Sepia Saturday 66: Drinking Friends

"I drink only to make my friends seem interesting." - Don Marquis
Some time ago, in The Boys' Day Out, I wrote about a postcard photo of a group of men, presumably drinking friends, including my great-grandfather Charles Vincent Payne (1868-1941), who called themselves the "Ding Dongs." They were gathered in the courtyard behind the Old Bell Hotel, Sadler Gate, Derby, probably in the late 1910s or 1920s.

This one, although a cabinet card, and somewhat earlier - I guess that it's from the mid- to late 1890s - is a very similar group portrait, again taken outside what appears to be a mock-Tudor style building. Perhaps it is also a pub, although none of these men are carrying tankards or bottles of beer. On the contrary, they look as if they have been out for a stroll, or perhaps watching a game of cricket, and are in dire need of a pint .. or two.

Charles Vincent, standing at far left, slightly aloof from the others and, as always, a dapper dresser, is arguably the smartest amongst what appears to me a pretty rum lot. What strikes me first is the array of headgear, from sporting style caps with both horizontal and vertical stripes, very high-crowned bowlers (or derbys, for those reading this in North America), light and dark pork-pie hats, a possible top hat (4th from right, at the back) and something I generally think of as a curate's hat, similar to the pork-pie, but with a more rounded top and a slightly upturned brim. Indeed the bearer of this last - seated in the middle row, third from left, and the only one of the group who has refused to answer the photographer's request to look at the birdie - may also have a clerical collar. There are far fewer beards than might have been the case a decade or two earlier, although the majority have moustaches.

But it is the chap to the right of the cleric (or to his left) who surprised me most. I had no idea that my great-grandfather knew Oliver Hardy! Okay, I'll admit that the more rotund of the famous duo would only have been five or six years old at the time, and besides, he was an American, so it can't be him. Perhaps readers will recognise someone else, though?


Charles Vincent and friends, c.1905-10
A decade later and they were venturing further afield. Well at least Charles Vincent was. He appears standing at 2nd from left, pipe in hand, in this somewhat more salubrious looking group arranged outside the ivy-covered front of what may be a country inn. I have no idea of the location, but I suspect it's somewhere in Derbyshire, if anyone recognises it, please leave a comment below or get in touch by email. I had in mind The Peacock Inn at Rowsley, a well known Peak District watering hole and starting point for walkers and fly-fishermen, but it's not there. All are bare-headed, although two can be observed holding hats, a homburg and a boater.


Charles Vincent and friends, c. late 1920s - early 1930s
A couple more decades on, the group of drinking buddies has been whittled down considerably, and they've graduated to fedoras, which are not too dissimilar to what my father referred to as his "Captain von Trapp hat". Sadly, among the many hundreds of images that came up in my "Google Image search," not one showed Christopher Plummer wearing said hat.

Actually this last group might better be termed an "Old Gits Luncheon Club" (thank you Alan). The location is unknown, but I think it's probably somewhere in the Derbyshire Dales - Matlock, Cromford, etc. - where CVP owned property.

This is my contribution to this week's Sepia Saturday, where you'll find many more old photographs of similar ilk to while away your weekend.

North Beach, Aberystwyth

Theresa Jones & friends, North Beach by Constitution Hill, Aberystwyth, 6 Mar 2011
Image © and courtesy of Theresa Jones
Many thanks to Theresa Jones for this fine photograph of the rock face at Constitution Hill, North Beach, Aberystwyth, which featured in an image of a mounted print that Jeri Bass sent me and which I posted here on Photo-Sleuth in October 2008.


