Have space suit - Will travel

Almost a year ago I posted this image of a rather bizarre transportation device in an article on Photo-Sleuth in the hope that readers would be able to help solve the mystery of what exactly it was, and why it appears in my aunt's collection of old family photographs. The footnoteMaven's 18th Smile for the Camera Carnival has the theme of "Travel" and seems an opportune moment to revisit the subject, summarizing what I've learnt.


Transport contraption, St Malo, France
Carte de visite by unknown photographer
Image © and courtesy of Barbara Ellison
The carte de visite is part of the Payne family heritage, held by my aunt, which I scanned on a visit to England a couple of years ago. There is no background to it at all, except that it probably came from the collection of my great-grandfather Charles Vincent Payne (1868-1941). The photograph shows some kind of viewing platform on which at least two dozen people are crowded, itself mounted on stilts or a tower standing in water. Ripples in the water around the base of the legs suggest some movement, either of the water, or of the contraption itself. It is apparently located in a bay, as a shoreline with buildings is vaguely visible in the background.


Have Space Suit, Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein,
1958 hardcover edition illustration by Ed Emshwiller,
published by Charles Scribner & Sons, New York
The contraption is a little too rectangular - and authentic - to be one of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds tripods, but it does seem almost in the genre of science fiction, or what passed as science fiction in the Victorian era. Hence my somewhat off-the-wall visualization of the theme of Robert Heinlein's 1958 book which lends its title to this article.


There are some further clues to the moving tower. Handwritten in purple ink on the front and reverse of the card mount is the following text:

Passes between St Malo & ...
It goes by
Machinery
I passed over it last year
& again this year twice
Aug 1882
It takes about 3 minutes
to cross, its only 1 sous

By comparison with handwriting that I know to be that of Charles Vincent's father Henry Payne (1842-1907) - from an 1891 letter, reproduced in a previous Photo-Sleuth article - I believe this must be the hand of Henry. If he did indeed travel from his home town of Derby in the English Midlands to France a couple of times in the early 1880s, Henry must have been a pretty well travelled - and busy - man. In 1880 Henry, his wife Henrietta and children made a short-lived attempt to settle in America, spending a few months farming at Bladensburg, Maryland before returning to England late that year or in early 1881.

What was Henry doing abroad again so soon? Nigel Aspdin has suggested in a comment to the previous article that he may have used a separate and more circuitous route back from the United States, rather than the more direct Baltimore-Liverpool run which the rest of the family presumably took. He also postulates that wrapping up the farming business venture in North America may have required another trip, and it was easier, quicker or cheaper to "take a train Derby-Portsmouth, a ferry across to St Malo, and catch a ship in France, say Le Havre, St Nazaire, Cherbourg or maybe St Malo itself." All of these possibilities are worth thinking about and investigating in further detail some time, but I will resist getting too sidetracked for the duration of compiling this article.

Nigel also remarks on the sous (or should that be "sou") apparently still being used as the colloquial price for a fare, almost a century after the official currency had changed from livres/sous/deniers to francs/centimes. Another diversion which I shan't pursue for the moment, although still of interest.


Meccano model of the St Malo Transporter Bridge, Brittany
Image © and courtesy of the Melbourne Meccano Club Inc.
Nigel again provided the vital clue to the real nature of what I had referred to as a possible tourist trap with the key search words, "St Malo transporter bridge," which brought up a modern image of a Meccano model made by a hobbyist to a design from the May-June edition of Meccano Magazine.


Part of front page of Meccano Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 9, May-June 1919.
Image © and courtesy of Rémi's Meccano Pages
I also found an original image of the design in the facsimile online Meccano Magazine hosted by Rémi's Meccano Pages, which includes in its caption: ... an excellent representation of the Rolling Bridge which conveys passengers from St. Malo to St. Servan.


