Letter to America - A moment in the life of a young girl in late Victorian Derby

I've long had a fascination for old photographic portraits, and it was probably during an investigation into the life of my paternal grandfather a few years ago that this matured into what should more accurately be described as an obsession. I hardly knew my grandparents. They lived on another continent - half-way around the world - and what memories I have of them are understandably hazy. I met my grandfather only a few times in my childhood, the last occasion being a year before he died, when I was in my early teens and he was eighty-two. Although my Dad had many anecdotes about his father, he admitted to knowing very little about his early life. My aunt and cousin, who lived with Grandpa and Grandma for many years, have explained that he almost never talked about his war service years. As a result, my initial research relied heavily on linking up a framework of dated events and a sizable collection of photographs taken throughout his lifetime.

I'm sure other photo-sleuths will attest to the peculiar mixture of a sense of accomplishment and gratification, that one receives from the process of trying to extract as much information as one can from a photograph, inevitably accompanied by a modicum of frustration in the knowledge that one almost certainly hasn't discovered everything there is to find. A typical example for me was the war-time photograph of my grandfather which I featured in a previous Photo-Sleuth article, "His lordship taking his rum ration."

As I delve further into the background story relating to such photographs, which capture but a brief moment in the general narrative of the subject's life story, I suppose that what I'm hoping to do is build up in my mind a character portrait of the subject. Conventionally posed Victorian and Edwardian studio photographs certainly provide fewer circumstantial and peripheral clues to a subject's character than the less formal snaps which became commonplace after the turn of the century. Nevertheless, in spite of the stiff, arranged postures and the photographer's presumed instructions not to let a smile pass across their subject's lips, I believe that such a portrait can offer a valuable window into their lives, particularly when presented as part of a narrative, and with the support of other material. On a more practical note, a portrait may also be used as a convenient focusing point on which to base one's initial research of an individual in a family tree.

Recently I've been trying to sort scanned images of a collection of old family portraits belonging to my aunt. Amongst these are a number which ostensibly include the three sisters of my great-grandfather Charles Vincent Payne (1868-1941). Some of the identifications were inscribed on the reverse in recent decades by my aunt and, by her own admission, may not be entirely reliable, since the last of the daughters died over forty years ago. Henry & Henrietta Christina Payne of New Normanton, Derby, who featured in a previous article, had seven children altogether, including three girls.

Their eldest daughter Lucy Mary was born on 29 November 1876 at 38 St James' Road, Normanton, the house that Henry had built for them the previous year, and from which he was licensed to sell beer in September 1877. Maggie, as she was known in the family, grew up in Normanton, her mother running the grocery shop and off-license while Henry was building houses in St James' Road and nearby Crewe Street. Although I haven't had an opportunity to check the actual records, I assume that she attended St James' Road Board School in the 1880s, following her three older brothers and being followed in turn by another brother, two sisters and eventually by my grandfather - her nephew - in the late 1890s.


Lucy Mary Payne (1876-1953), aged about 14
Taken c. 1890-1891
Carte de visite by Chas. S. Swift of 106, Normanton Rd. Derby
Photograph collection of Barbara Ellison
This carte de visite portrait by Charles S. Swift of 105 Normanton Road, Derby (Studio Location) was probably taken in 1890 or 1891, and shows Lucy Mary Payne when she was about fourteen years old. It's the earliest image that I have of her, although there are a further nine portraits and portrait groups (Collection: The Daughters of Henry Payne) taken at irregular intervals throughout the rest of her life.

Although I can't be certain of the exact date, Charles Swift had certainly opened his Normanton Road studio by the time of the compilation of the 1891 edition of Kelly's trade directory - perhaps in late 1890 - having previously worked for his brother William E. Swift in the latter's studio at 30 St. Peter's Street, Derby. William sold his studio to R.K. Peacock and moved to Skegness some time after 1887. The rather crudely painted canvas backdrop used is the same one that can be seen in another of Swift's photographs (Image), and likewise the photographer has inadvertently included some of the rucked up right-hand edge in the photo. His later photographs showed a little more skill, a reason to suspect that the portrait of Lucy Mary was taken early on during his professional career.


