Sepia Saturday 178: Polyfoto, The Natural Photography

I do appreciate that, for Saturday Sepians at least, sepia is a state of mind rather than a colour, shade or bygone photographic hue, but this week I will share a photograph in the traditionally sepian style from my aunt's family collection.


Lieutenant Charles Leslie Lionel Payne, 1941
Unmounted silver gelatin print (76 x 98mm)
Image © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
Her father - my grandfather - had served as a machine gunner in the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the Great War but, when the Second World War broke out, at 47 he was a little old to head off abroad, and was commissioned as an officer in the Pioneer Corps. Judging by the number of passport-style shots of my grandfather taken during the war years, he and the rest of the family were rather proud of his achievements, and justifiably so. In early 1942 he was promoted from Lieutenant to the rank of Captain, and by mid-1943 he was Major Payne, Officer Commanding 315 Company at Newport, Monmouthshire.


Reverse of silver gelatin print (76 x 98mm)
Image © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
The back of an almost identical print has the remains of stamp edging stuck to the four edges, suggesting that it may at one time have been affixed to a mount or frame of some sort. Both this and the previous print have a small number 60 pencilled on the back, in the lower right-hand corner.


Lieutenant Charles Leslie Lionel Payne, 1941
Unmounted silver gelatin prints (each strip 110 x 37mm)
Image © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
The prints are sepia-toned enlargements of a negative which also resulted in the two strips of 1¼"-square portraits above, and are almost certainly a product of the Polyfoto process. Unfortunately the reverse only has the date 1941 (corrected from 1940) written in blue ink by my grandmother. Derby had its own Polyfoto studio during and after the war, situated first at The Spot, and later in the Midland Drapery Co. Building on the corner of St Peter's and East Streets.


Two portraits of an unidentified woman, undated, estd. c1935-1945
Unmounted silver gelatin Polyfoto prints (37 x 37mm)
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
One of these two similar-sized head-and-shoulders portraits from my own collection fortunately does have the remnants of the manufacturer's name on the back, as well as the number 22 written in purple pencil, although the subject sadly remains anonymous.


The Polyfoto camera, made in England by Kodak Limited, 1933
Image © and courtesy of the National Media Museum
The camera used to produce these photographs was a rather unusual one, employing an automated process which reduced costs dramatically, although it did not, such as with Photomatic photobooths, dispense with the need for an operator. Originally of Danish design, and subsequently manufactured under license in England by Williamson Maunfacturing and Kodak Ltd from 1933, they used a repeating back, a series of 48 half-inch-square exposures being made on a 7" x 5" glass plate negative as a handle on the side was cranked.


Taking portraits in a Polyfoto studio, c.1949
Image © and courtesy of the Polyfoto web site
They were deployed in booths located in all the major towns in England, Scotland and Wales. Caulton (2010) lists 109 of them existing around 1950, most operated as concessions in large department stores, although there were a number of stand-alone studios in busy central locations.


Sabrina at a Polyfoto studio in a department store, 1956
Image © and courtesy of British Pathé
British Pathé has a wonderfully evocative film clip of Sabrina in her sweater (for those among you familiar with the Goon show) having her portrait taken at a Polyfoto booth in Bourne and Hollingsworth's department store (click on image above to view the clip). They advertised themselves as "the only system of photography giving natural and truly characteristic portraits, since the sitter can move and converse freely whilst the 48 photographs are being taken."

The sitter was asked to look this way and that. Sometimes the session was stopped, to remove a hat or coat. The photographer would chat to the sitter to put them at ease and often induced a genuine smile. Children were often given a ball or balloon to play with.

(Geoff Caulton, 2010)

A former employee of Polyfoto describes here how the camera was operated and the glass plates then dispatched to the Head Office and factory at Stanmore in North London (later located at Boreham Wood, Hertfordshire) (Anon, 2006).