Côte d'Émeraude. 535. Saint-Malo - Le Pont Roulant à marée basse
Postcard published c.1900
Image courtesy of Wikipedia user Fibo.cdn
From this it was but a short step to several descriptions of the history and numerous images of what was more correctly termed the Pont Roulant of St. Malo. Two of the most informative are on the Tramway Information pages and in a Wikipedia article. The latter is in French, which I could conceivably have read (with some difficulty), but for which I more conveniently used Google's handy Translation Toolbar. The result is not too bad in terms of fluency, although as is common with most online translators, it produces an unintentionally amusing commentary on the workings of the unusual machinery:

The bridge was traveling on Vignoles rail 38 kg / m, whose spacing was 4.60 m. The truck was supported by wheels 1 m in diameter, which was placed before a stone-hunting.
The platform 7 mx 6 m, surrounded by a railing crossbar with benches in length, included a pool party where the passengers took shelter in bad weather.
The set of 14 tons was pulled by strings. A steam 10 c. was prepared in a wood shop located on the wharf. The driver of the platform indicated by the sudden departure of trumpet at machinist posted in this shop. The arrest was served by a second blow of the trumpet.

1509. Côte d'Émeraude. 19. Saint-Malo-Saint-Servan - Le Pont-Roulant
Image © John R.Prentice and courtesy of Tramway Information
The Tramway Information article reveals that the Pont Roulant was constructed in 1873 by a local architect, Alexandre Leroyer, who held a concession to operate it for sixty years. It spanned the entrance to the French port of St Malo, which at low tide could be traversed along a stone causeway, and was designed to transport passengers between the towns of Saint-Malo and Saint-Servan. The original two-minute (or three, according to Henry) passage on the 13 metre-high rolling platform was made between two specially designed "docking stations," powered by a steam engine housed at the St.-Servan end, and carried up to two thousand people a day. Later, after the Leroyer's death the new concessionaire replaced the steam engine with electric motors. The centre of the platform had a covered cabin with glazed sides, affording panoramic views even under inclement weather conditions. Despite being seriously damaged by fire on one occasion in August 1909, and by collisions with ships in February 1889 and November 1922, it continued running until its eventual closure in November 1923.


The tourist attraction has also, I have discovered, been the subject of a book, L'Épopée du Pont Roulant de Saint-Malo à Saint-Servan, by Henri Fermin.


I even found a stereographic image of the Pont-Roulant, presumably from around the turn of the century ...


Pont-Roulant, St. Malo, c.1890
Magic lantern slide
Image © and courtesy of Collecting House
... and a lantern slide from slightly earlier showing passengers alighting.


Côte d'Émeraude 226 - Saint-Malo - Le Pont Roulant
Postcard posted 1910
Judging by the number of extant used and unused postcards from the first couple of decades of the twentieth century, such as the example above posted in 1910, the ride continued to be a popular novelty with tourists right through to Edwardian times. I have noticed, however, that the postcard views rarely show as many customers aboard as Henry's carte de visite.

The final words I will leave to Phil Beard, who in his commentary on the visual arts and popular culture refers to the Pont-Roulant as Leroyer's "magnificent indifference to appearing ridiculous" and a product "of the Nineteenth Century imagination, notable for [its] impudent attempt to conquer time and space with the most slender resources." Perhaps so, but it succeeded in catching the tourists' imagination, and their sous.


References

St Malo Rolling Bridge from Tramway Information

Pont roulant de Saint-Malo from Wikipedia

Heilprin, A. & Heilprin, L. (1906) The Geographical Dictionary of the World. partially available online from Google Books.

Fermin, Henri (2005) L'Epopée du Pont Roulant de Saint-Malo à Saint-Servan, Nouvelles Impressions, ISBN 2951473508.

Le Pont Roulant by Phil Beard's Notes on the Visual Arts and Popular Culture

All lined up in the school playground in their Sunday best

I have wondered, when looking at old school photographs from the Victorian period, whether the children are wearing their ordinary everyday school clothes, or if an impending visit from the photographer was enough of an occasion for their parents to dress them in their Sunday best. I found mention of poor attendance on school photos day in 1881 recorded in a school log book from the Talgarth district of Powys, Wales (Victorian Powys), ascribing the childrens' absence to their not possessing decent clothes for the special day:

At 11 a Photographer came to take a view of the buildings. A very thin attendance, for some of the children did not come because of this. The Worths & Jones, Trebarried all stayed away at 11, so we stood in the playground that the view might have a lively appearance. The children who were away yesterday came today. I asked them why they were so silly yesterday & it appears it was their clothes that was the drawback.

