifiable as the Coastguard Cottages which are situated immediately above the RNLI Swanage Lifeboat Station.


The Coastguard Cottages on Peveril Point, Swanage
Image © Bressons_Puddle and courtesy of Panoramio

Peveril Point Road, Swanage
Image © and courtesy of Google Streetview
Unfortunately Google's StreetView camera didn't quite make it that far along Peveril Point Road, but the cottages and their chimneys are just visible poking out to the left of the small tree in the centre of this view above (click on the image to be taken to StreetView). Very close to the blue gate set into the stone wall in front of the tree is where the group of five were standing on that summer evening.


Swanage and Peveril Point, with the two camera positions marked
Image © and courtesy of Google Earth
I write "evening" because the photographer is facing towards the north-east. The characteristic profile of the cliffs at Ballard Point and Old Harry's Wife, on the other side of Swanage Bay, are just visible - the "notched" headland to which I referred earlier. The shadows are long and pointing towards the east, and since in Dorset the sun sets around 9:20 pm in mid-June, I estimate this was perhaps between 5 and 7 pm.


The Promenade, Swanage, Postcard postmarked 1931
Although other visitors aren't visible in any of these photographs, Swanage was a popular destination between the wars, as evidenced by the number of postcards from that era boasting of its amenities, such as the view of The Promenade above, posted on 1931.


Mary and Ella Chadwick, 1927
Postcard print by H.A. Aylward of Alton, Hampshire
Image © and courtesy of Una Palmer
Lastly to the identification of Hallam and Sarah's fellow sojourners on Swanage. Hallam and Sarah didn't have any children of their own. So whose kids did they have, then (you might ask, if you're a Spike Milligan devotee)? Well, they were very fond of their nephews and nieces, grand-nephews and grand-nieces, including my grandfather and father.

One of the two young women was, I think, Mary (born in 1912, shown above left), a daughter of Hallam's sister Lucy Mary (aka "Maggie") Chadwick (1876-1953), probably the one wearing the sensible hat. Maggie's younger daughter Ella (aka "Bay" and born in 1916, above right) was only twelve years old at that time, so I think the other young woman - the one I suggest may have wielded a camera - is probably a friend. The Chadwicks were living at Headley Down in Hampshire at this time, which would have been two or three hours' drive from Swanage in Hallam's Citroën purchased in July 1921 (either a Type A, the first motor car mass-produced in Europe, or a Type B).


Harry and Clarence Benfield Payne, c.1919-1921
Postcard print by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Una Palmer
As for the two young men, I feel sure they are the sons of Hallam's younger brother Fred Payne (1879-1946) and drove down with them from Derby. Henry (aka Harry and born in 1906) and Clarence Benfield (born 1907) both lived in Derby, where their parents had been running the grocer's shop/offlicence in St James' Road, Normanton ever since Hallam and Sarah's retirement. Their sister Christine was captured walking with her uncle and aunt twice by street photographers in Bournemouth four years later.

References

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

Distad, Merrill (nd) The postcard – a brief history, on Peel's Prairie Provinces, from University of Alberta Libraries.

Milligan, Spike (1961) Word Power, on Milligan Preserved, LP publ. EMI (NTS 114), courtesy of YouTube.

West, Ian M. (2012) Durlston Bay - Peveril Point, Durlston Formation, including Upper Purbeck Group: Geology of the Wessex Coast (Jurassic Coast, UNESCO World Heritage Site), Internet geological field guide, by Ian West, Romsey and School of Ocean and Earth Science, National Oceanography Centre Southampton, Southampton University.

Sunrise and Sunset in Bournemouth

Historical Weather Events

Excerpt from Kelly’s Directory of Hampshire 1931, courtesy of John Owen Smith

The AA Road Book of England and Wales, publ. c.1936 London: The Automobile Association, by kind courtesy of Nigel Aspdin,

Sepia Saturday 164 : Wedding group protocols

Once again I'm straying somewhat from the theme of this week's Sepia Saturday image, in that only my first image has anything in common, a military uniform with moustache accessory dating from the Second World War. It gives me an excuse, if I ever needed one, to use scans of a couple of recent purchases by Derbyshire photographers, as well as to dip once again into the archives of Gail Durbin's Flickr photostream (aka lovedaylemon).


