The Crystoleum: Bringing the Art of Photo Colourisation into the Home

Crystoleum sounds like the name of a Victorian fairground attraction, an entrance for which you might expect to see between Strange and Wilson's Aetherscope and the helter skelter. In fact it was another of the many photographic formats which appeared in the 1880s and 1890s and enjoyed a period of popularity which lasted until the Great War.


Edith and Maud Barnes of Ashbourne, c.1883-1885
Cabinet card portrait by Alfred Cox & Co., Nottingham
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin
This is a standard cabinet portrait, showing Edith and Maud Barnes dressed for a stroll in the noon day sun, complete with fake boulders and a landscape backdrop to complete the outdoors scene. Although they lived in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, where their father William Barnes was an ironmonger, it appears the family visited Nottingham frequently, because several of their photographic portraits were taken at the studio of Alfred W. Cox & Co. Edith was born in mid-1877, Maud roughly two years later, which places this portrait sitting around 1883-1885.


"Bamboo and Fan" card design by Trapp & Münch, Berlin
Cabinet card by Alfred Cox & Co., Tavistock Chambers, Market Place, Nottingham
Turning over the cabinet card reveals a design printed on the reverse which is very similar to "Bamboo and Fan" from Marion of Paris, described by Vaughan (2003) as introduced in 1884, although this particular example is by Trapp & Münch of Berlin.


The card stock used is of a medium intensity grey colour and has the appearance of having been made from recycled pulp in which the darker fibres are still visible, as shown above, of a type which became more commonly used in the mid-to late 1880s.


Edith and Maud Barnes of Ashbourne, c.1883-1885
Colourised cabinet card portrait by Alfred Cox & Co., Nottingham
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin
A second cabinet portrait, taken from the same negative, is likely to have been produced on the same occasion. The card mount is identical - albeit this one has not been trimmed at the base - but it shows signs of having been hand coloured. Although somewhat faded, the yellow in the hair, pink cheeks and dresses, brownish fur and red hat bands and cloth are still visible. The studio did, after all, bill themselves as "Photographers Miniature & Portrait Painters," and had offered "portraits in oil or crayon" from at least the early 1870s.


Edith and Maud Barnes of Ashbourne, c.1883-1885
Crystoleum portrait on glass
Photograph by Alfred Cox & Co., Nottingham
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin
The third in this series of similar portraits, while appearing in this image to be somewhat similar, bar the different colouring, is quite another format altogether. Closer examination of the original shows it to have been printed on the back of a slightly convex rectangular piece of fully translucent glass, roughly the same size as the original cabinet card.


Recycled carboard backing of crystoleum portrait
This is backed with a piece of card, apparently reused from an unwanted cardboard-backed print of an engraving, possibly of some European city. (Full marks to the first reader who can tell me what city it is, although it's not likely to have much relevance to this post).


Colourised back of crystoleum portrait
Carefully separating the cardboard from the glass, the owner (not myself) revealed a rather surprising picture, appearing similar to the efforts of a young child in a "paint-by-numbers" book. It was obvious, though, that the colours of this crude picture on the concave side of the glass matched perfectly those visible through the convex side and were, in fact, directly responsible for the not altogether displeasing colourised portrait.


Section of Crystoleum (Jones, 1911)
This portrait is a crystoleum, a format distinct from the crystalotype, an albumen-on-glass process patented by the American John Adams Whipple in 1850, used first for negatives and later for positives. The clearest description I have found of the process involved in producing a crystoleum portrait is by "P.R.S." in Cassell's Cyclopedia of Photography (Jones, 1911), which includes the following brief summary:

A is the front glass, on which a photograph B is pasted face downwards. When dry the photograph is made transparent, and delicate details coloured with ordinary oil colours, but the broad masses of colour are not put on. Another glass D, of the same size and shape as A, as put at the back, but is prevented from touching the photograph by means of strips of paper H, which leave a small space at C. On the back E of the second glass are painted the broad masses of colour. The whole is backed up with a piece of flat cardboard or other backing G, leaving a space F. When viewed from the front the coloyrs are seen through the transparent photograph and the whole has the appearance of a delicately painted picture on glass.

Disassembled crystoleum portrait (Whitman et al, 2007)
Whitman et al (2007) show a disassembled crystoleum portrait (above) and describe the process:

The Crystoleum process was popular from the 1880’s until the 1910’s, and was usually a albumen print face-mounted to convex glass with gum or paste. The paper is then rubbed away with sandpaper until the emulsion layer is exposed. What was left of the paper was made translucent, if needed, with a dry oil, wax or varnish. The fine details were then painted on the back of the photograph, a second piece of convex glass that has been broadly coloured is layered behind the image glass, and the package is bound with a paper backing.

Crystoleum portrait of unidentified young girl, undated
Chromo-Photographie, Jules Delarue, Genève
Image © and courtesy of Nordiska museet/The Nordic Museum
This crystoleum portrait of a young Swiss girl from the Nordic Museum, also usefully disassembled, has the same components, and the web site provides an image showing the back of the front glass with the "fine details" (below).


Crystoleum portrait, back of front glass and front of second glass
The first mention of the crystoleum that I have been able to find in the British newspapers is an advertisement in The Morning Post in June 1882 offering "Lessons given in this new and easily acquired Art of Painting in Oils. Proficiency guaranteed or money will be returned," in Oxford Street, London. This suggests to me that, provided one had an albumen print with which to work and the materials, which could readily be had at the local chemist, no great artistic skills were required to transform the photograph into a work of art.