Unidentified group on an outing, c.1890-1900
North Beach, Aberystwyth
Mounted print by E.R. Gyde of Aberystwyth
Image © and courtesy of Jeri Bass

Sepia Saturday 64: Bud Payne 1928-2006

Charles Bernard "Bud" Payne
6 Mar 1928 - 26 Jun 2006

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

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

Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome

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


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

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

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


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


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


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

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


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


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


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


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


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

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

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

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


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


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


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

Musing in Manhattan

Chrysler Building, New York City, 1931
Platinum print by Margaret Bourke-White
Image © Time-Life & courtesy of Gallery M
Motivated - perhaps inspired would be a better word - by Colleen Fitzpatrick's Forensic Genealogy mystery photo contest this week (Contest #226), I've been thinking art deco (or should that be Art Deco). I hope I'm not giving too much of the game away to say that I've always thought of New York's Chrysler Building as one of the more breathtakingly spectacular and visually effective examples, perhaps even the epitome, of this style of architecture. Although I've never visited New York, if I do one day, this will be one of the places that I'll be sure to visit, and not merely for the earthy marble walls and fittingly decorated lift doors on the ground floor.


Margaret Bourke-White, Chrysler Building, New York City, 1931
Unidentified photographer
Image © & courtesy of Time-Life Pictures
The photographer of the well known Chrysler Building image was photo-journalist extraordinaire Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971), whose autobiography (Portrait of Myself, published in 1963) featured a photograph (above) on its front cover showing her with camera in action astride one of the huge metallic gargoyle-like protruberances from the Chrysler Building. This photo, in turn, neatly echoes that which forms the subject of Colleen's photo contest.


Unidentified young woman, c. late 1910s to early 1920s
Mounted portrait by Sol. Young Studio
Image © & courtesy of Deena Mitsin
Quite by coincidence, this week I received an email from someone who had found my brief profile of photographer Sol. Young of New York, compiled some four years ago while researching a collection of photographs sent to me by Irene Savory. My correspondent wondered whether I might be able to tell her more about a mounted portrait photograph, illustrated above, of a young woman that she had discovered while cleaning out her attic. It's difficult for me to tell from her email whether the photograph has any family connection, so I can't really comment on the provenance. Merely from the hairstyle and clothing - and I'm not claiming any great expertise in dating fashions from this era - I estimate a rough date of perhaps the early 1920s. The young woman looks to me to be in her mid- to late twenties, which gives a birth date of around or just before the turn of the century.


Unidentified young man, c.1920s
Photo (107 x 151.5 mm) in embossed and printed pale brown card frame (153 x 229.5 mm) with oval aperture (92 x 133.5 mm), in embossed brown "leather-look" card folder (160 x 236 mm)
Image © & collection of Brett Payne, Courtesy of Irene Savory

Solomon Young was born in Kraków, Poland - then part of Galizien Kroenlande (Galicia Crownland), Austrian Bohemia - on 7 April 1865, son of Isaac L. Young and Lena Wachsmann. He emigrated to the United States in June 1882 (or 1883) at the age of 17, where he settled in New York and became a naturalised citizen some five years later on 1 August 1888. By this time several other members of his family, including his widowed mother and married sister, had also arrived in New York. He appears to have set up as a publisher and book seller from premises in Norfolk Street, in what is now the Lower East Side, until about 1891-1892.


Unidentified teenage girl, c.1905-1910
Mounted print (trimmed) by Sol. Young Studios, N.Y. Brooklyn, N.J.
Image © and courtesy of Etsy
Sol married Minnie Marx on Boxing Day 1892 in Manhattan, New York, and opened his first photographic premises near Union Square the following year. He continued to operate a studio at 17 Union Square West, with a home at 152 East 116th Street (East Harlem) until at least 1899. The trade directories list only his name, but since Sol and Minnie never had any children I presume that she too worked in the studio. One could easily imagine Minnie tending to customers at the front desk in the shop, while Sol. took portraits in the studio.


Unidentified young woman, Dated 1916
Mounted print (4" x 6") on matt (6¾" x 9¾") by Sol. Young
Image © and courtesy of ArtFire
The decade from 1900 until 1910 is something of a mystery, as no records have been found, although it is clear that Sol must have thrived and operated a successful photographic business partnership with his wife during this period. The 1910 Census shows him and Minnie living with his mother at Number 210, 107th Street (Riverside Park).