Polyfoto proof sheet envelope
Image © and collection of Brett Payne, courtesy of Anthony Norton
After developing the glass plate negative, 48-photo proof sheets were printed using fixed-focus enlargers and sent back to the studios. The envelope shown above, marked with the address of Derby's Polyfoto studio at number 3 The Spot, is presumed to be one in which the proof sheet was delivered to the studio, ready for collection by the customer.


Yvonne Chevalier, De Gruchy's Department Store, St Helier, Jersey, c.1948
Proof sheet (silver gelatin print, 225 x 300mm) and numbered plastic sleeve by Polyfoto Ltd.
Image © and courtesy of Alison Richards
This proof sheet shows 48 different photographs arranged in a 6x8 grid, together with a numbered plastic sleeve or overlay, from which the customer could choose to have one or more shots enlarged at an additional cost.


Variation in degree of sepia-toning of Polyfoto print enlargements
Images © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
The enlargements could be supplied in a number of different formats, ranging from 4" x 5" to 10" x 12", and with a variety of finishes, including sepia toning and colouring.


Enid Joan Goacher, Sussex, c.1948
Proof sheet (silver gelatin print, 225 x 300mm) by Polyfoto Ltd.
Image © and courtesy of George Plemper
Of course the individual prints on the proof sheet could themselves be used and, as Geoff Caulton notes (2010), many carefully selected shots were cut out and "carried in purses, wallets and paybooks in every theatre of war."


Paul Godfrey, Arnold's Ltd., Great Yarmouth, 1949
Mounted proof print, taken by Polyfoto Ltd in a department store booth
Image © and courtesy of Paul Godfrey
Many proof prints were individually mounted behind simple pre-printed passe-partout card frames, such as this cute example from fellow photohistory enthusiast Paul Godfrey.



Geoff Caulton also has a number of fine specimens displayed on his PhotoDetective web site (click the Gallery button), most of which appear to have been taken during the war years, and I suspect this is when the Polyfoto attained its greatest popularity.


Mary Lavender Wallis in WAAF uniform, before June 1942
Booklet of proofs by Polyfoto Ltd.
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin
One could also chose to have the proof sheet cut up into blocks of six and mounted in a plastic-covered album, such as this booklet ordered by Nigel Aspdin's mother, and probably taken at a Polyfoto branch in London shortly before she received a commission in the WAAF in June 1942. She visited the studio for another session in her new officer's uniform sometime after that date, for which Nigel also has an almost complete proof sheet.



It appears that Polyfoto was not restricted to the United Kingdom. The above unidentified and undated print is from Denmark, and I have also seen a characteristically diminutive print originating from Leipzig, Germany. I'd be interested in hearing from readers who have seen examples from even further afield, as I am unsure whether the cameras ever reached North America or the Antipodes.


Former Polyfoto studio in Hainstrasse, Leipzig, Germany
Digital image taken with Sigma DP2s camera, 19 February 2012
Image © and courtesy of -fs-
It is not clear how long the Polyfoto network lasted although certainly by the late 1960s, when the head office moved to Watford, its popularity was on the wane. Several sources claim that the reason for its demise was the coin-operated photobooth although I have my doubts, since the operator-free booths were already well established prior to the Second World War, when the Polyfoto network was expanding rapidly.


Duc de Coimbra, c.1860
Albumen print (201 x 237mm), uncut carte de visite sheet, by Disderi
Image © and courtesy of George Eastman House (GEH NEG:13908)
The idea of exposing multiple frames on a single photographic plate was not a new one. In fact, it had been around for nearly seven decades prior to the Polyfoto camera's debut in 1933, and indeed formed the basis of popular commercial photographic portraiture in the 1860s and 1870s, as introduced by Disderi and others with the carte de visite format in the mid- to late 1850s. Using a multi-lens camera several (usually eight) exposures were made on a single collodion wet-plate which was contact-printed on albumen paper. The images were then cut up and mounted on card separately as cartes de visite.