Crystoleum portrait, back of second glass and front of backing card
Indeed by July 1885 the process was being described in full for readers of The Observer (Anon, 1885). It took another decade for it to reach such far flung parts of the Empire as New Zealand, but in August 1896 residents of Dunedin were regaled with details of how to participate in the delights of the "crystoleum craze" by an enthusiastic contributer to the Otago Witness (Anon, 1896).


Crystoleum portrait, unidentified place and photographer, undated
Image © and courtesy of Länsmuseet Gävleborg/Gävleborg County Museum
As shown by this scene of a country estate, perhaps somewhere in Sweden, the crystoleum process was not limited to portraits, and could be used to very good effect on landscape photographs.

The portrait of Edith and Maud Barnes was taken in the early to mid-1880s, which roughly equates to the period when the crystoleum started to become popular, transforming into something of a do-it-yourself style process. The Barnes crystoleum may of course have been created some time after the original cabinet cards, but it is interesting to speculate whether it was done by the Nottingham studio of Alfred Cox, or perhaps by a member of the Barnes family. Either is conceivable, and we are unlikely to ever know for sure, unless the reused engraving print can be identified as coming from the Barnes household.

If you have a crystoleum in your own collection, I'd be interested in hearing from you and seeing some images, particularly if the subjects are members your own family. Although it appears to have been very popular in late Victorian and Edwardian times, many examples won't have survived and they may not be very common.

References

Anon (1885) All About Crystoleum Painting, Observer, Volume 7, Issue 345, 18 July 1885, Page 4, Courtesy of Early Canterbury Photographers.

Anon (1896) A Lesson in Crystoleum Painting (by Cigarette), Otago Witness, 27 August 1896, p.42, Courtesy of Papers Past.

Anon (2009) Victorian Crystoleums - How they were made, Arthaul.com

Jones, B.E. (1974) Crystoleums, in Cassell's Cyclopedia of Photography, Ayer Publishing (Reprint of the 1911 Edition by Cassell, London), p. 154-155.

Vaughan, Roger (2003) Dating CDV photographs from the designs on the back: The 1880s Page Two, Victorian and Edwardian Photographs - Roger Vaughan Personal Collection.

Whitman, K., Osterman, M. & Chen, J.-J. (2007) The History and Conservation of Glass Supported Photographs, George Eastman House, Advanced Residency Program in Photograph Conservation, p. 36.

Sepia Saturday 94: Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross

Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross,
To see a fine lady upon a white horse;
Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,
And she shall have music wherever she goes.

Traditional

Only time and the collective judgement of fellow Sepia Saturday contributers will tell, but I may be able to make a claim as the closest follower of Alan's theme this week. I believe this young lady, pictured in an unnamed 4¼" x 3¼" paper print from c.1910-1914, and doing her best to ignore the persistently annoying younger brother still in nappies, is well into her training for a career to be spent astride ponies of the inanimate kind. Judging by her apparent age, she may even be the same curly-headed young Queenslander who later caught the roving eye of that wheeled toy horse in 1937.

Here, however, she is less concerned with pretending any skill at polo or other frivolous pursuits. It is clear that she is determined to ride her steed through the jungle ahead, but is just starting to appreciate the importance of an unexpected photo opportunity. For more of those captured moments presented by a squad of sepia sycophants, check out Sepia Saturday's offerings.

Sepia Saturday 76: The trouble with animals and children

There’s a good reason photographers were often reluctant to photograph animals or children in the 19th Century, one which is ably demonstrated by blurred pet in the photo for Alan Burnett’s Sepia Saturday prompt this week.  Of course, some practitioners carved a niche for themselves by specialising in children.  The thing is, they’re difficult to control, particularly in an unfamiliar environment, won’t keep keep still for more than a few seconds at a time, and are pretty unpredictable.


In order to avoid such errant motion on the part of babies or pets, portrait photographs were sometimes taken while they were dozing.  In this nicely balanced portrait, however, Derby photographer James Brennen has successfully managed to capture a dashing young man in a smart outfit with his very well behaved dog, the latter alert and facing directly into the camera lens. This was pretty unusual for the day – I think it was taken in the mid- to late 1870s – as gelatin dry plates with their greater speeds had yet to become commonly available.  The slightly washed out appearance of the print and the paucity of well defined shadows suggest to me that Brennen may have used reflective lighting panels, or more likely took the portrait outdoors.  The additional light would have permitted a shorter exposure time, making such a portrait possible, but would not have been easy, and it demonstrates some considerable skill on the part of the photographer.


By the time this unidentified young lad visited some unknown studio for his postcard portrait half a century later, perhaps in the 1920s or 1930s, artificial lighting was being used for visual effect, rather than to freeze motion.  However, the photographer still found it convenient to have stuffed dog on wheels to grab the attention of his young subjects.  The promise of a play with the toy afterwards no doubt encouraged the boy to stand where and how he was told, and give a most rewarding smile when prompted.

Derby Photographers: Diana Studios, 1928-1952

Since I am currently updating the profile of Derby photographic firm, the Diana Studio, I'm taking the opportunity to share three new portraits here.