Augusta, c.1910-1915
Mounted print by Sol. Young, New York
Image © and courtesy of Rick Raven
Five years later, 1915 New York city directory listings show him with seven branches in New York, and a further studio in Bridgeport (Connecticut) which had been opened two years earlier.

Young Sol photo 40 W34th, 1807 Amsdm av, 1204 Bway 985 Lex av 142 W23d 109 W125th & 474 E Tremont av h600 W 116th
Young Sol, photographer, 129 Wall (Bridgeport, Conn.)

List of branch studios, c.1910-1915
Reverse of mounted print by Sol. Young, New York
Image © and courtesy of Rick Raven
However, a listing of branches on the reverse of a card mount from around 1910-1915 (shown above) suggests an even greater early expansion of the business, with at least twelve branches in existence across New York, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Jersey City and Newark by the time this portrait was taken. The device of a lion brandishing a sword was already well established as the studio's "mark" by this time.


George "Highpockets" Kelly, baseball player, c.1915-1920
Mounted print by Sol. Young Studios
Image © and courtesy of Vintage Ball
At about this time he and Minnie also moved their home to 600 West 116th Street, between Columbia University and the Hudson River. Sol and Minnie had been industrious, and it was obviously paying off. Between July and September 1914 they were able to take a long holiday with a trip to Europe, travelling to Germany, Austria and Holland, and presumably leaving their studios in the capable hands of their managers and employees.


Unidentified religious Jew, Brooklyn, c.1915-1920
Photograph by Sol. Young Studios
in Jews of Brooklyn by Ilana Abramovitch & Seán Galvin
Image © The Archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
& courtesy of Google Books
It seems likely that they had intended to visit family in Krakow but their timing was not the best. The outbreak of war throughout Europe in late July was perhaps unexpected, in spite of the build up in tensions between the Eurpean nations for some years. News of the Russian attacks on East Prussia in late August (Battle of Tannenberg), although well to the north of Sol's homeland in Bohemia, seems likely to have rapidly precipitated an early homeward departure.


Maria Charlotta Svahn Belin (1872-1927)
Photograph by Sol. Young Studios, taken c. late 1910s
Image © Michael-Ann Belin & courtesy of Flickr
The swift German invasion through Belgium and into north-western France in late August and early September, culminating in the First Battle of the Marne, may have disrupted the plans for their journey home considerably. In the event, they must have travelled with some trepidation across the German state which was now at war on several fronts, vying for space on trains full of Imperial troops mobilising for the front. They departed from the neutral Dutch port of Rotterdam on 12 September 1914 aboard the S.S. Nieuw Amsterdam, and arrived back home in New York nine days later, somewhat relieved, I feel sure.



Some time between 1910 and 1915, they had moved their primary premises from Union Square to 40 West 34th Street and it appears to have remained the main branch for many years. On Friday 23 September 1921, however, Solomon Young died, aged only 56.

New York Times, 24 Sep 1921
Sol Young, founder of a chain of eighteen photographic studios, died yesterday at his home, 600 West 116th Street, at the age of 56. He was one of the pioneers in the pastel and crayon industry, opening his first studio in Union Square in 1893.

The brief newspaper obituary states that eighteen branches were operating at that time. Minnie Young was clearly quite capable because she continued to operate many of these branches for some years with a posse of managers and assistants. They must have earned her a decent income, as she employed a chauffeur in 1922 and made an extensive trip to mainland Europe in the summer of 1923, visiting Germany, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Switzerland and France. In March 1931 Minnie travelled abroad again, paying a brief visit to London, England.


Unidentified young girl
Photograph by Sol. Young Studios, taken c.1920s
Image © Michael-Ann Belin & courtesy of Flickr
The charming portrait of an - as yet - unidentified young girl (shown above) is, sadly, undated, although Michael-Ann Belin is currently investigating who it might be. I suspect that it was taken in the early to mid-1920s.