Simon Wing Ajax Multiplying Wet Plate Camera, c.1899-1900
Image © and courtesy of David Tristram Ludwig's Antique Cameras Photo Gallery
This technique of taking several frames on a single plate also found very popular use in the production of gem tintypes, which I will cover in a forthcoming Photo-Sleuth article. The multiplying wet-plate camera designed by Simon Wing and shown above, had a mechanism surprisingly similar to that of the Polyfoto camera of 1933. So, as some say, there is nothing new under the sun.

Before you head over to see what the rest of the Sepia Saturday folk have in store for you this week, have a look at this poignant two-and-a-half-minute Polyfoto compilation by Daniel Meadows about his parents.

References

Polyphoto Portrait Photography Studios web site. [retrieved 19 May 2013]

Anon (2006) Reviving the Polyfoto, on Camster Factor, 2 March 2006. [retrieved 19 May 2013]

Anon (nd) Polyfoto Vintage Style Photobooths, on Ian Johnson Wedding Photographer. [retrieved 19 May 2013]

Caulton, Geoff (2010) The Polyfoto and Polyfoto Studios, on PhotoDetective. [retrieved 19 May 2013]

Coe, Brian (1978) Cameras: From Daguerreotypes to Instant Pictures, United States: Crown Publishers.

Buckeye Baby's Bombardier Bud and Philomena's Sweetheart Pin

Print of unidentified woman mounted in cardboard folder
by A Seaman & Sons
It's not often that I feature portraits on Photo-Sleuth from as late as the Second World War, but this reflects a paucity of such photographs in my own collection, rather than a lack of interest on my part. Mark Scanlon sent me scans of this portrait of a smartly dressed young woman taken at the studio of A. Seaman & Sons in the latter stages of the war. The print (60 x 80mm) is mounted in a cardboard folder (177 x 128mm, open) with a King George VI crown embossed on the left hand side, and the studio stamp with negative number (90301) on the reverse. Handwritten on the inside cover is the following message:

Not very good. but it serves its purpose - if you know what I mean!! - Happy landings Bud -

Backstamp from the studio of A Seaman & Sons
Sadly, although the name of the studio, the negative number and other text is visible, I can't quite make out the studio location, which I believe must be on the last line. Alfred Seaman's great-grand-daughter Anne Williams informs me that although her grandfather F.J. Seaman was operating the Chesterfield studio in the 1940s, it was under his own name, rather than the original title. She believes that probably the only branch which might have been still practising under the "A. Seaman & Sons" moniker at that time was the Scarborough studio, run by her uncle. It is perhaps worth noting that the stamped negative number is in a very similar style to that used on the reverse of a postcard portrait from the firm's Sheffield branch in 1936.


Click to enlarge
The photograph was amongst the war papers of Mark's father William Morgan (Bud) Scanlon, who served as a B-17 bombardier in the 401 bomb group, 613 bomb squad, flying 30 missions out of Deenethorpe, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom between August 1944 and April 1945. Mark says, "He obviously knew this woman, and she him! ... I regret not getting into this research years ago when dad would have been able to provide the actual story. Bud died 9 Sept 84, much too young at 61."

The woman's clothing and hairstyle fit well with the "Wartime look" as described by Geoff Caulton on his excellent PhotoDetective web site. Her "lifted" hairstyle, pinned at the back, and arched eyebrows - plucked and shaped, no doubt - were typical fashion for the period.



Image of Bombardier Badge © and courtesy of Iain Williams
At first, seeing the "winged" badge on her lapel, I wondered whether the woman was a member of some branch of the Royal Air Force (RAF), but this page demonstrates that the badges worn by members of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) were quite different. Besides, she is probably wearing civilian clothing, rather than a uniform. Further investigation, and comparison with this display of Aviation Wings from the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and a fine collection of America Aviator Wings presented by Iain Williams, identified the badge as that of a Bombardier in the United States Air Force (USAF). A further selection can be found on Bob Schwartz's web site Aviation Wings and Badges of World War II.