This cheeky looking girl, perhaps five years old, has no difficulty playing the part of a gypsy girl in this early portrait from Diana Studios. The studio setting is simple with a shaggy rectangular rug on the floor, and a dark backdrop painted with a rural scene which was used by the studio in their early years. The girl with her striking pose and costume are clearly the centre of attraction. I estimate it was taken between 1929 and 1932.


The Diana Studios' first postcard portraits were pre-printed with a "divided back" design on the reverse, so that they could be sent through the post. Even though they continued producing postcard sized portraits, they soon changed the design in favour of a simple studio stamp which was applied directly to the back of the printed photo, as shown above. The firm operated from at least early 1928, at centrally situated premises in St Peter's Street, Derby. An early portrait describes the studio at 45 St Peter's Street, situated "over the Carlton Shoe Shop," but later designs are from 48 St Peter's Street, which appears to be on the opposite (east) side of the street.


Patricia Hurworth sent me these two portraits of herself by Diana Studios which are clearly a cut above the standard postcard style. Not only has the portrait been enlarged - to a size of 117.5 x 164.5 mm - but it has been quite elaborately hand coloured.


They were taken in 1945 or 1946, and the second which is roughly trimmed and remains uncoloured, may have been a studio discard. Both feature the painted backdrop showing a column and painted panelling which used in the Diana studio in the late 1930s and early to mid-1940s. The studio apparently continued operating until 1952.

Many thanks to Pat and others for their contributions.

Sepia Saturday 71: The difference a well chosen hat makes

A hat is a shameless flatterer, calling attention to an escaping curl, a tawny braid, a sprinkling of freckles over a pert nose, directing the eye to what is most unique about a face. Its curves emphasize a shining pair of eyes, a lofty forehead; its deep brim accentuates the pale tint of a cheek, creates an aura of prettiness, suggests a mystery that awakens curiosity in the onlooker.

by Jeanine Larmoth, author , one time copy editor of Harpers Bazaar and a contributing editor at Town & Country, courtesy of The Hat Ladies of Charleston, whose annual Easter Promenade looks like a lot of fun. If you happen to be in Charleston, South Carolina this Saturday between 11:00 and 11:30, be sure to go well armed with both hat and camera.


Unfortunately there are slim pickings relating to millinery in my small library, so for dating I must rely to a large extent on an analysis of the card mount. This study of card mounts from the studio of Derby photographer W.W. Winter suggests that these two designs (Type XX - nine medals, gold; Type XXI - sixteen medals) were used with some degree of overlap from 1886 (latest medal depicted on Type XX), through 1888 (latest medal on XXI) to 1890. The negative number 69304 is written clearly in pencil on the reverse of the bonnet portrait, and this appears to correlate with other portraits in my Winter portfolio taken around 1889-1890. The identities of these two patient sisters who obediently struck a pose for the photographer, either several times on the same occasion, or on subsequent visits, was sadly not recorded. It would be nice to think that at least one of the visits was part of a sunny Easter outing.

My contribution to this week's edition of the Sepia Saturday series, "a potential Easter parade of rabbits, bonnets, and eggs."

Sidney's first appearance at Church, 16 June 1861

I often think of the rise of popular portrait photography as having really taken off with the introduction of the carte de visite by Disderi, a craze for which is commonly reputed to have been precipitated around 1860 by the enthusiastic British Royal couple. However, the collodion positive process, which had been introduced by Scott Archer in 1852, and resulted in the format known in the United States as the ambrotype, was responsible for the birth of another portrait type which Coe (1976) describes as also having become well known on that side of the Atlantic, the ferrotype or tintype. Writing about a recent visit to the Who Do You Think You Are? Live! family history show in London, Maureen Taylor remarked on her Family Tree Magazine photodetective blog that she noticed how tintypes are far less commonly seen in the United Kingdom. Perhaps this is the reason I understimate it's importance in those early years.

After having been first described in France in 1853, and then introduced into the US in the late 1850s by Smith and Griswold (Leggatt, 1999) the tintype became enormously popular from around 1860 onwards. There were significant advantages in this process, particularly to the itinerant photographer, in that the outlay expenditure for setting up in business was low, and it was quick and cheap to produce, and versatile. The lack of a negative meant that it was a one off portrait, which was the most significant disadvantage - for duplicates one had to rather go the carte de visite route. Their cheapness and versatility meant that tintypes were produced in huge quantities across the North America continent throughout the 1860s and 1870s, and remained enormously popular for the remainder of the Victorian era and even well into the 1900s (Hannavy, 1997). Leggatt (1999) states that, in his opinion,

"Compared with other processes the tintype tones seem uninteresting. They were often made by unskilled photographers, and their quality was very variable. They do have some significance, however, in that they made photography available to working classes, not just to the more well-to-do."

While I have to disagree about the mid-range tones of the tintypes rendering them uninteresting - to me they impart a feeling of warmth and immediacy generally not seen in the more common albumen prints of the carte de visite - the availability of these portraits to almost every facet of society often provides a glimpse into a side of life rarely encountered elsewhere.


The roughly trimmed early tintype portrait shown here epitomises everything I like about the collodion positive format. The tonal range in this particular, unenhanced image is more than adequate, and has been embellished with some skillful hand colouring of the subject's pink cheeks and the light blue cravat tied around his neck. In fact, the tones of the tintype impart such depth to the photograph that I had to check carefully for further retouching. The stylised oak leaf-patterned edging to his jacket, the tartan check and folds of his skirt, the gold (I think!) patterned head band and dashing feathers on his dark velvet cap, the slightly hesitant expression on his face, even his neatly laced up boots, all point to it being a special day for the young subject of this portrait.