Unidentified group of school boys & master, c.1873-1876
Carte de visite by William Pearson of St Peter's, Derby
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
This carte de visite portrait of a group of 26 boys aged from about 5 up to around 10 or 11 with their master is from my own collection. It was a recent eBay purchase and, as is the case with most such purchases, has sadly lost its provenance. The group is a motley one, and there is clearly no uniform in use, although the appearance of a couple of striped scarves hints at possible school colours. Due to the large range in ages, it seems likely that this was either a small school or even a Sunday School.

The photographer obviously had some difficulty keeping the children still. I estimate from the card mount design and clothing that it was taken in the mid-1870s, say between c.1873 and 1876, when exposure times were still fairly lengthy, measured in terms of seconds rather than fractions of a second. It would not have been an easy task for the master to keep his young subjects' attention on the camera and stop them from fidgeting. He has two boys, probably the most troublesome ones, right by his side where he can keep them out of trouble. Several boys have moved during the exposure. None look particularly pleased with the experience, save perhaps the lad seated at the far right, who seems particularly anxious to demonstrate a devoted attention to his studies.

The brick wall forming the backdrop to the school group portrait is probably a school building but it has not been identified. The window shows a good reflection of another brick wall opposite, and some distance behind the photographer, judging by the apparent brick size.


Reverse of carte de visite by William Pearson of St Peter's, Derby
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
William Pearson (1827-1885) was one of Derby's earliest photographers, graduating to that occupation from being a chimney sweep. In fact, he is listed with both professions in several sources through to the early 1860s. He opened his first studio around 1858 and continued to operate in St Peter's, Derby until at least 1881. Although his output does not appear to have been as prolific as the studios of Derby's other early practitioners, such as that of James Brennen, the quality of his portraits was quite acceptable. Pearson is recorded as taking mug shots of prisoners at Derby Gaol in April 1863, and perhaps the venture into school portraiture was another attempt to expand his clientele and drum up new business.


Detail from reverse of carte de visite
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
The most interesting feature of this carte de visite only emerged after I had sent scanned images of the front and reverse to friend and photo-sleuthing collaborator Nigel Aspdin. The sharp-eyed Nigel noticed there appeared to be something hand written on the reverse of the card mount. Although it wasn't clear from the detailed scan, I took out the original photograph and, by holding it at an angle to the sunlight, I was able to make it out as:

E. Bostock
Kensington Street
Uttoxeter Road

The natural assumption is, of course, that E. Bostock was one of the subjects of this group portrait. However, I was already aware that one Erasmus F. Bostock operated as a photographer in Derby in the latter part of the 19th Century, so I checked my notes. Indeed, Erasmus was living with his parents at 12 Kensington Street, off Uttoxeter Road, in the parish of St Werburgh, Derby, at the time of both the 1871 and 1881 Census.

An 1881 trade directory entry and the census enumeration of that year are the first records I have found of Bostock working as a photographer, at which time he appears to have been in partnership with a Mr. Carr, with premises at 8 Macklin Street. I also know that Bostock specialised in school portraits, from the existence of several cabinet cards from the late 1880s and early 1890s marked, "E. Bostock, Photographer of Schools, &c. Derby." It now seems likely to me that Bostock initially trained as a photographer in the studio of William Pearson, familiarising himself with the trade before opening his own business. Photographers had to learn their trade somewhere, and where better than as an assistant, and employee, in an established operation.

Much less information survives about the early careers of photographers, when they were usually training as photographic assistants. While census records might give their professions, they hardly ever show who they worked for, and trade directory entries provide the names of the proprietors, very rarely those of their employees. Anecdotal evidence is sometimes available. For example, the career of well known Derby portraitist W.W. Winter started with him being an assistant in the studio of E.N. Charles. After Charles died in 1863 his widow ran the studio briefly with Winter's help; she married him in 1864, and he took over the studio thereafter. Sadly, little detailed knowledge of studio history such as that preserved for W.W. Winter Ltd. exists for other Derby studios, so information such as this snippet from Bostock's early career are important.