Letterhead, Lt. William M. Scanlon & "Buckeye Baby"
The natural conclusion is that Bud gave his Bombardier's badge to this woung woman prior to his departure, I suppose therefore making it a "sweetheart pin." Mark writes further:

I code-named the mystery woman Phylis because my dad mentioned someone with that name in a letter he wrote home on 15 October 1944. At least I think it's Phylis, the actual word is hard to make out. The letter includes a request of his sister to send him some 'films' to give to Phylis who can't seem to obtain any. Dad goes on to say he hasn't received his 'cheesecake' from her yet! This passage lends credence to Phylis being a local. And she may be our mystery gal.

View Larger Map
My own interpretation of the writing in the letter is that the name is written as "Philo," which may be short for Philomena. Philomena wasn't that common a name - at least compared with Phyllis or its variants - but there were still well over a thousand Philomenas married in England between 1945 and 1955. Only nine of these married in Northamptonshire, and one in the registration district of Kettering, which includes Weldon and Corby, the closest towns to the former air force base at Deenethorpe. Of course, she may not have been from that area at all!


Mark sent me this engaging snap of his dad - from his uniform, what I presume is his bomber jacket, and the star on the aircraft fuselage, clearly taken while he was in service. He is also shown along with the rest of the crew of "Buckeye Baby," piloted by 2nd Lt. William A. Shackleford, in a group photograph on the web site of the 401st Bombardment Group Association (shown below).


Crew of "Buckeye Baby" (2nd Lt. William A. Shackleford), 613th Bomb Squadron - Bud Scanlon at front right
Image © and courtesy of 401st Bombardment Group Association
For the moment at least, the identity of Bud's presumed sweetheart must remain a mystery, but perhaps she went on to marry and have children. Perhaps also one day someone will stumble across this page and recognise her from the portrait, a credit to whichever member of the Seaman family was running that particular studio at the end of the war. Many thanks for Mark for sharing the photographs, ephemera and story.

Sepia Saturday 75: Hospital Blues

Alan Burnett’s photo prompt for this week’s edition of Sepia Saturday is a most atmospheric postcard view of the interior of a building in Oxford, taken from the collection of the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library Archives. Forgive me if I reproduce a portion of it here, but it is particularly germane to my own submission.


Although the precise location is not immediately evident, it seems to be an orchestra room in the Town Hall, with a large pipe organ forming a grand backdrop. There are eighteen men seated and standing around the room, apparently watching the final play in a game of snooker or billiards. Apart from the postcard’s caption, which refers to the 3rd Southern General Hospital, the main clue to who these men are lies in their clothing. Six of the men are wearing ordinary suits, the remaining twelve are garbed in what are generally termed “hospital blues.”


An image of this postcard view is included within the Oxfordshire County Council’s Photographic Archive, the location described as St Aldate’s, Oxford, and a further view which includes the billiards table on the stage in the background demonstrates that the entire Town Hall was converted, even the stalls. The Woodrow Wilson Archive has a similar view with somewhat better definition. A post on the Great War Forum suggests that the Town Hall Section had 205 beds reserved for malaria cases amongst the Other Ranks. The single stripe on the arm of the man about to strike the ball with his cue confirms that he was a Lance Corporal, and indeed an “other rank.”


"I look pretty thin, Eh!"
Paper print, Collection of Barbara Ellison, Coloured by Andre Hallam
My grandfather Charles Leslie Lionel Payne (1892-1975) and his younger brother Harold Victor Payne (1898-1921) both spent time wearing hospital blues. My grandfather served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), having immigrated to Canada in 1912, initially with the Canadian Army Service Corps (CASC) and then with the Canadian Machine Gun Corps (CMGC). Harold joined the British Army in England towards the end of the war and served with the Tank Corps. The photograph above, accurately coloured by Andre Hallam with the expert historical assistance of various members of the Great War Forum, shows Harold (sitting at centre) and friends wearing hospital blues at an unknown location. “I look pretty thin, Eh!” is handwritten in pencil on the reverse.