A lthough we might be able to make an educated guess at the occasion, a paper label affixed to the reverse of the tintype, and inscribed in black ink with what appears to be a contemporary hand, handily reveals the purpose of the sitting:

Sidneys first appearance at Church. 16. June 1861

The lack of an apostrophe notwithstanding, I'm very thankful to his mother for recording the event for posterity. Surely it was his mother who dressed him so carefully for the important event, led him to church, and then into the studio, calmed his fears about about the head clamp being fixed into place and the strange man under the dark cloth fiddling for what seemed like ages, and likewise carefully wrote out the label when they got home later that day?


American poet William Cullen Bryant's mother recorded that he made his first appearance at church in the middle of his third year (Muller, 2008). This young lad appears a little older - perhaps about four years old - but it is likely that this was but the first of several visits that he made to a photographic studio during his lifetime. Audrey Linkman writes that most photographic portraits in the 1800s were taken to celebrate or record events that she refers to as rites of passage, such as christenings, birthdays, weddings and anniversaries. Although few of the photographs in our family history collections have generally been lucky enough to survive with such helpful annotations, it is often a useful exercise to examine portraits with a view to which significant event in the subject's, or subjects', life it might portray.

The carte de visite portrait shown above, which I used in a previous article on Photo-Sleuth, was probably taken in the late 1860s, and from the dress worn by the child clearly celebrated it's christening. Other events, such as the breeching of boys and the confirmation of both sexes may be more difficult to pick out, since the accompanying clothing changes may not be so obvious to us a century and more later. I'll be keeping a sharp eye out for such possibilties, both in my own old family photos as well as my collection of purchased photographs, and will hopefully feature some more in the coming months, as I return to a more regular posting of articles and images here on Photo-Sleuth.


These photographs have an even greater poignancy for me at the moment because, just as happened in the household of sometime reader of this blog intelliwench last year, my eldest daughter has just started at university a month ago. Of course this has occasioned some wistful perusing of old photographs, including the record of her first day at "big school" some dozen odd years ago, shown above. This shot captures her in the ubiquitous "two sizes too big/she'll grow into it" school uniform on her way to the car as we head off at the beginning of that first day, with her two younger, over-excited and very jealous sisters desperately wishing they were going too.

Some things change, some just stay the same.

References

Coe, Brian (1976) The Birth of Photography: The story of the formative years 1800-1900, (1989 Edition) London: Spring Books, ISBN 0-600-56296-4, 144p.

Hannavy, John (1997) Victorian Photographer at Work, Series: A History in Camera, Risborough: Shire Publications Ltd., ISBN 0-7478-0358-7, 136p.

Leggatt, Robert (1999) A History of Photography: The Tintype Process. Last updated 24 Sep 2008.

Linkman, Audrey (n.d.) Picturing the Family, Ch. 5.4 Rites of Passage, Unit A173_1, The Open University.

Muller, Gilbert H. (2008) William Cullen Bryant: Author of America, Ch 1. America's First Poet, SUNY Press, ISBN 978-0-7914-7467-9, 400p.

Sixth-plate tintype of "Sidneys first appearance at Church, 16 June 1861," by unknown photographer, Collection of Brett Payne

Carte de visite portrait of Unidentified woman and child, by Job Bramley, the Family Fry Pan Portrait Gallery, Leicester, Collection of Brett Payne

35mm colour print of LFP's first day at school, by Brett Payne, 13 January 1998, Collection of Brett Payne

Job Bramley and The Family Fry Pan Portrait Gallery

I purchased this carte de visite a couple of years ago on eBay mainly because I thought it was an unusually striking portrait. However, the reverse of the card mount revealed a story which proved to be as intriguing as the subjects.


The portrait is of a young woman, perhaps in her mid- to late twenties or early thirties, with a young child in her lap. What makes it unusual, at least to me, is that the child appears to be asleep. I think there will be quite a few readers who will assert that she is dead and that this is a post-mortem portrait, but I don't think so. The woman is facing straight into the camera with a very direct look, and it's not exactly a happy look, but I don't think it's a sad one either. The child looks asleep, with slightly tousled hair, and may be wearing a christening gown. I think the photographer has merely taken advantage of the opportunity. In other words, the child being asleep would enable him obtain a sharp portrait without the usual fidgeting and impatience.

The style of the woman's clothes, her hair, the studio setting and the card mount all suggest to me a date of the mid- to late 1860s. The gigot or leg-of-mutton sleeve, narrow at the shoulder, and flaring from just below the shoulder to become fullest at the mid-forearm, and then tapering rapidly down to become closed at the wrists was common in the early to mid-1860s, as was the full, dome-shaped striped crinoline skirt. The ribbons around her neck are in a style which became fashionable around 1866. Her hair is centrally parted and tied back above her ears, which also became fashionable only in the second half of the 1860s. The straight-on, full face seated pose is of a style which was more common in the 1850s - the ambrotype era - but would perhaps have been employed in this case in preference to a standing profile, or three-quarter view because of the necessity to include of the sleeping child. The studio background is simple, with a nicely painted backdrop showing a plain wall with low skirting board, a window with open shutters, and a portion of a rural scene. Whatever studio furniture is being used, it is hidden by the woman's boddice and skirts.