1891 Census: 38 St James Rd, New Normanton DBY
NA Ref. RG12/2739/99/18/106
Image © The National Archives and courtesy of Ancestry
In the 1891 Census, shown in the enumerator's sheet above, Lucy Mary is fourteen, and it seems likely that she visited Swift's studio at around this time. Her father described himself as Vaccination Officer (a position to which he had been appointed by the Derby Board of Guardians in 1885), Rent Collector (presumably for the houses which he had been building, but perhaps on behalf of other property owners too) and "Off Beer Licence Holder." His eldest son Charles Vincent (my grandfather), by then aged 23 and working as a joiner/carriage finisher at the Midland Railway works, had moved out and was boarding with a family nearby in Pear Tree Street. The second son Charles Hallam had also left home by then, but had moved significantly further afield. He too had entered the building trade, but had travelled to the United States in late 1890 and was successful in finding employment as a carpenter at the Pullman Car Company railway carriage works in Chicago (Illinois).


Envelope addressed to C.H. Payne, Box 165, Roseland, Chicago, America
Stamped & Postmarked Normanton & Derby 12 Jan '91
and Roseland & Chicago ?26 Jan 1891 on front and reverse
Collection of Brett Payne
In my collection of family papers is an envelope addressed to Hallam in Chicago, stamped and franked at Normanton and Derby Post Offices with the date 12 January 1891. Inside the envelope are letters to Hallam from his father and from his three sisters Maggie, Lily and Helen.


Letter from Henry Payne to his son Charles Hallam in Chicago,
dated 12 January 1891 at Derby
Collection of Brett Payne
In his letter, Henry thanks Hallam for his recent letter accompanied by a "book of Pulman," a large format bound collection of mounted prints depicting Pullman's developments in southern suburbs of Chicago, which has fortunately survived in the family archives. He describes the effects of the severe winter on employment in Derby and relates a couple of anecdotes which provides some insight into the family's day-to-day life in Derby.

We are having awfully cold weather here now for the last six weeks. Many are out of employ. I saw your old friend Smith otherwise Carbo, to day. He, with others had been discharged from [Midland Railway] Signal dept. at Christmas, and is now walking about. Out door work is completely at a standstill on account of the severe weather ... The youngsters are giving you a history of their Switchback slide running across the green from top corner of Crewe St. to half way down St. James's Rd. The lads have had splendid up & down sliding or as they call it Switchback ... Your mother desires me to tell you to be sure and be a good lad & save your money. She occasionally fills a plate at meal times forgetting there is one short at table, but Fred says it don't matter he can manage it ...

The letters from Hallam's sisters are charming, although pretty much what you would expect from a fourteen, eight and seven year-old, respectively, with those of the two younger characterised by rounded, shaky handwriting and a few spelling mistakes.


Letter from Lucy Mary Payne to her brother Charles Hallam in Chicago,
dated 23 December 1890 at Derby
Collection of Brett Payne
Maggie writes:

Dear Hallam
I wish you manny [sic] happy returns of your Birthday, all of us do if they had not time to say so in their letters. We are going to have a little entertainment. We have all sent a few cards to you. I send you my Photo. Ma says when you have half an hour to spare pop across & put hinge on Table door. It wont take long. We often look at the time & think what time it is with you. The snow is coming down fast. Ma & Pa went to our entertainment last Friday & left Frank to serve beer, just fancy. I played a duet. With love from Maggie.

How exciting to find in there the reference, "I send you my Photo." Could she be referring to the photograph of her featured above, now in my aunt's collection? I think it very likely. Hallam was, according to my father, an inveterate hoarder and almost certainly would have brought back to England such letters and photographs when he returned home in November 1892. My grandfather inherited all of Uncle Hallam's family photos when he died in 1960, and they were subsequently passed on to my aunt a decade and a half later. Even if this is not the exact portrait, I think we can safely say that this is more or less how she would have looked at the time she wrote the letter.