Unidentified newly married couple and flower girl, c. early 1940s
Postcard portrait by H.I. Hawkes of 19, Chestnut Ave., Derby
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
The happy couple in this postcard portrait are unidentified, but they also appear in a group wedding portrait, below, that was part of the same eBay purchase, taken by Derby photographer H.I. Hawkes.


Unidentified wedding group, Derbyshire, c. early 1940s
Postcard portrait by H.I. Hawkes of 19, Chestnut Ave., Derby
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Judging by the groom's uniform and the clothing styles of the other attendees, this was probably taken during the Second World War. From a brief researching of his cap badge and collar dogs, I think he must have been serving with the Royal Engineers.


Postcard portrait from H.I. Hawkes of 19, Chestnut Ave., Derby
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
The back of the postcard is of an unusual, but generic, "K" Kodak design dating from the late 1930s (Playle's list has a similar example from 1936) with Hawke's stamp at upper left indicating that he was operating from 19 Chestnut Avenue, Derby. Since this is, and was then, a residential address of terraced houses, it is likely that he did not have a studio on the premises, perhaps only a processing dark room.


Double wedding of Dorothy Hirst and her brother George, Derbyshire
Postcard portrait by H.I. Hawkes of 19, Chestnut Ave., Derby, early 1944
Image © and courtesy of Marilyn McMillan
Another example of this photographer's work sent to me by Marilyn McMillan also depicts a wedding party, that of the double marriage of sister and brother Dorothy and George Hirst in early 1944. A third Hawke wedding portrait taken at St James' Church, Dairyhouse Road, Derby in early 1951 is shown in a 2008 Derbyshire Telegraph article (This is Derbyshire).

But is not the photographer as much as the subjects of these wedding group portraits that interest me this week. I have spent some time looking at the members of the Royal Engineer's Derby wedding party, trying to decide who was related to whom, and that led to further thoughts on what protocols are prevalent around the positioning of family members in formal wedding group portraits. I suspect that fellow Sepians will have a far better idea of such conventions in their own necks of the woods than I do, so I would welcome any contributions, either by email or as comments at the end of this article.


Unidentified possible wedding group, c. 1864-1866
Carte de visite by John Burton & Sons of Derby
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin
Photography was used as a technique to capture wedding parties from as early as the 1850s, in the form of daguerreotypes. This format, however, was expensive, and the much cheaper cartes de visite introduced in the 1860s were not really large enough to display large wedding groups effectively. One such portrait by John Burton & Sons shows a large group at Derby in the mid-1860s, but the faces are hardly identifiable, and it's even difficult to pick out the bridal couple with any certainty.


Wedding group at Upper Blakenhall Farm, c.1868-1870
Carte de visite by William Farmer of Barton-under-Needwood
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Long time devotees of Photo-Sleuth will recognise this portrait of an wedding group as a carte de visite which I discussed almost four years ago in the "Mystery marriage" series. My identification of the couple being married is now under some doubt, the marriage of a younger sister of the suggested bride having been offered as an alternative possibility by a reader and potential family member. However, the location of the portrait - as co-sleuth Nigel Aspdin will be pleased to hear - is probably not, and it is an nice early example of the white bridal gowns popularised by the Queen Victoria and her daughters from the 1840s onwards.


Wedding of William Hodgkiss & Charlotte Stirland, 16 August 1904
Large format mounted print by J.N. Perks of Swadlincote
Image © and courtesy of Ben Hodgkiss
The introduction of the larger cabinet card in the late 1860s helped, but it wasn't until the popularisation of larger format mounted prints in the 1890s and early 1900s that studios commonly produced decent sized prints of large groups, such as this 1904 example by Joseph Perks of Swadlincote, in which people could easily recognise themselves.