"Wounded Soldiers - I've met 'em. Yes sir."
Paper print, Collection of Barbara Ellison
Unfortunately his British Army service documents did not survive the Blitz - some 60% of the British Army’s Great War service records were destroyed by German bombs in 1940, and the remainder badly damaged – so it is difficult to be sure of his movements. A postcard sent to his family in Derby in November 1919 shows that he was then "in Cologne awaiting demob[ilization]" from the British Army on the Rhine (BAOR), was “quite well” and recorded hopefully, “guess I shan’t be long now.” I suspect that he took ill shortly after, before he could be demobilised. He died on 1 May 1921 at Derby. His mother was devastated, and although she would outlive him by a decade, I get the impression that she never really recovered from the shock. I have yet to order his death certificate, which may provide clues to his illness, and state whether or not he was still in the Army at that time.


Sgt. Leslie Payne, Winter 1918/1919
Paper print, Collection of Barbara Ellison
Sgt. Leslie Payne, CMGC, Winter 1918/19, in England or Canada
My grandfather’s CEF service records, on the other hand, have survived more or less intact although, sadly, I have no photographs of him wearing hospital blues. The portrait above, in which he wears his army greatcoat adorned with sergeant’s stripes, was probably taken in the Winter of 1918/19, after his recuperation had ended. I obtained a copy of his records from the Library & Archives of Canada some years ago. From this treasure trove of shorthand scribblings, indecipherable abbreviations and obtuse acronyms, and together with transcripts of the CMG Corps history and the War Diaries for his unit, I was eventually able to piece together a detailed itinerary of his movements.


Constance May Hogg, Christmas 1913
Postcard, Collection of Barbara Ellison
By the spring of 1918, my grandfather had been in the Canadian Army for almost three and a half years, two and a half years of this on the Western Front, and two years as a machine gunner. He had fought at the Battles of St. Eloi Craters (April 1916), Mount Sorrel (June 1916), Flers-Courcelette (September 1916), Vimy Ridge (April 1917), Lens (June 1917) and Passchendaele (November 1917) and appears to have survived unscathed – at least physically - with not a single day of sickness or other misadventure recorded. During a period of rest and recuperation Leslie was granted two weeks of leave on 26th November, and he lost no time in heading home. Four days later, having been granted permission to do so by his Commanding Officer, he married his sweetheart “Con” at Chester, and was back with his unit by 14th December.


Canon de 380 m/m capturé par les Australiens près de Chuignes et destiné au bombardement d'Amiens
Postcard with 1930 postmark, Collection of Barbara Ellison
On 20th April 1918, as part of the overall reorganization of the CMGC being undertaken at that time, Leslie was promoted to the rank of Sergeant, and thus put in charge of a machine gun section, comprising two Vickers machine guns with crews. On 9 July he was sent to the Canadian Corps School on a four week long training course. He probably returned to his unit just in time to participate in the very successful Battle of Amiens, on 8th, 9th and 10th August.


AMIENS - AUG 11 1918 - STATION PLATFORM BUFFET
Paper doily, Collection of Barbara Ellison
No. 2 Company of the 2nd Battalion CMGC was relieved and withdrawn from the line into reserve at Caix, allowing Leslie and his crew to enjoy the luxury of real food in Amiens on the evening of 11th August. After a week of rest, during which time the ranks were brought back up to strength by very welcome, but green, reinforcements, the entire Canadian Corps was moved back to the Arras Front. Leslie’s company arrived at their billets in the village of Monts-en-Ternois at noon on the 21st, and was bussed to the front lines the following day.


According to the corps history, the massive task of the Canadian Corps was to drive in south of the Scarpe towards Cambrai, to break the Quéant-Drocourt Line and, once the Canal du Nord was reached, to swing southward behind the Hindenburg Line.  No. 2 Company was, as usual, to be in support of the 6th Canadian Infantry Brigade on the right front, the attack scheduled for the 26th.