Boys from Chelmsford Charity School, 1862
Image © and courtesy of Stuart Axe
I've had some difficulty in determining when school photography became commonplace, and I would appreciate hearing from readers who have or know of such portraits from the 1860s or earlier. The rather nice portrait included above, from Stuart Axe's Flickr photostream, shows a uniformed group of boys at Chelmsford Charity School in 1862. All of those in my collection, however, are from the 1870s or later.

Apart from Bostock, there do not appear to have been any other Derby photographers who specialised in school photography. George W. Holden was a wide-ranging scholastic specialist from Windsor who is known to have plied his trade in Derby around 1877. Benjamin Brough from Chesterfield advertised his services as a "Lanternist and Photographer, Schools & Gentlemen's residences, &c." in the 1880s, but is unlikely to have ventured as far south as Derby. R.K. Peacock, Gibson & Sons and W.W. Winter - and possibly others - took school photos on occasion during the 1890s and later, but did not specifically advertise this service.

References

Extract from Lanfilo School Log Book, 20 Feb 1881, on Talgarth & District - Victorian School Days, on Victorian Powys

Extracts from Derby Borough Police Watch Committee Records, Derby Local Studies Library, courtesy of Mike Baker

Kelly's Directory of Derbyshire, 1881, Kelly & Co., London. publ. on microfiche by the Derbyshire Family History Society.

Stuart Axe's Flickr Photostream

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.

Jabez Brown (1843-1921) Railway clerk of Litchurch, Derby

Each Saturday night the indefatigable Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings posts an article inviting fellow Geneabloggers to join him in some fun, usually a little exercise on the lighter side of family history. This informal but regular event is a popular one in the geneablogging community but, for one reason or another, I haven't yet got around to participating. This weekend's challenge is what Randy calls "Ahntenafel Roulette," and I thought I'd get in on the act for the first time, albeit a few days late. So here goes.

The assignment is as follows:
(1) Divide the age of your father (or the age that your father would be if he were alive today) by four, and round the result off to the nearest year,
(2) consult your Ahtenafel using your favourite genealogy software to find the ancestor whose number corresponds to the answer arrived at in (1), and
(3) write three things about this ancestor in a blog article.


Five-generation Ancestor Chart for C.D.B. Payne
with Ancestor number 20 (Jabez Brown) highlighted
My dad would have been eighty-one this year, which produces a rounded integer of 20. Because of the regular and reproducible manner in which the Ahtenafel system works, number 20 is the paternal grandfather of one's paternal grandmother, one of eight possible great-great-grandfathers. In my case his name was Jabez Brown and he has been one of the more elusive of my Victorian ancestors.


Jabez Brown (1843-1921) of Rosehill, Derby
Undated paper print (109 x 159 mm) by unidentified photographer
Image © and collection of Charles Bernard Payne
My aunt Bunnie believes that the subject of this photograph is our ancestor Jabez Brown. The reverse of the undated print is annotated:

Mother died Aug/14
Father died 14 Feby/21

I have recently established from the acquisition of their death certificates that Jabez Brown died on 14 February 1921 and his wife Annie died on 18 August 1914. The implication is that Jabez and Annie's son Frederick Montague Brown (1870-1960) - my great-grandfather - wrote the inscription referring to his parents, and it therefore seems very likely that the subject of the photograph was Fred's father. This rather battered paper print is the only known surviving portrait that we have of Jabez and, sadly, we have none of his wife at all.


What I knew about Jabez, c.1999
Ten years ago I would have struggled to find three solid facts concerning Jabez Brown about which I could write authoritatively. My original information came from my father, who as a "steam age," pre-computer/internet family historian had created a card index system to document and rationalize the family history. Some of his material about the Brown family had originated with his cousin Gillian through correspondence in the 1990s. All we knew about Jabez was his name, that he worked for the railways, and a possible death date. As he died some years before my father was born, my dad had no first hand knowledge of him, and didn't recall his mother speaking much about her grandfather either.