Design on card folder from Sol. Young Studios, taken c.1920s
Image © Michael-Ann Belin & courtesy of Flickr
The portrait was sold in an elaborately decorated printed and embossed card folder, of a type which became very popular in the United States during the post-Great War years, particularly the 1920s and early 1930s. The front of the folder has a new emblem, somewhat more stylish than Sol's original lion & sword logo. The reverse of the folder has a large number of studio premises listed. They were situated throughout New York (Bronx, Brooklyn, Rochester), New Jersey (Jersey City, Newark, Trenton, Paterson, Union City), Connecticut (Bridgeport) and Pennsylvania (Philadelphia).


Unidentified mother and daughter
Photograph by Sol. Young Studios, taken c.1920s
Image © Michael-Ann Belin & courtesy of Flickr
The business flourished throughout the 1920s and into the early 1930s. By 1933 Minnie Young appeared to be in the process of handing over the reins of the business to her husband's nephew, Arthur Lewis Pawliger (1891-1970), who is shown as president and treasurer of Sol. Young Photographer Inc. in a directory of that year. Two years later, at the age of 63, Minnie Young died.

During the years of the Depression, the firm came up with a marketing plan to keep the once successful business afloat. They reputedly sent photographers out on the streets of large cities with ponies, hoping to entice customers with children to have "studio quality" portraits taken with the animals.

I haven't yet been able to determine how long it remained in business, but it seems unlikely to have survived much beyond the onset of the Second World War. In their time, however, they operated from a huge number of different addresses. I have attempted to provide an interim list of these, together with some dates of known operation.

35 University Place - 1893
840 Broadway - 1894
1204 Broadway - c.1900s, 1915
850-852 Broadway, Brooklyn - c.1910s, c.1920s
5606-5th Avenue, Brooklyn - c.1920s
17 Union Square West - 1895, 1896, 1897, 1898, 1899, c1910s
40 West 34th Street, N.Y. - 1915, 1916, 1917, 1920, 1922, 1925
38 West 34th Street (3d fl) - 1933
1807 Amsterdam Avenue - 1915, 1916, 1917, 1920
985 Lexington Avenue - c.1910s, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1920, 1922, 1925
970 Lexington Avenue, N.Y. - 1922, 1933
142 West 23rd Street - c.1910s, 1915
107-109 West 125th Street, N.Y. - 1915, 1916, 1920, 1922, 1925
111-113 West 125th Street, N.Y. - c.1910s
112 West 125th Street - 1933
474 East Tremont Avenue, Bronx - c1910s, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1920, 1922
414 East Tremont Avenue - 1933
298 Willis Avenue - 1916
23 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn - c.1910s, c.1920s
24 Arlington Place, Brooklyn - c.1910s
129 Wall Street, Bridgeport, Conn. - 1913
129 Wall rms, Bridgeport, Conn. - 1918, 1923
207 Golden Hill, Bridgeport, Conn. - 1918
803 (6) Chapel Street, New Haven, Conn. - 1918, 1921, 1922, 1927, 1928
157 Newark Avenue, Jersey City, N.J. - c.1910s, c.1920s
923 Broad Street, Newark, N.J. - c.1910s, c.1920s
116 Springfield Avenue, Newark,N.J. - c.1910s
1622 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Penn. - c.1920s
31 Elm Street, Rochester, New York - c.1920s
2 North Broad Street, Trenton, N.J. - c.1920s
197 Market Street, Peterson, N.J. - c.1920s
700 Bergenline Avenue, Union City, N.J. - c.1920s

I welcome any additions to this list, in the form of new addresses or dates. If any readers are able to provide further information, please email me.