The machine gun crews were assigned positions on high ground near Telegraph Hill, from where they would form part of a series of 16 batteries putting up a creeping barrage of indirect fire to cover the infantry’s advance.  One machine gun was all0tted to every 35 yards of front. Zero hour was at 3 a.m., when the barrage commenced. By 6 a.m. reports of casualties and guns put out of action - by the German counter-barrage - were coming in from crews hampered by thick mist and smoke from the artillery barrage.


Testing a Vickers machinegun, September 1916
Image © and courtesy of Library & Archives of Canada
Some time during the day Leslie was hit in the left shoulder, probably by a machine gun bullet, although it could have been a piece of shrapnel. He was not the only one, the 2nd Battalion CMGC suffering its greatest number of casualties of any single attack in the war up to that point, with a total of 27 men killed and 183 wounded between 26th and 28th August. The CO’s report stated:

Lack of stretchers was very pronounced. In some cases our wounded lay out for over 12 hours and in all cases it was most difficult to evacuate our casualties or to attend to them in the absence of stretchers or bearers.

Hospital Ship Princess Elizabeth
Image © and courtesy of Ian Boyle/Simplon Postcards
He was stretchered first to the nearest first aid post or dressing station, then to No 42 Casualty Clearing Station, where it was ascertained that the "foreign body" was still lodged in his shoulder. Later that day he was evacuated to No 4 General Hospital in Camiers, on the coast. As soon as space could be found in the transports, he was shipped across the Channel aboard the Hospital Ship Princess Elizabeth, a converted Isle of Wight paddle steamer, arriving at the County of Middlesex War Hospital, Napsbury St Albans on 30th August.

An examination at Napsbury the following day is reported on his Medical Case Sheet, in the usual almost indecipherable handwriting:

Entry 2" internal to point of acromion. F.B. (Foreign Body] palpable mid way between this + axilliary fold on post surface. Clean.

An X-ray examination report described a "Bullet present subcutaneous," and a notation makes it clear that he was a "walking," rather than "stretcher" or "chair," patient. Although no X-ray image appears to have survived in his records, the image of a skiagraphic above, extracted from a fellow soldier’s service record, shows a similar lodged bullet. On 6th September an operation was conducted and the doctors successfully removed the offending piece of lead.


Patients and nurses at Napsbury St Albans, 1917
Image © Rohan Price and courtesy of Hertfordshire Genealogy
The subsequent entries on his medical records indicate that he "returned from auxilliary, healed" on 4th October, and was discharged to the Canadian Military Convalescent Hospital at Woodcote Park, Epsom three days later. He was given a final medical examination on 8th October which pronounced him fit “Di” and, after recuperating for another week, he was discharged on Monday 14th and sent on furlough for ten days.


154 Almond Street, Normanton, Derby
Image © & courtesy of Google Maps Street View
Of course Leslie headed straight home to Derby but when he arrived he found Con very ill. She succumbed to influenza at 154 Almond Street, Normanton, Derby on Sunday 20th October. It was the second major wave of the “Spanish” flu epidemic in the United Kingdom, with hundreds of thousands dying, and Leslie’s distress during the journey back to the Canadian Machine Gun Depot at Seaford, Sussex on the 24th must have been acute. The regulation requirement to report to the Paymaster that his wife was deceased, and therefore he was no longer entitled to separation pay, would no doubt have added insult to injury, the loss of $25 a month being the least of his concerns.

At 11 a.m. on 11th November 1918, the day that Leslie received his final TAB inoculation, the armistice between the German and Allied Forces came into effect, and the war was suddenly over. Without Con, Les must have looked at peace time with mixed emotions. Who knows what their plans had been? Would they have gone back to Winnipeg together, where Leslie had a decent clerk’s job at Eaton’s department store waiting for him? It seems likely. He was eventually demobilised in Canada in February 1919, after a prolonged stay at Kinmel Park in Wales and a trip across the Atlantic on the S.S. Olympic, but that’s a story for another time.