The card mount is made from relatively thin card with square corners, indicating a date of prior to c. 1874. The design on the reverse is of a style which was fairly common in the late 1860s and early 1870s. A device or emblem - in this case, rather unusually a frying pan - is enveloped by text in a single font style, but three different font sizes, and the whole is surrounded with a simple double line frame with scalloped corners. The frames are more commonly seen in the 1870s, but are not too rare in the late 1860s to preclude this example dating from that period.


I have seen many different emblems used as the centrepiece in early card mount designs, from the standard monograms, coats of arms, artist's palettes and early box cameras to cherubs, Freemason's insignia and other heraldic devices. However, I have never before encountered a frying pan. It suggested to me that the practitioner may have been taking portraits merely as a sideline, and provided a clue to the photographer's primary occupation, but it was not an easy one to research.

Initially, a simple Google search for the string "Family Fry Pan" and the word "Leicester" revealed an 1866 book entitled The History of Signboards from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (by Jacob Larwood & John Camden Hotten) with the following (p. 396):

The Frying Pan is still a constant ironmonger's sign - thus in Highcross Street, Leicester, there is a gigantic gilt specimen with the inscription "the Family Fry Pan." There are trades tokens of "John Vere, at ye Frying Pan in Islington, Mealman," which considered in connexion with pancakes, one can understand; but it certainly looks out of place at the door of Samuel Wadsell, bookseller at the Golden Frying Pan, in Leadenhall Street, 1680.

Deducing the identity of J.Bramley was not quite so easy. Although there was a well known firm of ironmongers by the name of Bramley operating in Leicester during the 1870s and 1880s, the name of the proprietor was William Forrester Bramley and his premises were in Granby Street. He did have a son John Simpson Bramley who was listed as an ironmonger's assistant in 1871, but he appears not to have been the photographer in question.


View Larger Map
The key to the story actually lies in the premises listed on the reverse of the card mount. From an examination of street listings in trade directories of the 1860s to 1880s, the Family Fry Pan Studio appears to have been located on the south-east corner of High Cross and High Streets, as shown in the GoogleMaps view above. In the early 1860s premises at this address were occupied by one William Banton, who operated an eating house and refreshment rooms (1861-1862) and later, presumably after he had obtained a licence, a beerhouse and boarding house. However by 1864 the shop had been taken over by Mary Parker, widow of a Leicester hosier, Thomas Parker. She operated as a glass, china, earthenware, hardware & ironware dealer and wholesale haberdasher, and from around 1870 her sister and brother-in-law Elizabeth and Job Bramley joined her. A trade directory of that year lists the business as Parker & Bramley, hardware dealers and haberdashers and shows Job Bramley as the manager, although the census a years later describes him as "shopman to [a] haberdasher."


Edward VII postbox on St Nicholas Place, Leicester
Building on cnr of High & High Cross streets in the background
Image © Copyright Keith Williams & courtesy of Geograph.co.uk and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence
Job Bramley was born c. 1815-1816 at Basford, probably a son of a woodman William Bramley. He was a tailor in his twenties and, after marrying Elizabeth Butt at Nottingham in 1840, lived in Willoughby-on-the-Woulds, Sneinton and Stapleford (Nottinghamshire) before settling in Derby between 1845 and 1851. By 1861 he also operated a druggist's shop at 20 Derby Road. They joined Elizabeth's sister Mary in Leicester at some stage in the late 1860s, although the exact date is unknown. In 1877 he was listed as a manager, and a year later as a haberdasher & general dealer, so perhaps the partnership had been dissolved by then.

By April 1881 Job and Elizabeth Bramley had moved to Halifax, Yorkshire, where he described himself as a general dealer, and the premises at 106 High Street, Leicester had been taken over by Alfred James Garner. By 1891 the proprietor of the business, still known as The Family Frypan, was William Hallam. Further references to The Family Frypan have been found for the first decade of the 20th Century. Job Bramley died at Halifax in 1892, aged 75.

The most likely date for the portrait is probably c. 1867-1870. Bernard and Pauline Heathcote's excellent index to Leicester photographers doesn't mention either Job Bramley or the Family Frypan Studio, and I think this suggests that it must have only been operating for a brief period of time. This seems a pity to me, because I think Bramley had a good eye for portrait photography, and he might have done well. However, he would have been up against considerable competition, such as the well established firm of .John Burton & Sons and others.

References

Larwood, Jacob & Hotten, John Camden (1866) The History of Signboards from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, (12th impression, 1908, Chatto & Windus, London, courtesy of BiblioBazaar and GoogleBooks)

Trade Directories from the University of Leicester's Historical Directories
White's Directory and Gazetteer Nottinghamshire, 1844
White's History, Gazetteer and Directory of Derbyshire and Sheffield, 1857
Slater's Directory of Leicestershire, 1862
History, Gazetteer & Directory of Leicestershire & Rutland, 1863
Wright's Midland Directory, 1864
Buchanan & Co.'s Directory of Leicester & Market Towns, 1867
Street, Alphabetical & Trade Directory of Leicester, 1870
Post Office Directory of Leicestershire & Rutland, 1876
History, Gazetteer & Directory of Leicestershire & Rutland, 1877
Wright's Directory of Leicester & Six Miles Round, 1878
Kelly's Directory of Leicestershire & Rutland, 1881
Kelly's Directory of Leicestershire, 1891