Site of Sol. Young's flagship studio, c.1915-1933
38-40 West 34th Street, Manhattan, New York
Image © & courtesy of GoogleMaps
Finally, I would like to focus on the premises from which Sol. and Minnie Young ran their chain of photographic studios: 38-40 West 34th Street, Manhattan, New York. At the time that Google Maps' StreetView camera car drove past a few years ago, this address was occupied by Porta Bella Fine Menswear & Shoes [although a June 2008 report suggests the store has since been remodelled.] To conclude this article, click on the image above to open the GoogleMaps Street View for this address, then pan upwards and to the left to see the building from which Colleen Fitzpatrick's Quiz #266 photo was taken, and which started this journey of discovery for me.

References

Abramovitch, Ilana & Galvin, Seán (2001) Jews of Brooklyn. Brandeis series in American Jewish history, culture, and life. Hanover, New Hampshire: University Press of New England. 355p. ISBN 1584650036.

Email Correspondence with Michael-Anne Belin, October 2009, and Maria Belin's Autograph Album 1893 on Flickr

Undated Photograph of Young Woman, c.1910-1915, by Sol Young Studios, 543 S. Salina St., Syracuse, New York, on Onondaga County Pictures

Photograph of young woman, 1916, by Sol Young, on Artfire

Photograph of young girl, by Sol.Young Studios, N.Y. Brooklyn, N.J., on Etsy

Photograph of George "Highpockets" Kelly by Sol Young, c.1910s, on Vintage Ball Photogallery

Message from Rob Stieglitz on Rootsweb GENMSC-L Mailing List Archives, 8 Jul 2000, re. portraits from Sol. Young Studios, dated c.1900 & c.1925

Message from "scardiel" on Ancestry WORTH Surname Message Board, 23 Jul 2004, re. 3 portraits from Sol. Young Studio, dated c.1925 & c.1930

Message from Randall McDaniel on Ancestry SANG Surname Message Board, 15 Apr 2007, re. portrait from Solomon Young Studio dated 28 Aug 1914

Message from Judy Cronan on Ancestry McCONVILLE Surname Message Board, 16 Sep 2005, re. portrait from Sol. Young Studio

Message from Shelley Cardiel on Winham Family Genealogy Forum, 4 Jul 2004, re. portrait by Sol. Young Studio, dated c.1914

Sol. Young - NY Photographer, Message thread by various authors (Sep 2002-Dec 2003) on Ancestry Message Board

Notes about photograph dated July 1913 by Sol Young, The Genealogy site of Zigelboim, Krotman and Kamm families

World War I from Wikipedia
- Battle of Tannenberg
- First Battle of the Marne

Keeping the Tradition Alive by Giddy Up Ponies Photo Services

Storecasting: Fossil Discovered in Midtown, by Cynthia Drescher, 27 June 2008, on Racked New York

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

US Federal Census Collection 1790-1930 Indexed images from Ancestry.com

Naturalization Index Card - Solomon Young, 1 Aug 1888, New York Petitions for Naturalization from Ancestry.com

Passport Application - Minnie Young, 28 June 1923, U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925 from Ancestry.com

New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 from Ancestry.com
Passenger List: S.S. Nieuw Amsterdam, sailing from Rotterdam, 12 Sep 1914, arr. New York, 21 Sep 1914
Passenger List: S.S. Olympic, sailing from Cherbourg, 19 Sep 1923, arr. New York 26 Sep 1923
Passenger List: S.S. Statendam, sailing from ?New York, 29 Jan 1930, arr. New York, 23 Feb 1930
Passenger List: S.S. Majestic, sailing from Southampton, 18 Mar 1931, arr. New York 24 Mar 1931

UK Incoming Passenger Lists from Ancestry.co.uk
Passenger List: S.S. Homeric, sailing from New York, Arr. Southampton, 10 Mar 1931

New York Directories from Ancestry.com
Trow's New York City Directory 1888, 1891, 1894, 1895, 1896, 1897, 1898
New York City Directories 1891-92, 1893, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1920, 1922, 1925, 1933
New Haven City Directories 1921, 1922, 1927, 1928
Connecticut City Directories - Bridgeport 1913, 1918, 1923
Connecticut City Directories - New Haven 1918
Connecticut City Directories - Bridgeport 1918

New York Times Article Archive
New York Times, 24 September 1921.
New York Times, 19 June 1922, p. 11.
New York Times, 26 October 1935.