Charles Hallam Payne (1870-1960), aged about 20
Possibly taken c. 1890-1892 in Chicago
Tintype by an unknown photographer
Photograph collection of Barbara Ellison
I don't have any portraits of Charles Hallam Payne that I can categorically state were taken during his brief stay in Chicago, from late 1890 until November 1892, but I believe this tintype to be a very likely candidate. Unfortunately it is slightly out of focus, roughly trimmed, has experienced some darkening and loss of contrast, and the lacquer used to coat the image now has a honeycomb of fine cracks, but it still gives a good impression of Hallam as a young man. As referred to in Maggie's latter, Hallam turned twenty on Boxing Day 1890, and he looks to be about that age in this photograph. In the last decade of the nineteenth century tintypes of this size were far more commonly used in the United States than in England. In fact, of only two other tintypes of similar vintage in our family collection, one is of my grandfather Charles Leslie Lionel Payne in a baby carriage, which I am fairly certain was taken in late 1892, also in Chicago.

While this investigation is by no means complete - I expect to continue finding more snippets relating to Lucy Mary's childhood in the years to come - I am starting to build a mental picture, not only of her but of the family and their life at that time.

I can envisage Henrietta getting the four youngest children ready for school each day, and them heading off on the journey which would only have taken them a couple of minutes, as the school was situated diagonally opposite their house, and the gates were just a few yards up Hastings Street. I can imagine the enormous amount of fun that she and her brothers would have had playing in the snow after school had finished for the day, making tracks to slide on when it all turned to ice, not to mention the pile of dripping and muddy clothes that Henrietta would have had to deal with when they got home.

I can easily see her sitting down reluctantly with her two younger sisters, each clutching identical single pieces of notepaper, two days before Christmas, after having been nagged by their mother. Then I imagine them wondering aloud what they could write that might be of the remotest interest to their older brother, who had set off a few months earlier on an exciting adventure across the seas. They were perhaps sitting at the same kitchen table in the St James' Road house where, a few minutes earlier, Henrietta had distractedly served an extra plate of food for an her absent son, which was then wolfed down eagerly by an ever hungry eleven year-old boy. Since my own pre-teenage daughter is learning to play the piano and also performs at concerts two or three times a year, the entertainment referred to by Maggie is another facet of their lives that I have no difficulty in bringing to mind.

To me, the photograph is what brings it all to life, and the family photo collection therefore is the most important part of the material heritage I have received and which I will pass on to the next family historian in due course.

Back to work!

It's now over two months since I last wrote an article for this blog, and I must apologise to my regular readers for my extended absence. Apart from the usual "end-of-school-term"/Christmas/New Year duties and shenanigans, a house guest for a couple of weeks in late December and early January, and an extended camping holiday with my family on the East Coast, I have been occupied with some long overdue updates to my other photohistorical web site, devoted to Derbyshire Photographic Studios.

In searching for sources of inspiration for Photo-Sleuth, I've been looking at a collection of images of my own family, and will draw largely on these over the next few weeks. Please continue sending me interesting images that you might like to share or about which you may have questions. As those who have been following this blog for some time will realise, I'm easily distractible. Notwithstanding my return to full-time university study this year, I'll do my best to keep a regular flow of material coming. As always, I value corrections, comments, constructive criticisms, additional information, etc, so don't be shy to post in the appropriate place.

Stereoview by John Alfred Warwick (1821-1896) of Derby

One of the best known Derby photographers was Richard Keene (1825-1894), about whom I have previously written the following:

"Although primarily a printer, bookseller, stationer and, by 1855, publisher of the Derbyshire Telegraph, he developed an interest in photography, and travelled throughout Derbyshire with friends, taking pictures of architecture, topography and landscapes. He started by selling prints of the high quality photos for which he became reknowned, but also set up and operated a successful portrait studio from at least 1859, produced private commissions for firms, estates and families, and took photos in many other counties. He was an associate of Fox Talbot, and his work reportedly included commissions by the Royal Family. In 1884 he was a founder member of the Derby Photographic Society, he was the recipient of 34 major awards, and he also became President Elect of the Photographic Convention of the United Kingdom."

