Job Bramley and The Family Fry Pan Portrait Gallery

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


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

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


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


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

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

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

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


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


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

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

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

References

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

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

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

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

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

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

Summer holidays at Grand Beach, Lake Winnipeg, circa 1920

Some years ago, my father and I did some research on, and corresponded with each other about, three snapshots which had come from my grandfather Leslie Payne's collection. I have previously discussed our tentative conclusions about the locations of these photographs in a series of articles written about my grandfather's early years in Canada, both prior to and after the Great War, here and here. The publishing of Jasia's very readable 74th COG Swimsuit Edition on Creative Gene and several other recent posts with beach holiday themes in the blogging community has prompted me to look at these again, as I have done many times over the years. I was particularly keen to examine them in light of my discovery a couple of years ago, in my paternal aunt's photo collection, of a number of related pictures. I can't really explain my need to discover exactly where and when these photographs were taken, and who my grandfather's friends were, but to many of readers I'm sure I don't really need to find substantive reasons or make any excuses! It's part of the genealogical journey of discovery.


"Boulder Photo"
A group of young men and women seated on a large boulder at a rocky beach, near a large body of open water, Leslie Payne seated 2nd from left, c. 1919-1921
Print © and collection of C.B. Payne
In 2000, I wrote the following:

I have persuaded myself that these - unfortunately unannotated - photographs must have been taken during the period that Leslie Payne lived in Winnipeg between 1919 and 1921. Is it possible that they were taken during an excursion to the shores of either Lake Winnipeg or Lake Manitoba. The large boulder in [this] photo appears, to both my father and I (amateur and professional geologists, respectively), to be a glacial erratic. For this reason, it doesn't seem likely that the photo could have been taken in England.

"Beach Photo"
Two couples on a sandy beach, Leslie Payne at left, c. 1919-1921
Print © and collection of C.B. Payne


"Rustic Bench Photo"
A group seated on a wooden bench at a tented camp, Leslie Payne at right, c. 1919-1921
Print © and collection of C.B. Payne

There is a third photograph showing two of these friends, as well as my grandfather and another unindentified man (at left). They are seated on a rustic looking bench fashioned from saplings. Leslie is at the right, leaning forwards slightly; next are the couple who appeared in both the Boulder and Beach photos. The bench is located against the wall of what appears to be a large canvas tent, situated in a wood. Was it some sort of camp? Where were these three photos taken, and who are the other people (three male and three female) with Leslie Payne. Was the man common to all three a friend from the WW1 Machine Gun Corps, perhaps, and the lady next to him, who also appears in all three, his wife or girlfriend?

"Mandolin Photo"
A large group seated on a wooden bench at a tented camp, Leslie Payne at right in middle row, c. 1919-1921
Print © and collection of Brett Payne Courtesy of Margaret Pugh
In 2003, as a result of some correspondence with the niece of one of my grandfather's old Machine Gun Corps buddies in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, she sent me a photograph from her late uncle Pete McLaggan's photo album. It appeared to have been taken in the same tented camp and at the same time as the "Rustic Bench Photo." This time one of the subjects was holding a mandolin - presumably they were having a sing-along - and smoke from a wood fire can be seen drifting across the background. After doing a little more research on the history of the beaches on Lake Winnipeg I wrote:

Between 1915 and 1919, in an area at the southern end of Lake Winnipeg already popular with campers, cottages started to appear around an area known as Victoria Beach. This was aided by the arrival of the rail line - and a regular rail service - in 1916, and the formation of a municipality in August 1919, which made Victoria Beach a very convenient and popular weekend destination for Winnipeg residents. It seems probable that all four of the above photographs were taken on or close to the shores of Lake Winnipeg. Contemporary and historical images of Grand Beach and Victoria Beach found on the web suggest either area as a possible location for both the camp and beach photos. However, without first-hand knowledge of the area, it is difficult for me to be sure, and it could just as easily be one of the several other beaches nearby, such as Gimli, Hillside or Patricia Beaches.

The fact that two individuals - apart from Leslie Payne - are common to all four photos supports the idea that they were taken at roughly the same period as each other. Comparison with pre-war photographs of Leslie illustrates that these are definitely post-war.