Caroline Richardson née Young (1852-1928) of Derby

Brenda Croome recently sent me a series of images of her great-grandmother Caroline Richardson née Young (1852-1928) of Derby showing a nice sequence of cartes de visite and other format portraits from her late teens to her mid-forties.


Caroline Young with her half-siblings Rosamund and Richard Smith
Taken by J. Roberts of 26 Osmaston Street, Derby, c.1871
Images © & courtesy of Brenda Croome
The first of these portraits was taken by John Roberts at his Osmaston Street studio, and includes Caroline's half-brother Richard and half-sister Rosamund Smith. The elaborately painted backdrop depicts a country scene. Although Caroline was born in Derby in 1852, her mother Sarah Ann Young married William Smith in 1854 and moved to Aston-on-Trent, where her half-siblings Richard and Rosamund were born in 1855 and 1866. The youngest child Rosamund looks to be about five years old and I suspect, therefore, that they visited Roberts' studio around 1871. The census of April that year shows Richard, aged 16, and Rosamond [sic], aged 5, living with their parents at Derby Road, Aston-on-Trent, while Caroline Young was living at Walton Hall, Walton-on-Trent, where she was employed as a nursery maid by Richard Ratcliff (1830-1898), of the Ratcliff brewing family (Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton). In a coincidental connection with my own family, Richard Ratcliff's younger brother Robert Ratcliff (1837-1912) had married my ggg-grandfather's half-cousin Emily Payne (1837-1916) in 1866 and later settled at Newton Park in nearby Newton Solney.


Caroline Young, aged about 22
Taken by W.W. Winter of Midland Road, Derby, c.1874
Images © & courtesy of Brenda Croome
The next two cartes de visite were taken at the studio of W.W. Winter in Midland Road, Derby. The card mounts of both are of a style (Type VI) which I have estimated previously as having been used c. 1874 to 1877. Although clearly not taken on the same occasion, as Caroline is dressed in different clothes, the two were probably taken at around the same time. The first shows her in a dress with a large bustle, and her hair braided and piled up on the top of her head. Her clothing and hair styles are typical of the early to mid-1870s.


Caroline Young & Thomas Richardson
Taken by W.W. Winter of Midland Road, Derby in March 1874
Images © & courtesy of Brenda Croome
In the second Caroline is dressed in "walking out" clothes, including a smart jacket and feathered hat, and poses with her left elbow leaning on a "rustic" wooden studio fence. She is with a young man who Brenda identifies as her husband-to-be, Thomas Richardson (1851-1898). Both are carrying umbrellas or parasols. The card mount is dated on the reverse, "March 1874," and was therefore taken some nineteen months or so before Caroline and Thomas were married at All Saints, Aston-on-Trent, Derbyshire on 14 October 1875.


Caroline Richardson, c. 1882-1884
Taken by A. & G. Taylor of 4 St. Nicholas Buildings, Newcastle-on-Tyne
Image © & courtesy of Brenda Croome
After their marriage, Caroline and her husband lived first in Yorkshire, and then by late 1880 had settled in the lodge at Simonside Hall, Harton near South Shields, Durham, where Thomas was employed as a gardener, presumably by the owner and resident of the hall George May, a mining engineer who was chief agent of the Harton Coal Co. Ltd., and manager of the St Hilda Colliery. Richard and Caroline had three children: Charles Robert (born 1878), May Susan (born 1880) and Janet Amy Ann (born 1882/83). Brenda has two portraits, shown above and below, which appear to have been taken on the same occasion in the early 1880s at a branch studio of the firm A. & G. Taylor, located at 4 St. Nicholas Buildings, Newcastle on Tyne. Although the portrait has been folded and torn, the bulk of the photographic image is fortunately still intact. Her hairstyle, the lace collar and the highly embroidered and embellished bodice of Caroline's dress are suggestive to me of the mid-1880s.


