"Please, sir, I want some more."

This unusual cabinet photograph was taken by A.W. Cox of 11 St James' Street, Nottingham, and he was sufficiently proud of it to have registered it, for copyright purposes.


Unfortunately, there is no indication of where it was taken, or who the subjects are. It seems likely that it was intended to evoke images of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, in particular the scene where Oliver asks, "Please, sir, I want some more," as shown in the original engraving by George Cruickshank for the serial published in Bentley's Miscellany between February 1837 and April 1839. [Courtesy of Wikipedia].


"Please, sir, I want some more."
Illustration by George Cruikshank for Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Image courtesy of Wikipedia
I purchased the cabinet card because my own gg-grandfather Henry Payne (1843-1907) spent several years of his childhood, from the age of seven until he was fourteen, in the Ashby Union Workhouse. In fact his mother Ann Payne, who was widowed when Henry was only two, and suffered from epilepsy, died there in 1857. Although most likely to have been from the area around Nottingham, I thought that it might give a good impression of what Henry and his mother might have experienced.

However, it is not at all certain that the scene is in a workhouse. I estimate that there are between forty and fifty seated at the right-hand bench which is completely visible, and it is likely that there is a similar number of boys and girls at the left-hand table. There are about nineteen adults standing around the edge of the room, supervising what must be between sixty and a hundred children. The clothing worn by the women is not very clear, but I estimate that it was from some time in the 1880s.


The Workhouse, Southwell, a restored 19th Century workhouse run by the National Trust
I sent the image to staff at the Southwell Workhouse, situated not far from Nottingham, which is run by the National Trust and is one of the best preserved Victorian workhouses in England. Philip Jones, volunteer researcher, does not think it likely that it was at Southwell, and has suggested that it could be either the Nottingham Union Workhouse or a childrens' home in Nottingham, such as the Gordon Boys Home. Further enquiries at the Nottingham Local Studies Library are under way.

The photographer Alfred William Cox (1830-1888) was born in Nottingham and by the early 1850s was working there as an artist, also making picture frames and selling prints and artist's supplies. He opened a photographic studio at Brewill's Yard, Nottinghma with Sylvanus Redgate in 1856. Although the partnership did not last long, Cox's business continued to thrive, and he moved to new premises in St. James' Street in 1863. Heathcote and Heathcote (in Pioneers of Photography in Nottinghamshire 1841-1910, published by Nottinghamshire County Council, ISBN 0 902751 38 7) say that, "The standard of work produced by this studio was of excellent quality and the business enjoyed a first-class reputation." In 1876, however, Alfred Cox moved away from Nottingham and his wife Ellen Elizabeth (1832-1910) took over the business. Mrs. Cox continued to run the studio at this address with her sons Alfred and Henry William, and daughters Ellen Louisa and Mabel Maud until 1897.

If my date estimate of the 1880s for this photograph is correct, then it appears more likely to have been taken by Mrs Cox or one of her children.

Other Photographs in Lockets

Frances Castle also sent me these photographs of two sides of another locket from her family collection, which demonstrate that lockets were still popular well after the demise of the daguerreotype.


The Derby Local Studies Library sent her an image of a mounted albumen print in their collection, taken in 1872 by W.W. Winter, clearly signed by William Bakewell Sherwin (1811-1898), chemist, druggist and town councillor.


This enabled Frances to identify the male subject of the locket, and confirm that the woman on the other side was indeed, as she had suspected, Sherwin's second wife Susanna Columbell.

William B. Sherwin's grandson, Charles Bakewell Sherwin (1877-1950), was a photographer with premises at 10 St James' Street, Derby in the 1920s.

The Derby Local Studies Library's Portrait Collection

Apologies for the hiatus in Photo-Sleuth postings, which has been partly due to a long awaited family holiday to England. During this trip, I managed to fit in a visit to the Derby Local Studies Library (LSL), just off Irongate.

A few years ago, not long after I started compiling the Index to Derbyshire Photographers & Studios as an online resource for local and family historians, I received an email from noted Derbyshire historian, and ex-chief archivist at the Derby Local Studies Library, Maxwell Craven. He told me of the existence of a large collection of old portrait photographs held by the library, guessing that it would be of great interest to me in my studies of early Derby portrait studios. This collection is currently being digitised by the library, and will be made available online on the Picture The Past web site. However while at the library recently, I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to look through several hundred portrait photos.

The visit was kindly set up for me by Jane James, who is the Derby LSL's part-time family history researcher, and with whom I had communicated previously on other matters. She confirmed the existence of the portrait collection, and spoke with the Senior Librarian Trish Kenny about the nature of my web site. I was informed that the Derby LSL wishes to encourage such projects, creating resources for the use of the general public, and to this end would permit me to scan a selection of the photographs for reproduction on the web site. Trish and the other two library staff members, Mark Bowyer and Fiona Nevin, were very helpful, and I managed to come away a few hours later with detailed scans of several dozen cartes de visite, cabinet cards and portraits of other formats stored handily on a USB drive. I'm grateful to all of them, both for the opportunity and for the assistance. I hope I can do them justice.

Over the last few weeks, I've been steadily going through these scans, compiling them into the portfolios of photographers on the web site. Some of them are already online, for example in the profiles of James Brennen, John Burton & Sons, Richard Keene, J.W. Price, Clement Rogers and W.E. Swift. However, I thought I'd also preview some of the more interesting portraits in a series of postings here.


W.W. Winter's Midland road, Derby studio in the mid-1870s ...
A large proportion of them are from the Derby studio of W.W. Winter, which is still going. My brother and I walked past the premises several times recently, as it is only a short walk from the Derby railway station in Midland road.


... and the same building now, largely unchanged.
I will admit to being a little disappointed in the relative dearth of examples by other early (1860s) Derby photographers, of whom there were many, but this was more than made up by the fact that almost all of the portraits in the collection have the subjects named, and many are also dated. They portray men - and occasionally their wives - who were prominent members of the Victorian Derby community, including textile manufacturers, brass founders, engineers, mayors, magistrates, aldermen, a vaccination officer, clergymen, policemen, legal practitioners, a newspaper proprietor, innkeepers, bank managers, volunteer militia officers, stationers, printers, railway clerks, landowners, chemists, farmers and maltsters. I have thus been able to make some valuable additions to the portfolios of several studios. In fact, I've had to revamp the W.W. Winter profile, resulting in a complete revision of the classification and dating of the various card types. This part of the project is not yet complete, but I hope to have it finished and uploaded early in the New Year.