John Alfred Warwick (1821-1896) & Elizabeth Hole Warwick (1832-1904)
taken c.1860 by his close friend Richard Keene at Derby
from Keene's Derby by Maxwell Craven, publ. 1993, Breedon Books
One of those close friends, who accompanied Keene on a number of photographic "rambles" around Derbyshire and other places further afield, was J.A. Warwick (1821-1896). John Alfred Warwick was born in Manchester, son of a Unitarian minister and scientist Thomas Oliver Warwick (1771-1852) and Mary Aldred. After his marriage to Elizabeth Hole Hudson (1832-1904) at Ilkeston in 1854, they settled in Derby, where they had seven daughters and a son over the next two decades. Warwick was soon after appointed telegraph superintendent for the Midland Railway Company, a position he held until his retirement in the 1880s. In the 1891 Census, when he was living at Brook Cottage, Ockbrook, he is described as a pyrotechnist, i.e. he was a producer of fireworks, and his Guy Fawkes displays were reportedly very popular.


Amongst many other interests he was also a keen amateur photographer from as early as 1852, and appears to have taken quite a few of the landscapes later published as stereoviews by Keene. The image shown above is one such stereoview, although this particular example is attributed to Warwick on the reverse (see below), with Keene noted as the publisher. John Bradley, who has several views by Keene and Warwick in his collection, informs me that it was from an earlier series probably taken in the late 1850s.


The number 42 in the top left hand corner of the box presumably identifies the stereograph as number 42 in a series of views published by Keene. The title and description are as follows:

Ruins of Ashby-de-la-Zouche Castle, from the Manor-House garden. This is one of the many fine views obtained from the north or garden side of the Castle. On the left is the fine gable and window of Mary Queen of Scots' Room; and in the centre are the windows of the Great Hall, behind which rises the majestic Ivanhoe Tower. Scott has made these ruins doubly interesting, and has given them a fame that will survive when their massive relics shall have crumbled into the dust.

As with other photographs published by Keene but actually taken by Warwick, what appears to be the familiar figure of Richard Keene is evident. He is lying prostrate on the grass, apparently writing in a notebook.


Richard Keene & the Eyam Cross, 27 July 1858, by J.A. Warwick
Image © Derby Museum Ref. DBYMU.A41 & courtesy of Maxwell Craven in Keene's Derby
Maxwell Craven, in his absorbing book Keene's Derby (published in 1993 by Breedon Books, ISBN 1 873626 60 6), describes in some detail the earliest of Keene and Warwick's rambles, through the Peak District in July 1858, and includes a photograph showing Keene with a leather shoulder bag and his notebook seated on the base of the Eyam Cross, taken by Warwick on 27 July 1858 in Eyam churchyard.


Richard Keene & the Wheston Cross, c.1858-1859, by J.A. Warwick
Image © and courtesy of Picture the Past Ref. DCCC001840
Picture the Past has another image, possibly from the same ramble. Although attributed to Keene, it was clearly taken by Warwick as Keene is seated in a very similar pose to the earlier photo, on the plinth of the cross at Wheston, near Tideswell.

If any other readers have prints of photographs or stereoviews by Warwick or Keene, please get in touch by email. I'd be very keen to see further images, and even feature them here if possible.

Another portrait by "Professor" Simpson of Ashbourne & Buxton

I've recently updated the article describing a cabinet photograph of a landau taken by "Professor" Frank Simpson of Ashbourne & Buxton, sent to me by John Bradley. Nigel Aspdin conducted some research at the Derby Local Studies Library and was successful in identifying the building in the background as the Railway Hotel in Buxton.