Thomas Richardson, c. 1882-1884
Taken by A. & G. Taylor of 4 St. Nicholas Buildings, Newcastle-on-Tyne
Image © & courtesy of Brenda Croome
The studio was located opposite the Cathedral Church of St Nicholas and adjoining the post office in the centre of Newcastle, and although not exactly handy to Harton, was probably a convenient place for them to visit on special occasions. According to Osman (1996), although the Newcastle branch operated from 1878 until at least 1900, this particular design of card mount - referred to as the "Crown & Plume of Feathers-type" and shown below - was mostly used by branches between 1882 and 1886.


Reverse of A. & G. Taylor card mount, printed by Marion Imp. Paris,
of a style typically used by branches throughout the United Kingdom
and in the United States, between 1882 and 1886


Brenda's cousin also has two very nice miniature portraits, hand coloured, framed and glazed, which were obviously reproduced using the negatives from the A. & G. Taylor portraits.

Thomas Richardson died in 1898. Three years later, at the time of the 1901 Census, Caroline was living at Station Bank, South Shields, and described herself as a "caretaker." Her two daughters were still living at home, while son Charles Robert, recently married, was living with his parents-in-law nearby.


Caroline Richardson, c. 1904-1910
Taken by R.H. Carling of South Shields, Co. Durham
Image © & courtesy of Brenda Croome
The last portrait in the series is a large format mounted print of Caroline Richardson, probably taken between 1904 and 1910, when she was in her mid-fifties, although she doesn't look it. She is warmly dressed in a long dress, with a fur around her neck, fur muff and a wide feathered hat. She has with her a dog on a leash which, although fairly well behaved, has not stayed still for quite long enough to avoid being slightly blurred in the photo.

Robert Hamilton Carling (1865-1941) was a portrait photographer and miniature painter, originally from Wales, who operated a studio, sometimes known as the Grand Studio, at 38 King Street, South Shields from c.1894 to around 1930.

Many thanks to Brenda for the images and information featured in this article.

References

Osman, Colin (1996) The Studios of A. & G. Taylor, The Largest Photographers in the World, Supplement No. 111 to The PhotoHistorian, March 1996, ISSN 0957-0209.
Anon (1914) Kelly's Directory of Durham, University of Leicester's Historical Directories
Indexed 1841-1901 Census Images from Ancestry
General Register Office (GRO) UK Birth, Marriage and Death Indexes from FreeBMD
Google Maps UK
Harton Cemetery Monumental Inscriptions, by John Bage

Moorhay Farm, Old Brampton & J.H. Gaunt of Chesterfield

Bill Addy recently sent me an interesting photograph of a farmyard scene, with some questions about the date it might have been taken, and who the photographer might have been.

The photo, as we have been told, is of Moorhay Farm near Old Brampton showing my paternal great-grandfather and great-grandmother, Edward and Emma (Hardwick) Addy. They leased the farm from the Sitwell family and were the last of the Addys to farm there. Edward died in 1882 and Emma in 1885, both at Moorhay Farm. Both sons, John & Edward (my grandfather), as I understood it, were considered too young to continue farming there ... My grandfather emigrated a few years later to Canada & USA. The photo then must be in or prior to 1882.


I am attaching the matted photo and reverse side (the writing I believe to be my father's notation).


Also as the name JH Gaunt, Chesterfield is almost invisible on the photo I did a rubbing of the name and have also added that to the attachments. I have an interest in the photo but also in the Gaunt name as that was my grandmother Addy's maiden name (Mary Louisa Gaunt). But the only JH Gaunt is a John Henry Gaunt born 1857-8 , a 1st cousin of my grandmother. I can not find him in any directory I have. He was listed in the census as a musician, organist and owned a music store, and was married to Mennette Ball.