Wedding of Louisa Rice and George Storr, 1 July 1914
Postcard portrait by Harold Burkinshaw of New Road, Belper
Image © and courtesy of Robert Silverwood
The postcard format was first used for photographic portraits around the turn of the century, after which it rapidly superseded the carte de visite as the cheapest option available. The increase in size meant that large groups could be accommodated quite comfortably, although the difficulties in coping with lighting conditions indoors meant that formal portraits were taken usually on the steps of the church, or in the garden of the ensuing reception.


Unidentified wedding group, 1925
Postcard portrait by F. Clark of Belper
Image © and courtesy of Adrian Farmer
Even in the slightly less formal garden portraits, there appear to be very definite conventions on the arrangement of people within the group. I conducted a survey of one hundred group portraits from Gail Durbin's huge Vintage weddings Flickr set in which the bride and groom are clearly identifiable, in a wide variety of settings. The groom is placed to the right of the bride (facing the photographer) in 87% of them - in other words, only 1 or 2 out of every 10 arrangements has the groom standing or seated to the bride's left. A similar ratio emerges from an analysis of fifty portraits showing only the wedding couple: 81% have the groom standing to the right of the bride.

An 1893 description of wedding etiquette includes the following:

When the ceremony is performed in church, the bride enters at the left, with her father, mother, and bridesmaids; or, at all events, with a bridesmaid. The groom enters at the right, followed by his attendants. The parents stand behind, the attendants at either side.

My guess is that photographs taken after the ceremony tended to follow the same conventions as those observed inside the church.


Wedding of Charles Leslie Lionel Payne and Ethel Brown, Derby, 1926
Loose amateur 116 (2½" x 4¼") film print
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
This amateur portrait of my grandparents' wedding party, taken in the bride's parents' garden (probably with something like the No 1A Folding Pocket Kodak camera), shows the typical standard convention for small family group wedding shots: the groom's parents are immediately to his right, while the bride's parents are to her left. As is often the case, both mothers are seated.


Wedding of Leslie Falconer and Edith Smith, 1934
Postcard portrait by W.W. Winter of Derby
Image © and courtesy of Kevin Rhodes
This wedding photo and that displayed below, both from the Derby studio of W.W. Winter, were taken indoors. By the mid-20th Century lighting technology was sufficiently advanced such that being indoors no longer presented much difficulty to photographers. Winters in particular had a large, well appointed studio in Midland Road, Derby with modern lighting apparatus and all of their studio portraits were of excellent quality.


Wedding of Fred Garner and Gertrude Trueman, Chaddesden, 1944
Postcard portrait by W.W. Winter of Derby
Image © and courtesy of Kathleen Garner
It may be, however, that the Garner-Trueman portrait was taken in Chaddesden. Winter's photographer Hubert King describes taking wedding portraits "on location" using a hand-held 5" x 4" glass plate Press camera in the 1940s and 1950s (Winter, 1996).


Arrangement of guests in Garner-Trueman wedding group portrait
This photograph is particularly useful as the contributer supplied me with IDs of the entire group, including their relationships to the bride and groom. The recently married couple, with the groom (bright blue) conventionally standing to the right of the bride (bright red), are immediately flanked by a couple who were friends of the bride (pale pink), and presumably acted as best man and maid of honour during the ceremony. Surrounding them are the immediate members of the groom's family, comprising his father and four sisters (light blue), while the bride's parents (pink) have been relegated to the far right of the photograph. More distant members of the grooms family (pale blue) then complete the picture.


Wedding of Arthur Durbin to Hilda Scott, 10 July 1937, Stoke Newington
Unknown format and photographer
Image © and courtesy of Gail Durbin
Gail Durbin has kindly identified several family members in this 1937 photograph of her parents' wedding party.


Arrangement of guests in Durbin-Scott wedding group portrait
The happy couple (bright blue/red) are seated in front of this large group, with the best man and maid of honour (light purple), both friends of the couple, standing immediately behind them. The front row is dominated by the immediate family of the bride (pink), perhaps because both parents of the groom were deceased by this time, although his sister-in-law (light blue) and her children (pale blue) were present.