UK Census 1841-1901 Indexed images from Ancestry.co.uk

International Genealogical Index (IGI) from the LDS Church & FamilySearch

General Register Office Index to Births, Marriages & Deaths from FreeBMD

Heathcote, Bernard V. & Heathcote, Pauline F. (1982) Leicester Photographic Studios in Victorian & Edwardian Times, publ. Royal Photographic Society Historical Group

A Scottish family in Staffordshire

Robert William Melbourne, September 1896
Cabinet card portrait by George Renwick of Burton-on-Trent, Negative #16601
Image © and courtesy of James Morley & What's That Picture
James Morley recently sent me scans of a group of cabinet cards by Burton-on-Trent photographers George Renwick and Richard Keene Junior which he purchased at an auction. Quite apart from my interest in Burton studios, this group includes some fine identified and dated portraits, which enabled me to do some background research on the subjects. The first four in the series were clearly taken at the same sitting - the negative numbers appear to have been 16599-16602, although one of them is not legible.


Negative #16602
The birth of Robert William Melbourne was registered in the September quarter of 1892 at the Burton register office. He was born in Burton-on-Trent, the only child of Charles James Melbourne (1858-1935) and Elizabeth Janet Smith (1860-1925), who were married in 1891. At the time of these portraits he would have been about four years old, plus or minus a couple of months. It's even possible that the visit to the photographer was a celebration of his fourth birthday.


Negative #16599
Robert's father was a commercial clerk who, by the time of the 1901 Census, had become manager of a brewery. I have been unable to discover which of the nineteen Burton breweries mentioned by Kelly's 1900 trade directory for which he worked. The largest, controlled by the firm of Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton, covered an area of 160 acres, but there were many smaller ones, and the area had become famous for the quality of its ales.


Negative # not legible
Robert William Melbourne continued to live in Burton until at least 1940 - I found an entry for him in a directory of that date at 128 Station street - but I'm not sure whether he married and/or had children.


Possibly Charles James Melbourne, c.1895-1900
Undated cabinet card portrait by Richard Keene Junior of Burton-on-Trent
Image © and courtesy of James Morley & What's That Picture
Charles James Melbourne was born in 1858, also at Burton, one of three children of brewer's clerk Charles James Melbourne (1826-1878) and his wife Helen Beck. Charles James senior was, in turn, born in Belper, youngest son of a nail manufacturer William Melbourne (c1783-1846) and his first wife Phebe Williams (c1786-1828). He was therefore a brother to Ann Melbourne, the wife of photographer George White (c1810-1880) of Chesterfield and Blackpool.


Probably Robert W. Melbourne and his mother Elizabeth Janet née Smith, c.1893-4
Undated cabinet card portrait by George Renwick of Burton-on-Trent, Negative #14693
Image © and courtesy of James Morley & What's That Picture
Robert William's mother Elizabeth Janet Smith was born at Tutbury in 1860, one of eight children of an engine smith James Smith and his wife Janet Mackie, both of Scottish origin. Although they lived first in Tutbury and later in Hatton, William Smith worked as a brewer's engineer, presumably in Burton. He had emigrated from Renfrewshire, Scotland to Staffordshire around 1852.

Although the Melbourne family had lived in Belper for several generations, the other three of Robert's grandparents were born in Scotland. This strong Scottish heritage obviously influenced his parents' choice of the "Bonnie Prince Charlie" style of clothing worn for the two portraits by George Renwick.


Card mount designs from George Renwick's Burton-on-Trent artisitic & photographic studio, c.1876-c.1916
George Renwick (1849-1919) operated a studio in the Staffordshire town of Burton-on-Trent from around 1876 until at least 1916. Initially, he appears to have operated form his parents' home at 105 Station Street, but by 1880 he had moved into premises at 20 Station Street and remained there until 1905. Between 1905 and 1912 he moved to Bank Square.


One of the cabinet cards has a rather crumpled tissue protector depicting a rural scene with pond, tree and windmill. These tissue protectors, although very commonly used at the time, have often not survived. Many, like this one, were generic although some had the photographer's name printed on them.


Another of the photographs in James' collection was enclosed in a translucent envelope with the studio's name and address printed in brown ink, as shown above. In my experience, even less of thes envelopes appear to have survived.

Many thanks to James Morley for the opportunity to feature this collection of portraits.

Smile for the Camera (13th Edition) - All Creatures Great and Small

The title of this edition of the Smile for the Camera Carnival, hosted as usual by footnoteMaven at Shades of the Departed, presented something of a dilemma for me as I'm not much of a family pet kind of person. However, the other day I came across this carte de visite portrait in my collection which fits the bill perfectly.


"All Creatures Great and Small"
I think I'll leave the portrait to speak for itself. Neither of the subjects are identified, so perhaps readers could suggest appropriate names for both of them. The studio furniture and background is not at all elaborate, and does not appear to have been very expertly arranged. Indeed the plinth on which the dog is perched could have been a relict of the 1860s!