Leslie Payne, Summer 1915 (left) and Winter 1918/19 (right)
Paper prints, Collection of Barbara Ellison
I find it telling how much he changed in that short space of time. He was a fresh-faced 22 year-old when he enlisted in the CEF in November 1914, and a haggard 26 on discharge. He looks at least a decade older in the later photo, not just three or four years, and I’m sure it was not just his appearance that was different. I've been told that Grandpa hardly ever talked about the war, at least not to anyone who ever felt comfortable to share such confidences with others, and from what I can tell this was not uncommon amongst Great War veterans.

How should he communicate and explain such a kaleidoscope mish-mash of contradictory emotions and experiences in which they had been suddenly immersed on the Western Front, in Leslie’s case, for 2 years, 11 months and 14 days? Their subjection, after rudimentary initial training, to a totally unfamiliar environment, the exhausting slog of marching and carrying supplies to the front, the tedium and discomfort of life in the trenches, the camaraderie eventually engendered between members of a machine gun crew who lived every moment of every day together, often within inches of each other, for months on end, and the anticipation of death at any moment, from any quarter, in the trenches, eventually replaced with mind-numbing resignation – all these would have been incomprehensible to their families and friends back home.

I hope that he was eventually able to dispel at least some of the dark thoughts, but I am sure there were many others that he could never forget. And nor should we.

May I have the pleasure of the next dance?

In the late 1890s and early 1900s, partly as a response to the introduction of numerous competing formats such as panel, promenade and boudoir prints, and later the cheap and cheerful postcard, the carte de visite underwent some changes. These included many experimental variations in card thickness, texture and colour, together with the use of embossing, scalloped and zig-zag edges, and the return of square corners. The reluctance of manufacturers, photographers and their customers to shift away from the standard size of the carte de visite and cabinet card was understandable. Many households now owned one or more photograph albums, and all of these were designed with cdv and cabinet sized apertures.


Frank Nichols, Constitutional Club, Leicester, December 27th 1901
Print (50 x 74 mm) mounted on thick card, 64 x 102 mm
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
At first glance this mounted photograph of Frank Nichols looks like one such variation on the standard carte de visite photograph format. There are several unusual features suggesting that it is something slightly different. These include the simple art nouveau-style frame which enloses the cameo head-and-shoulders portrait, the handwritten name or signature (presumably that of the subject) photographically reproduced below the portrait, the printing at the base of the card mount "Constitutional Club, Leicester, December 27th, 1901" and, last but not least, the neat hole punched in the lower left corner of the mount.


Dance Card with Programme of Music and initials of dance partners
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
It is the reverse, however, which reveals the true nature and purpose of this item of ephemera. Printed on the back of the card is a "Programme" of sixteen dances, together with pencilled initials next to ten of them. It is a dance card, printed for a function at the Constitutional Club in Leicester on 27 December 1901. The hole in the corner was designed so that a small pencil could be attached with a length of cord or string.


Dance card from Regiment Infantry P.M. Gray Reserves, Stockton House, Cape Island, New Jersey
Dated 19 July 1869
Image © and courtesy of the Independence Seaport Museum
Apparently dance cards originated in the 18th Century, but only became commonly used in Vienna in the 19th Century. By the mid-1800s they were appearing everywhere, as shown by this example from New Jersey.


Dance card from the Royal `Iolani Palace, Hawaii
Dated 30 September 1889
Image © and courtesy of The Friends of `Iolani Palace
Examples from the 1880s are commonly found and many images may be found using a Google Image search, such as the 1889 card shown above from Hawaii.


Dance card for Sheet Metal Workers' Union Hop, Location Unknown
Dated 20 November 1905
Image © and courtesy of Bob Skiba & Mixed Pickles Vintage Dance Co.
The designs on the cards naturally reflected both the organisation by which the dance was being organised (or the people for whom it was held) and the style of the era, and thus showed some considerable variety. Towards the end of the Victorian period designs became more and more elaborate due to the popularity of the lithographic process, as shown by these examples from 1905 (above) and 1909 (below).