I should note that it is not unusual to see one spouse's family over-represented in a wedding group. This might have several reasons:

• a subsequent portrait in the series may have included more members of the other spouse's family,
• the under-represented spouse may have come from further afield, making it difficult for family members to attend the wedding, or
• an under-represented family may have been smaller to begin with, or some could have died.

Absence of a particular family member from any group portrait should not, however, be taken to mean that person is deceased. In the double Hirst wedding group by Hawkes above, it would be easy to assume from the absence of the siblings' mother that she was deceased, but this would be incorrect, as Thirza only died in 1951, seven years after the wedding.


Horace Watts Woolley and Phyllis M. Woolley née Hirst, 21 Sep 1942
Postcard portrait by Jerome studio, 26 Victoria Street, Derby
Image © and collection of Marilyn McMillan
After a week of perusing several hundred wedding photos, and dredging up memories of the weddings I've attended in the past, I've come up with some broad guidelines on the conventions around wedding group arrangements. I hope these may assist some researchers in the identification of family members in old wedding photos in their collections. I should note that these conclusions are largely taken from shots of English ceremonies, and may not hold elsewhere. I'd be keen to hear feedback from readers concerning similarities or differences in other parts of the world.

• The first thing to emphasize is that there are no hard and fast rules. As quick as I list a guideline, I find several examples showing something quite different. Quite a few less formal group portraits can be found, in which many or all of the guidelines are ignored.
• The bridge and groom are usually together and central to the group, but may be slightly displaced or even, in some groups, at one side of the group. In 8-9 out of 10 cases, the groom is seated or standing on the bride's right, but a significant number of cases show the reverse. It may be that the latter are mostly among less formal group photos.
• The best man and maid of honour, often friends of either or both the bride and groom, if present in the photo, are usually standing immediately adjacent to or behind them.
• Bridesmaids and flower girls are often standing or seated in the front row, particularly if they are carrying flower bouquets, presumably so that the arrangements are in full view.
• The next closest to the bride and groom, usually in the front row, are their immediate family, including siblings and their spouses, parents and nephews/nieces. Each branch of the family are not necessarily restricted to a single side of the group.
• Children generally stand in front of the adults or are seated on the ground.
• One person's hands on the shoulders of another usually indicates a close relationship.

WOOLLEY-HIRST. - On September 15, 1942, at Alvaston Parish Church, Derby. L/Bdr. Horace Watts Woolley, son of Mr. and Mrs. S. Woolley, of 138, Raynesway, Alvaston, to Phyllis M. Hirst, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. G. Hirst, of 176, Brighton-road, Crewton, Derby.

A final cautionary note concerning dates on portraits which appear to be celebrating weddings: as demonstrated by the example above, the photograph may not have been taken on the day of the wedding. The portrait of Horace and Phyllis Woolley by Jerome studios of Derby is marked on the back with Jerome's usual purple date stamp, in this case Monday 21st September 1942. However, a newspaper cutting also affixed to the back of the portrait shown in the image sent to me by Marilyn McMillan demonstrates that the wedding actually took place at the parish church, Alvaston, near Derby, on Tuesday 15th September, six days earlier. Presumably they didn't have an opportunity for photographs on the day, and paid a visit to the studio a few days later to record their nuptials.

While clothing fashions changed continually, the conventions surrounding seating arrangements appear to have remained much the same over time and, from my own limited experience of weddings, survive largely intact to the present day. I'd be interested in hearing what your impressions are.

References

A Bride and Her Bridesmaids, 1851, by Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes, Whole plate daguerreotype, Smithsonian American Art Museum, in The Wedding Story, by Merry Foresta, 2009, The Smithsonian Institution Archives.

Rutherford B. Hayes and his wife on their wedding day, 30 December 1852, b&w film copy neg. of daguerreotype by unidentified photographer, Ref. LC-USZ61-900, Library of Congress.

Wells, Richard A. (1893) Manners, Culture and Dress of the Best American Society in Chapter: Courtship and Marriage, Springfield, Mass.: King, Richardson & Co.

Winter, W.W. Ltd. (1996) The Winter's Collection of Derby, Volume Two, Derby: Breedon Books.