To give this article at least some semblance of respectability, I'd better discuss the photographer. Frederick Hughes operated a studio in the town of Leicester from the late 1880s until at least 1906. He moved to Leicester from Stonehouse in Gloucestershire around 1888. The design on the reverse of the card mount is printed in gold ink on a glossy bright red surface, and is of a style which started to become popular during the late 1880s. The address shown is Campbell Buildings, 10 Belgrave Road. Heathcote & Heathcote (1982) list the following addresses of studio premises operated by Hughes:

1888-1898: Campbell Buildings, 12½ London Rd, Leicester
1900: 1 Argyle Terrace, Belgrave Rd, Leicester
1902: 29 Belgrave Rd, Leicester
1902-1906: 109 (or 107) Belgrave Gate, Leicester

He was followed in 1909 at this last address by Alex McInnes. I estimate that the portrait was taken between 1889 and 1894.

References

Heathcote, Bernard V. & Heathcote, Pauline F. (1982) Leicester Photographic Studios in Victorian & Edwardian Times, published by the Historical Group of the Royal Photographic Society.

J. Burton's Galerie Francaise of Aston Road, Birmingham

Angela Barrett recently sent me scans of four cartes de visite identified on the reverse as having been taken by J. Burton of Aston Road, Birmingham, wondering if this was the same photographer as the John Burton & Sons who operated a branch studio in Birmingham in the 1860s, and who I featured in a previous Photo-Sleuth article. The photographs were in a purchased leather bound, gilt-edged album with brass clasps identified as having belonged to one George Ernest Nind (born 1869).


The collection of cdvs is an interesting lot. Three of them depict two or three small children, possibly aged between one and four years, while the fourth shows a woman perhaps in her late twenties or early thirties. Three of the portraits have been taken in what appears to be a standard studio setting, with the same chair, painted backdrop, curtain and carpet. The remaining portrait is outdoors on the grass. Two of the pictures show a couple of the smaller children seated in a perambulator, or early pram.


I believe that the portraits were taken in the early to mid-1870s, say between c. 1871 and 1875, deduced from a combination of several factors, including the woman's hair, the style of her clothing and the "studio" setting, all of which are typical of this period.

I managed to find a birth record for George Ernest Nind in the GRO indexes transcribed and presented online by FreeBMD, showing a registration in the Registration District of Cleobury Mortimer, spanning the boundaries of the counties of Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire, in the March quarter of 1869. His family also appears in the 1871, 1881 and 1891 Censuses (available online by subscription from Ancestry), with which I was able to draw up the following family outline:

John Smith NIND b. 1840 Sedgeberrow WOR d. 1924 Worcester WOR m: 1864 Elizabeth Mary SHERRARD b. 1843 Bromley St Leonard, London MID d. 1899 Martley WOR
|- John Sherrard NIND b. c.Aug 1864 Cradley HER
|- Eleanor Mary NIND b. c.Nov 1865 Cradley HER
|- William Charles NIND b. c.Nov 1866 Cradley HER
|- Frederic Augustus NIND b. c.Nov 1867 Cradley HER
|- George Ernest NIND b. c.Feb 1869 Kinlet SAL
|- Henry Edward NIND b. c.Nov 1869 Kinlet SAL
|- Elizabeth Ellen NIND b. c.Nov 1870 Kinlet SAL
|- Florence Emily NIND b. c.Feb 1872 Kinlet SAL
|- Percy NIND b. c.1873 Kinlet SAL
|- Edmund Robert NIND b. c.Aug 1874 St John Worcester WOR
|- Archibald Ralph NIND b. c.Nov 1877 St John Worcester WOR
|- Francis (Frank) Horace NIND b. c.Aug 1879 St John Worcester WOR
|- Son NIND b. c.1881 St John Worcester WOR
|- Marguerite Louise NIND b. c.Nov 1883 St John Worcester WOR
|- Daughter NIND b. c.1887 St John Worcester WOR

George Nind was one of fifteen children of a farmer and haulier/contractor John Smith Nind (1840-1924) and his wife Elizabeth Mary née Sherrard (1843-1899). They lived in Cradley, Herefordshire (1864-1867), Kinlet, Shropshire (1869-1873) and Worcester, Worcestershire (1875-1891). If these portraits depict members of this family group, and that is by no means certain, then there are a large number of children to choose from.


One of Angela's correspondents had suggested that the perambulator might have been a photographer's prop, and probably not affordable to the ordinary family. However, I think it more likely to have belonged to the family who were photographed. I found an engraving of a permabulator of very similar design from this period on the Smithsonian Institution Libraries web site and the following reference from the book, A Manual of Domestic Economy by John Henry Walsh, published in 1874 [the full text of this book is available online at Google Books]:

The Perambulator is one of the most extraordinary investions of the day, and chiefly from its extreme simplicity. Any one who has attempted to draw the old-fashioned child's carriage will have felt its weight and the disagreeable nature of the duty; and yet, until within the last quarter of a century, although very nearly the same principle had been adopted for Bath chairs during more than a century, no one thought of extending it to that for the child. They are now made so extensively, and at so low a rate, that they may be procured in every village; but they are not always manufactured in the best possible way.

The suggestion is that by the second half of the Eighteenth Century permabulators had indeed become affordable to many families.


A fifth carte de visite with a view of an unidentified church, also by J. Burton of Aston Road, was pasted on top of the frontispiece of the album.