In the mean time, I received another image of a photograph by Simpson. This one is a carte de visite portrait, possibly a few years earlier than the landau photo, and not nearly as decent quality. The owner of the photograph, Terry Nolan, writes:

The attached photo is from a collection of prints which belonged to my grandmother. Her name was Frances Helen Larissey, later Mrs Nolan of Handsworth, nr Sheffield. I can't identify any of the people in the picture, however the man in the middle of the three men in the back row, bears an uncanny resemblance to my late father. That being the case, it could be my great-grandfather John Larissey (b. 1845) or failing that my great-great-grandfather Thomas Larissey (b. 1810). It would be really useful to try to date the photograph. I still wouldn't be sure of the identity of the man, but it would be interesting to speculate.

Unfortunately, the carte de visite is a little faded, and not particularly clear. From what I can make out of the clothes that the women are wearing, the fashions more or less equate to the late 1870s, say between 1876 and 1880.


The design on the reverse of the card mount is of a style - with text in a banner & stylized ivy - which was popular in the mid- to late 1870s. Roger Vaughan has a similar example on his web site which is accurately dated at November 1878. It is similar to the design on my profile of Frank Simpson profile, except that it has three "Prince of Wales feathers" motifs at the top instead of the coat of arms. I believe this example may have been slightly earlier than the "coat of arms" style, but the latter is not dated so that's not a great help.

The style of the backdrop, the clothes worn by the subjects, the shape of the card and the card mount design all point to a date of around 1877 to 1880, although it is possible that it could have been taken as late as 1881-1882. Older women tended to wear clothes which were perhaps not quite as up-to-date with the latest fashions, and the photographer Simpson, too, being something of an itinerant, may not have possessed the latest amenities in his travelling studio.

If that is the case, then it's possibly the oldest portrait by Simpson that I have yet come across, so I'm very grateful for the opportunity to use it - many thanks, Terry.

All six of the subjects look as they could easily be in their sixties, although the two in the middle, including the man you referred to, is possibly a little older than the others. I think it quite conceivable that he might be Thomas Larissey (1810-1882). Thomas and his wife Ann (née Fawcett) lived in the village of Loversall, near Doncaster in South Yorkshire, where he worked as a gardener from prior to 1841 until his death on 31 December 1882.

I think it quite likely that Thomas Larissey would have travelled to Buxton, together with his wife and perhaps friends or family, for a short holiday in the summer time, as it was a popular tourist resort. I suspect - although I don't yet have good documentation for this - that Simpson spent the summer holiday season in Buxton catering to the tourist trade visiting the Peak District and the hydropathic spas, and went back to Ashbourne for much of the rest of the year. It is also possible, although I believe less likely, that Simpson travelled to or through Doncaster or Loversall taking photographs as he went, as he operated from a caravan. The fact that he lists locations in Leicester, Burslem and London on the reverse of his card mounts suggests to me that he travelled a good deal, perhaps following the village and town fairs.

Alexander Frederick Rolfe (1814-1875) artist, photographer & angler

Miss Matilda Rolfe (1816-1896)
by Rolfe's Portrait Studio, 25 December 1861
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
This carte de visite is a standard seated portrait of a middle aged woman in a fairly well appointed studio, which I purchased on eBay a few years ago. The main reason for my interest, apart from it being a well composed portrait and a nice early example of a crte de visite, was because an apparently contemporary inscription on the reverse both identifies the sitter and provides an accurate date. Further research has revealed that the photographer was a Victorian painter, Alexander Frederick A.T. Rolfe (1814-1875), one of a family of sporting artists, and the subject is almost certainly his sister Matilda Rolfe (1816-1896).


The card mount has the studio address (Rolfe's Portrait Studio, 4 Haymarket, London) and an inscription on the reverse, Miss M. Rolfe, Dec 25th /61. An entry in the photoLondon database shows that Alexander Frederick Rolfe was active as a photographer at this location from 1857 until 1864. Alexander Rolfe was one of at least eight children of artist William Edmund Rolfe (1781-1876) and his first wife Louisa Nicholson (1792-1822). After his first wife died, W.E. Rolfe married Eliza Julia Hopkins (1798-1879), with whom he had another four children.