My original thinking was that this was a photographer, but having looked around, including your list of Derbyshire photographers, now am of the opinion he probably was in the picture framing business. Might you have any knowledge of this JH Gaunt. Was he the photographer or simply a framer? Also can you give me an approximate date for the photo?

I tried to digitally enhance the blindstamp from the original scanned image, but couldn't get a much better result than Bill's pencil rubbing. However, it's enough to show that it must have been a professionally produced embossing stamp.


My take is that it would be very unusual for a person merely mounting the photograph on the card to have "signed" their name using a blind stamp on the front of the card mount in this manner. If anything, the framer or picture mounter would use a label on the reverse. However, it was very common for photographers to use this method, particularly if they had a small output, were just starting out, or perhaps took photographs as a sideline. It meant that the photographer could put his mark on a photo in a fairly professional manner, without going to the significant expense and committment of ordering several hundred mounts printed with his or her name.

The photograph itself is a rather difficult one to date. The working clothes worn by the elderly man and woman would have changed little over the decades, and I suppose it is conveivable that from this alone, it could have been taken any time from the 1880s through to the early 1900s. The mount looks to me somewhat later, and I wonder if J.H. Gaunt has mounted an old print at a later date, or perhaps copied the print and mounted it later. If you had not mentioned anything about the date, I would probably have estimated that it was taken in the 1890s or early 1900s.

Then there is the matter of exposure times - the fact that most of the chickens, ducks and perhaps the odd goose are fairly sharp makes me think that a relatively short exposure time was used. This would have been possible by around 1880, provided that there was plenty of sunlight, such as in this outdoor setting. However, I think it's unlikely to have been much earlier. According to Brian Coe's The Birth of Photography (Spring Books, London, 1989, IBSN 0 600 56296 4), the invention of dry-plate photography by Charles Bennett in London in 1878, and the resulting swift introduction of "faster" emulsions, meant that much shorter exposure times were achievable - up to a tenth of what had been the norm.

John Henry Gaunt was born c. 1858 at Brampton, the only son of Henry Gaunt (1830-1908) and Esther Doe (1830-1878), and as a young man he followed his father into the butcher's trade. Both are listed as butchers in the 1881 Census and in the 1887 edition of Kelly's trade directory. By 1891, however, JHG was describing himself as a teacher of music, living at 64/66 Chatsworth Road, New Brampton. He was married in 1892 to Mennette Ellen Ball, and by 1895 (Kelly) he was a "teacher of music & musical instrument dealer" at 77 Chatsworth road, Chesterfield. The 1899 edition of Kelly's shows him as a "musical instrument dealer" of West bars, Chesterfield, and the 1901 census as a "Musical Inst. Dealer & Teacher of Music" working from home on his own account at 2 Clarence Rd, Chesterfield. Kelly (1912) shows him again as a "musical instrument dlr." at 39 West bars, Chesterfield. I found not a single reference to him working as a photographer.

Extract from Letter by Mr S.E. Hudson of Matlock Road, Chesterfield in an unidentified newspaper article, dated ...uary 18, 1975 (courtesy of Bill Addy)

Mr J.H. Gaunt was for many years organist at the Soresby Street Congregational Church, until the early '30s. He had a musical instruments shop at the foot of Clarence Road, and was a teacher of music. He was a very gallant man inasmuch as being virtually crippled by arthritis he could only get about with great difficulty, nut none-the-less pursued his organist position ... The shop that Mr. Gaunt had was subsequently used by the late Dr. Reginald Cooper, the organist, as a music teaching studio, and at the present time is the antiques shop belonging to Mr. John Madin.

I suspect that he was either an amateur who had an embossing stamp made with which to "sign" his work, or more likely that he tried his hand at commercial photography, perhaps starting off by canvassing his extended family for potential clients. This excursion or sideline from his main profession as a music teacher and musical instrument dealer would not have been particularly unusual.

However, I am not at all certain about the date of the photograph, and would welcome opinions from readers, please.