This narrowed down the potential date to between February 1919, after his demobilisation from the Canadian Expeditionary Force at Winnipeg, and May 1921, when he returned to Derbyshire, England. I also identified a couple in the "Mandolin Photo" from other annotated photos in my Dad's collection as Laura and Stewart Morris, friends of Leslie from his time in Winnipeg. Stewart Morris appears to have been a fellow employee at Eaton's Department Store.


Victoria Beach, Manitoba, on the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg, 20 October 2007.
Digital image © Ken Gillespie and courtesy of the Canadian Geographic PhotoClub
However, there were still several other unidientified people, and I couldn't really be sure about the location. As shown by historical and more recent photographs of the area, including the stunning shot of a sunset at Victoria Beach by talented Winnipeg photographer Ken Gillespie shown above, there were and still are several sites which might have had a mixture of such rocky and sandy beaches.


In my aunt's collection, which she kindly allowed me and my brother to scan in October 2007, I made the exciting discovery of an additional 21 snapshots in the same group as the four described previously. I've uploaded images of these, together with others relating to Leslie Payne's years spent in Canada between 1912 and 1921, to my Picasa Web Albums. This enabled me to sort them out into groups arranged roughly by date and setting.


Leslie Payne (back row, left), Stewart Morris (back row, centre) and four others
Probably at Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba
Paper Print © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
I was able to separate them into two groups, based on photographic printers batch numbers stamped on the reverse of the prints. The bulk of them have a "C 21" stamp, while three have a "B 21" stamp. These latter three are obviously contemporaneous with the others, and it seems likely that they were taken by a different photographer in the group. Every photograph includes my grandfather. Although most have inscriptions, these have been made by my aunt, and only relate to my grandfather - none of the other subjects are identified. Two photographs, including the one shown above, are similar to the "Boulder Photo."


Leslie Payne (seated at right), Laura Morris (standing at right) and four others
Probably at Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba
Paper Print © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
There were also two photos (one of which is included above) showing the same group of six that was featured in the first "Boulder Photo," but standing or sitting on a smaller boulder partially submerged in the water.


Leslie Payne (standing at right) and three others
Probably at Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba
Paper Print © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
Next there are two photos with similar, although not quite identical, attitude and subjects to the "Beach Photo" described earlier.


Leslie Payne (front row, second from left) and eight others
Probably at Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba
Paper Print © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
A further seven shots are in a similar vein, of various groups of between three and eleven people lying, seated and standing on a sandy beach, but apparently taken looking in the opposite direction, away from the water. While all of them appear posed, some have a more conventional portrait structure than others. Some are perhaps a little later in the day, as several of the subjects have donned more layers of clothing. Several are of somewhat poorer quality, either out of focus, poorly framed, or with subjects turned away from the camera. The example above is one of the better ones, with only one chap ignoring the "say cheese" request. In the background can be seen some partly vegetated low hills, possibly sand dunes, telegraph poles, other groups of beachgoers (one of them looks as though he might be eating an ice cream cone), including a child, and a bandstand, gazebo or small pavilion.


Leslie Payne (second from right) and eight others
Probably at Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba
Paper Print © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
This more relaxed pose was probably shot only a few minutes after the previous one.


Leslie Payne (right) and two others, with Dancing Pavilion in background
Grand Beach, Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba
Paper Print © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
The next two photos are similar, showing Leslie Payne and two others lying on the beach, but have a different background view, possibly to the right of the others, which includes a very large building with a rounded roof.


Detail of Dancing Pavilion, Grand Beach, Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba
Image © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
It is this building, shown enlarged in the image above, which has provided, at least for me, incontrovertible proof that at least some of these photographs were taken at Grand Beach.


Dancing Pavilion, Grand Beach, Lake Winnipeg, undated
Image © and courtesy of Grand Beach Visitors Guide
The Grand Beach and East Beach Visitors Area web site has an article on the history of the area, apparently based on a book Grand Beach - The Grand Old Days by Susan Lemoine and Tim Barnfather (publ. 1978, Manitoba Department of Tourism, Manitoba). Several photographs are displayed, presumably taken from the book, two of which are included here.