Dance card for First Annual Ball, Mosman District Cricket Club
Dated 16 July 1909
Image © and courtesy of the Mosman Library


Dance card for Cornell University's Navy Day Ball
Dated 1928
Image © and courtesy of Bob Skiba & Mixed Pickles Vintage Dance Co.
By the 1920s, the designs were often heavily influenced by the art deco style.


Dance card for Ladies' Waltz (11 o'clock) Prof. Ben F. Gresh's Dancing Academy
Carte de visite portrait by Gordon of Indianapolis, Indiana
Undated, but probably taken c.1880-1885
Image © and courtesy of Remains to be Seen
Dance cards with photographs don't appear to be particularly common. Although my online search has not been exhaustive I was only able to find one other example, on sale for $75 on the web site Remains to be Seen. It is another carte de visite style card with a photograph of a musician holding a violin on the front, and on the reverse can be seen the dance programme for a Ladies' Waltz at Prof. Ben F. Gresh's Select Dancing Academy. The photo artist's name is noted as Gordon. The 1880 US Federal Census shows musician Benjamin Gresh living at East Ohio, Indianapolis and photographer Robert Gordon at East Washington, also in Indianapolis. By 1900, Gresh is described as a dancing teacher. Presumably Benjamin Gresh is the violinist pictured on the front of the dance card.

I'd be keen to hear from readers who have or know of other examples of photographic dance cards.


Using census records and GRO birth, marriage and death indexes I was able to determine that the subject of the photograph Frank Nichols was born in late 1880 or early 1881 in Leicester, the eldest of five children of a master plasterer George Nichols (1854-) and his wife Ann Jane Borderick (1856-). They lived at The Cedars, 11 Prebend Street, Leicester, and it seems likely that the date of the dance - a Friday - was Frank's twenty-first birthday.

Frank Nichols married Violet M. Wesley at Leicester in 1913 and they had four children: Tom (1913), Frank J. (1920), Avis L. (1921) and Doris A. (1923). Later trade directories suggest that they lived at 15 Halsbury Street in Leicester and that Frank was a mechanic. Many of their descendants continued to live in Leicester; surnames include Suffolk, Dove, Mewis, Randle, Webster, Dodson and Patterton.


A view down Pocklington's Walk, Leicester
Image © Amy Jane Barnes and courtesy of Djinn76's Flickr photostream
Trade directories shows that the Constitutional Club House in Leicester was located on the south-west corner of Pocklington's Walk and Millstone Lane in central Leicester. It had three storeys and was built in the 1890s of brick with stone dressings in the modern Renaissance style.


Cast iron railings on Pocklington's Walk, Leicester
LCCC = Leicester Constitutional Club Chambers/Company?
Image © Amy Jane Barnes and courtesy of Djinn76's Flickr photostream
From this recent photograph it appears that the building is still in existence.

References

Pols, Robert (2002) Family Photographs 1860-1945. Richmond, Surrey: Public Record Office Publications. 166p. ISBN 1903365201.

Mixed Pickles Vintage Dance Cards by the Mixed Pickles Vintage Dance Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

United States Federal Census Records 1790-1930 Indexed images from Ancestry.com

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

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

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

19th Century British Library Newspapers collection, from Gale Cengage Learning

The Times Digital Archive, 1785-1985, from Gale Cengage Learning

Trade Directories from the University of Leicester's Historical Directories
Kelly's Directory of Leicestershire & Rutland, 1895
Wright's Directory of Leicestershire & Rutland, 1899
Bennett' Business Directory for Leicestershire, 1901-02
Wright's Directory of Leicester, 1903
Kelly's Directory, Leicestershire & Rutland, 1925
Kelly's Directory, Leicestershire & Rutland, 1928