Matilda was Alexander's younger sister, just two years younger than him. She was born in late 1815 or early 1816 at St Clement Dane's, Westminster, London, and never married. By 1851 she was living as a companion with her elderly grandmother at the Goldsmith Almshouse, Acton, Middlesex. From at least 1861 until 1871, according to ceneus records, she was working as a housekeeper to one Henry Reeves, a farmer and landowner, at Rookley Manor, Isle of Wight. This is presumably how she was employed at the time the portrait was taken by her brother. By 1881, she had retired and was lodging in Winchester, and by 1891 was in Weeke, now a suburb of Winchester. Matilda Rolfe died at Islington, Middlesex, in 1896 at the age of eighty-one.


Trout Fishing, by Alexander Frederick Rolfe
Alexander Rolfe was a painter of landscape, still life and sporting subjects, as were his sister Catherine Augusta Herring (1828-1911), better known younger brother Henry Leonidas Rolfe (1823-1881) and brother-in-law John Frederick Herring Jr. (1815-1907). The image shown above is typical of his landscapes with fishing subjects, and possibly depicts Alexander himself with his brother Henry. A portrait of Henry by Alexander, painted in 1850 and now in the collection of the Piscatorial Society, is entitled "Limner of scaly Subjects." [Source]


An English Farmyard Idyll,
by John Frederick Herring & Alexander Frederick Rolfe
He painted profusely and exhibited extensively between 1839 and 1871, and on occasion collaborated with J.F. Herring, his sister Kate's husband. The Rehs Gallery has an extensive virtual exhibition of works by Herring, which are more in the equine and bovine, rather than piscatorial, metier.


Henry Leonidas Rolfe (1823-1881), artist, by Rolfe's Portrait Studio
Image © and courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery
The National Portrait Gallery has a carte de visite portrait of Henry Leonidas Rolfe taken by Rolfe's Portrait Studio, as well three more portraits of artists by the same studio, probably all taken in the period 1861-1864.


Portraits by Rolfe's Portrait Studio, (L to R) Charles Lucy (1814-1873), History painter; George Thomas Doo (1800-1886), Engraver; George Henry Vansittart (1823-1885), Politician
Images © and courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery

Portrait of Lady Emma Edmonstone (1804-1891)
by Rolfe's Portrait Studios, c.1864
Image © and courtesy of Roger Vaughan
Roger Vaughan has a carte de visite portrait of Lady Edmonstone, with an identical card mount design, on his Victorian and Edwardian Photographs web site, tentatively dated at c.1864. Lady Emma Edmonstone (1804-1891) was the third daughter of Randle Wilbraham of Rode Hall, Cheshire, and the wife of Sir Archibald Edmonstone, 3rd Baronet (1795-1871), a British traveler and writer. In early April 1861, they were visiting at 12 Gloster Gardens, Paddington, London, the household of a West India merchant, John Kingston and his wife Charlotte.

I have found few examples of Rolfe's photographic portraiture, but there is the occasional reference to others that have survived:

• CDV, unidentified seated male, full length, undated, printed on reverse: Rolfe's Portrait Studio, 4, Haymarket, London, in Portraits of Various People, 136 photographs from an early carte de visite album, 1866-1890, Greater Manchester County Record Office, Ref 2456/12a

The 1861 Census shows Alexander Rolfe living at 6 Richmond Park Terrace, Richmond, Surrey with his wife Harriet "Etty." He described himself merely as an artist, not mentioning the photographic sideline. It is not clear exactly how long the studio operated, but it seems unlikely that it was in existence outside the date range 1857-1864. I'm not aware of any ambrotypes by Rolfe in existence, but presumably if he was in the photographic business in the late 1850s he would have produced some. By 1871 they had moved to 9 Middleton Road, Battersea, Surrey and he is listed as an "artist - landscape & portrait painter." He died at Wandsworth in 1875, at the age of sixty-one.