Interior of Dancing Pavilion, Grand Beach, Lake Winnipeg, undated
Image © and courtesy of Grand Beach Visitors Guide

The grandest of all the buildings at Grand Beach was the Dance Pavilion. Rumour has it that this was the largest Dance Hall of its time in the Commonwealth. Until its destruction by fire in 1950, this was the major source of entertainment and the central meeting spot of the resort community. Entire families and all age groups would enjoy the music of the band hired by the railway for the entire season. Admission was originally free, but in the Twenties "Jitney" (a nickel a dance) dancing began.

Boardwalk & Dancing Pavilion, Grand Beach, Lake Winnipeg
Image © Western Canada Pictorial Index and courtesy of Manitoba Conservation

A boardwalk was built over the years that extended from the station to the lagoon along the beach front. Hot and crowded during the day, lit up at night, the boardwalk provided sure footing for shoe-clad feet and food for hungry beach-goers. The first hot dog and soft drink stand was built in 1923. Under the boardwalk the shade was welcome. Treasure hunters could be rewarded with some loose change. Itinerant travellers found the boardwalk an ideal shelter. They say Sandy is the name given to a girl-child conceived under the boardwalk. Whatever the recreational preference, the boardwalk offered a variety of diversions.

The carousel was an awesome and magical building. Filled with hand-crafted animals: studs, mares and ponies, whirling in an endless circle to the tinkling music, their manes flying, teeth bared, hooves raised, forever frozen in time.

Leslie Payne (back) and friends, probably Grand Beach, Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba
Paper Print © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
There are two photographs showing a group of six beachgoers posing in a line on a wooden pier. In the left-hand image Laura and Stewart Morris are at the head of the line, while my Grandpa is at the back, but I have not yet been able to identify the other three. The electric lamp hanging from a pole at the end of the pier suggests that it might be part of the boardwalk system described above. There is also part of a rowing boat visible in the background.

I've included the second, very similar shot, because it appears that the photographer of the first picture has gone into the line (fourth from the front), and Stewart Morris has taken the second. I think we can assume that one of these two characters is the primary photographer in all the shots with "C 21" batch stamp. Since Stewart Morris only appears in two shots in the entire collection, and the other man appears in a great many, I think it very likely that it was Stewart who owned the camera and took the photos during this holiday period. The three from the "B 21" batch may have been taken with a different camera by another member of the group, although the possibility exists that one of the batches actually consists of reprints from the same original negatives as the other batch.


Leslie Payne (at right) and friends, at a tented camp
probably Grand Beach, Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba
Paper Print © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
The final group of five photographs is from the tented camp in the woods, previously illustrated in the "Rustic Bench" and "Mandolin" photos above. Two of them include a much older couple, and I have speculated that they are possibly parents of one of the young people and owners of the property.


Leslie Payne (at right) and friends, at a tented camp
probably Grand Beach, Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba
Paper Print © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
This photograph is another view of the wooden bench and canvas tent, but from a slightly different angle. Hanging from the awning of the tent are two flags, a Union Jack on the left and what appears to be a version of the Canadian Red Ensign on the right.


Detail of Canadian Red Ensign flag
Paper Print © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
Nigel Aspdin has discussed the history of this design at some length on his vexicological blog, What's that flag.


The "Nine Provinces" Canadian Red Ensign of 1907, unofficial flag of Canada from 1907 to 1921
Image courtesy of 'Orange Tuesday' and Wikipedia
It appears to me to be a slightly modified or unofficial version of the "Nine Province" Canadian Red Ensign of 1907 after Alberta and Saskatchewan had been added, as illustrated in this Wikipedia article. Sharp spotted readers will notice, however, that the lower left and lower centre sectors have been switched around. Alistair B. Fraser in his The Flags of Canada - The Country: Chapter IV, describes the genesis of the Canadian Red Ensigns and the design of the 1907 Nine Province badge. He also discusses the rise in use of the Union Flag (or Union Jack) after the turn of the century, and the common simulataneous use of the two flags before, during and after the war.