The firm of John Burton & Sons operated a branch studio on the corner of New Street and Bennett's Hill in central Birmingham from 1862 until 1866. The card mount above is from this period, although probably taken at the Derby branch. From what I can tell, they never had a branch on Aston Road, Birmingham, and for this reason, I think it unlikely that these portraits were by the rather more famous Burton firm which had its origins in Leicester, as they appear to have been taken several years after the closure of the New Street branch.


The reverse of the card mount used for all five photographs, shown above, is very interesting. It uses a style of design which became popular in the early 1870s, as displayed in Roger Vaughan's excellent and very useful analysis of designs through the decades. However, it is also very similar to the design which had been used some years earlier by Burton & Sons when at their Birmingham studio. It may be that the "Aston Road" Burton was trying to get some spin-off of trade from this association.


I have as yet been unable to find any details of another "J. Burton" operating as a photographer in Aston or Birmingham, but have little doubt of his existence since, apart from your five examples, I was able to find several others on the web. Two of these are displayed in Roger Vaughan's large collection of Victorian cartes de visite. They are reproduced above by Roger's kind permission. The portrait of the two girls has the same chair, back wall, curtain and carpet as seen in the previous portraits, although the painted backdrop has changed, and there is an additional circular side table, upon which one girl rests her right elbow. Roger believes the vignetted portrait of the boy may be a copy of another photograph. Unfortunately neither are dated or have further details of the subjects or the studio, but all have an identical card mount design to Angela's, and appear to date from approximately the same time period, i.e. the early to mid-1870s.


I also found this carte de visite view of a church by J. Burton of Aston Road posted in a thread entitled "Identifying a church" by Colin Baker on the Birmingham History Forum, later identified as the Holy Trinity church, located on the corner of Trinity and Birchfield Roads in Aston (Satellite view of location from GoogleMaps).

There are a several pointers which lead me to think that this "J. Burton" may have been something of an itinerant, travelling or fairground practitioner, in spite of - or perhaps even because of - the "Aston Road" address shown on his printed card mount. The photographer has not taken a great deal of trouble over his "studio" background, demonstrating some inexperience. Although there are three parts to it, the right-hand edge of the painted backdrop is rather badly tacked onto the plain "wooden" wall. In a more established studio, I would have expected this join to have been hidden by some sort of strip to disguise it, and at least present the illusion of a doorway to an outside view. In one of the portraits, there is a significant gap between the carpet and the "skirting board." The presence of the skirting board, presumably fixed to a solid wall of some sort, rather than another canvas sheet, suggests to me that it was at least taken indoors, although probably in a photographer's van.


The subject of the painted backdrop interests me even more, as it appears to depict a fairground tent/stall. A woman and child are looking at the wares on display, while a seated woman points to items on the table. Some pots and pans are hanging at the front of the tent and I think I can see some bottles on the table. The writing on the side of the tent reads, "JOUETS D'ENF..." which has been interpreted by one of Angela's correspondents (the Curator of Costume at the Victoria & Albert Museum of Childhood) as Jouets d'Enfants or "children's toys". This illustration of what may be a scene at a carnival or fair strongly suggests to me that the photographer himself might be a frequenter of such events.

In Pauline Gashinski's notes about showman Randall Williams on her British Fairground Ancestors web site, she states:

"When new regulations prohibited the showmen from exhibiting at Birmingham’s Onion Fair, Randall was instrumental in establishing a new fair at Aston on the border of Birmingham on some waste land known as 'The Old Pleck'. Randall took on the role as lessee of the new venue for a number of years - calling it [the] 'Birmingham Fair'."

She includes the following advertisement from The Birmingham Gazette from 1875:

"Birmingham Pleasure Fair
Aston Road
On Thursday, Friday and Saturday next
30th September, 1st and 2nd October.
Applications for ground to Randall Williams
18 Summer Street, Birmingham
Fireworks on Thursday Evening"

On the same web page, in a report from The Era dated 11 November 1893, there is a mention of a J. Burton, one of a group of van-dwellers and other travellers attending a meeting with Randall Williams at the Rotherham Statutes Fair. While it may be a simple coincidence, it seems quite possible that this J. Burton was the same person who had operated a travelling photographic booth in the early to mid-1870s.


All of this points to the five photographs from Angela's album having been taken by a travelling photographer in the early to mid-1870s, possibly not far from their home. During the period in question they moved from Kinlet in Shropshire to Henwick Road in the parish of St John-in-Bedwardine, Worcester, and it seems likely that the church shown in the fifth carte de visite (detail above) might be the parish church from one of these two places.


Parish Church, St John-in-Bewardine, Worcester, Worcestershire
Image © and courtesy of Sally Lloyd
It looks similar, but not identical, to the Parish church of St John-in-Bewardine, Worcester [Satellite image from Google Maps], shown in this sample from a series of recent photographs by Sally Lloyd on Flickr. I wondered whether perhaps there was some significant rebuilding in the late 19th Century, but I may be completely off track.


Parish Church, St John the Baptist, Kinlet, Shropshire
Image © Gillian Palmer and courtesy of William LaMartin
The parish church of St John the Baptist at Kinlet has a similar crenellated tower, but quite a few significant differences which, I think, rule it out completely.

My investigations into the identity of this church are rather inconclusive, so I am hoping that some readers will be able to help in due course. Likewise, I'm also hoping that further sightings of, and perhaps portraits by, J. Burton of Aston Road will surface in due course. Please don't hesitate to get in touch if you can help.