It appears to me that Leslie Payne spent a few days, or perhaps several weekends, during the summer of either 1919 or 1920, with a group of friends camping at Grand Beach, an easy train trip from Winnipeg, during which time they spent a good deal of time at the nearby beach. There are at least a dozen individuals in these photographs, some of whom were probably in the same camp, while others may have been staying nearby. I have mentioned Stewart and Laura Morris, who I identified from annotated photographs of the same era. However, I don't know who any of the others were.

My grandfather received a book in October 1921, after he had returned to England, from someone who signed themself as "P" living at 43 Fawcett Avenue, Winnipeg, with the following inscription, "fulfilling a promise made two years earlier." My aunt believes this was a girlfriend named Peggy, but has no further information about her. Perhaps Peggy was one of those in the photographs. I'm hoping that some day, someone from the Winnipeg area will recognise a family member in the images included above, but I will admit that it's a long shot.


Today's article is my entry for the 5th Edition of the Canadian Genealogy Carnival hosted by looking4ancestors.

Catching up

I'm afraid that a preoccupation with studies and house guests has left me with little time to spend on Photo-Sleuth recently. Although I have tried hard to keep up with reading my favourite, and ever-growing, list of family history and photo-related blogs, I've been disappointed to miss out on participating in a couple of exellent Geneabloggers carnivals, such as Evelyn Yvonne Theriault's A Festival of Postcards (2nd Edition): Main Street.

Three weeks ago I attended a very interesting, informative and thought provoking talk entitled Snapshots - The Vernacular in New Zealand Photography in the Art Lounge of the Auckland Art Gallery given by Ron Brownson, Senior Curator of New Zealand and Pacific Art. Several of the photographs which he used in the accompanying slideshow Ron has also featured in a series of Snapshots on the Auckland Art Gallery staff blog Outpost. A variety of aspects of indigenous amateur photography have been discussed in both blog articles and the talk.


Group of friends posed sitting on a truck at the beach, c. 1925
Image © and courtesy of Ron Brownson
Outpost (Auckland Art Gallery Staff blog) - Snapshots 10
Apart from using the photographs as a window onto the way of life in the early to mid-20th Century, Ron analyses the relationship between the photographer and his or her subjects. I am particularly intrigued how he uses this to develop an idea of who the photographer might have been. For example, he comes to the conclusion that the person taking the shot featured above was a woman. I don't know whether I agree with him or not, but it certainly got me thinking more about this photographer-subject relationship.

A large proportion of the snapshots in Ron's collection feature people engaging in recreational activities, often by the beach. I have quite a few images in my own family collection in a similar vein, and hope to feature some of these on Photo-Sleuth in the next few weeks.

On a quite different note I would like to acknowledge and thank George Geder and Judith Richards Schubert for their recognition of my efforts on Photo-Sleuth in the form of Puckerbrush Awards on their respective blogs here and here.

George is a keen photo restoration artist and family historian, using his work with precious family photographs and the telling of stories to make genealogy research more interesting. On his blog George Geder employs a variety of formats to tell these stories and to share his three decades of valuable genealogical knowledge and experience. George provides some details of his background and sources of inspiration in a guest article on footnoteMaven's popular Shades of the Departed blog, in which he talks about the importance of preserving and restoring photographs. He also writes a regular column for Shades, entitled The Healing Brush, in which he reveals some of his restoration secrets. Have a look at the circa 1958 photograph of a young boy with his mother and also "a client's crumbling grandmother" on Gifts of the Ancestors, Part I and Part II - I bet those took a few hours to restore!

Judith's blog Genealogy Traces is another of my regular reads. She is a regular and enthusiastic participant in the various Geneablogger carnivals and, most important to me, uses a wonderful variety of images to illustrate her genealogy research. For example, an unused 1960s colour postcard of the Canal Grande in Venice bought and saved by her mother-in-law was Judith's contribution for the aforementioned Festival of Postcards - Main Street. Scrapbooking is another of Judith's talents, and many of her old family photos have been artfully presented as digital scrapbook pages. I particularly enjoyed her entry for the 74th Carnival of Genealogy: Swimsuit Edition, a snapshot of her pregnant mother perched precariously in a wooden craft of rather rudimentary construction - whether Judith's dad is steadying the boat or perhaps threatening to tip it over, I'm not quite sure.

Smile for the Camera (14th Edition) - Wedding Belles

The word prompt for the 14th Edition of Smile For The Camera is "Wedding Belles." According to the host footnoteMaven of Shades of the Departed:

Historically, couples married in the month of June to honor Juno, the Roman goddess of marriage. Others did it to time conception so births wouldn't interfere with harvest work. And brides in the 15th century chose to marry in June because it coincided with their "annual bath" - that's right - ensuring a relatively sweet-smelling honeymoon.

Well, I have to confess that despite a diligent search I've been unable to come up with a single one of my ancestors that lived within the photographic era who was married during the month of June. The records are sadly silent on whether they were accustomed to having more than one bath a year, or perhaps merely timed their ablutions according to a non-pagan calendar.

My family also appear to have been somewhat reticent about inviting the local photographer to record their nuptials. I have marriage certificates aplenty, so I know the events actually did take place, but photographic records seem to be rare.

(For those who are expecting wedding photos, and won't make do with any kind of substitute, I have previously published and written on this topic several times. Articles include the wedding of my paternal grandparents (Amateur Photo of a Wedding Group, 1926), a large wedding group in Derby by John Burton & Sons taken c. 1865, the famous and often photographed "wedding" of Mr & Mrs General Tom Thumb, and an 1850s ambrotype of a recently married couple. I also recently wrote an extensive series of articles detailing a successful investigation into the identities of subjects of a wedding portrait (A Mystery Marriage in Barton-under-Needwood).)


Margien Adriana Schipper and her nephew Dirk Smit
Amsterdam, Netherlands, taken c. 1931-1932
Print 74 x 105 mm
Image © and collection of H.A.W. Payne
I've decided, therefore, to instead feature a couple of portaits of a family member who was never married, although if she had, I have little doubt that she would have done so in June. I have inherited a couple of her photograph albums, and therefore possess a fair number of amateur and professional portraits of her and her immediate family. Those included here, however, are from my mother's albums. The first is of my great-aunt Margien Adriana Schipper (1885-1982), known to me as Tante Gien, and her only nephew (my mother's brother) Dirk Smit (1926-1961).


Margien Adriana Schipper and her grand-nephew
Postjeskade, Amsterdam, Netherlands, taken July-August 1963
Kodacolor Print 79 x 79 mm
Image © and collection of H.A.W. Payne
The second, taken some thirty years later, shows Tante Gien in a very similar pose, but with the next generation on her lap. I don't recall that occasion - I was, after all, only eighteen months old - but I do remember visiting her with my grandparents in 1974. I can easily conjure up an image in my mind of how kind she was - she slipped me a few guilders to augment my pocket money - although she spoke practically no English and I, sadly, no Dutch at all.

I am struck by how authentic the colours are in this photograph. The 1960s were the early years of widespread use of amateur colour photography, but Kodak seem to have got it right!

Holidays at the beach

Today is my Aunt Bunnie's birthday. In just over two weeks it will be three years since her brother Bud, my Dad, died and left a gap in our lives that I can't begin to describe. A year ago last month Bunnie lost her husband and companion of over fifty years, our much loved Uncle Alf. Although half a world away Bunnie is very much in our thoughts.


Bud Payne, Southwick, 1932
Print 56 x 79 mm
Image © and collection of C.B. Payne
Todays photographs celebrate just one aspect of the childhood that Bud and Bunnie shared, holiday visits to the seaside in the years before the outbreak of war put paid to that sort of activity.


Bud and Bunnie Payne, Bridlington, 1933
Print 54 x 77 mm
Image © and collection of C.B. Payne


Bud and Bunnie Payne, probably 1933 or 1934
Print 80 x 115 mm
Image © and collection of C.B. Payne


Bud and Bunnie with their mother Ethel Payne
Location unknown & undated but probably Summer 1935
Print 80 x 116 mm
Image © and collection of C.B. Payne