Jabez Brown and family, 14 Rose Hill St, Litchurch, Derbyshire
1881 Census-As Enumerated Microfiche: NA Ref. RG11-3402-14-21
Image © and courtesy of the LDS Church
Those of you who have been researching for over a decade or so may recall the microfiche version of the 1881 Census (produced by the Federation of Family History Societies in conjunction with the Genealogical Society of Utah). A kind fellow genealogist found Jabez and family and extracted the information for me that he was born in Dent (Yorkshire) around 1843, that he was married to Annie, with whom he had four children, that they were living at 14 Rose Hill Street, Litchurch (near Derby) and he was working as a railway clerk. And that was about it. From the birth places of their children I deduced that they had previously lived in Nottingham and Lincoln. I wondered if he had moved around while working for the railways, as Lincoln and Nottingham were both main line stations of the company Midland Railway, which had its headquarters in Derby. However, I had no real evidence to work with.


Jabez & Annie Brown, 50 Sale St, Derby, Derbyshire
1901 Census NA Ref. RG13-3219-134-19-125
Image © The National Archives and courtesy of Ancestry.co.uk
Ten years later and things have changed considerably, mostly courtesy of the internet and the improved means of genealogical research that it has enabled. I now have images of the original census sheets for the census every decade from 1851, when Jabez was still living with his parents, until 1901 - see image above - by which time his own children had all left home.


Certified copy of marriage certificate for
Jabez Brown & Annie Hazard, 8 October 1865,
St Peter-at-Arches, Lincoln
Image © and courtesy of the General Register Office
I also have Jabez Brown's birth, marriage and death certificates, all obtained from the General Register Office using their certificate ordering service and reference numbers from FreeBMD. The census and BMD information alone has provided an excellent framework of dates and locations on which to hang the story of his life. I would find it very difficult to restrict myself to only three things that I now know about him, so I won't bother to hold back in sharing the picture that I've built up about Jabez and his family.


Dent village & St Andrew's church, Cumbria
Image © Steven Watson and courtesy of his Flickr photostream
Jabez Brown was born in the small and picturesque village of Dent, situated in the West Yorkshire dales, on Tuesday 18 April 1843. He was the youngest of ten children of a sawyer William Brown (1795-1867) and his wife Dorothy née Parrington (1797-1858). By the time of his birth his two oldest brothers had already married and left home, although they were still living nearby in the village. Then, in the late 1840s, the entire Brown family moved, lock, stock and barrel to the town of Lancaster. I don't know why they moved, but I can surmise that it was for economic reasons - most internal migrations in mid-Victorian England were towards better employment prospects. Presumably the town of Lancaster was booming and needed plenty of sawn timber, and a skilled sawyer was no doubt in more demand than in a small Yorkshire village.


View Brown family migration in a larger map
Click on the yellow buildings for details of their movements
By 1861 Jabez (aged 17) and his older sister Margaret were living with their widowed father at 3 Upper Robert Street in Lancaster. Jabez is shown in the census working as a railway clerk, and it is presumed that he was employed by Midland Railways which, according to contemporary trade directories, served this Lancashire town.


Silk map of Midland Railway Network, undated
Lancaster, Lincoln, Nottingham & Derby highlighted
Image © and courtesy of The Roy F Burrows Midlands Collection Trust
Some time during the next four years Jabez moved to Lincoln (Lincolnshire), which was also on the Midland Railways network. He married Annie Hazard (1835-1914) at St Peter-at-Arches, Lincoln in October 1865; the marriage certificate shows his occupation mnerely as "clerk" and states that he was living at 15 Park Street. Their first son George was born at Lincoln in January 1867, but between then and 1870 they moved to Nottingham.


Ryehill Cottages, Kirke White Street East, Exchange, Nottingham, June 1973
Image © Reg Baker and courtesy of Picture the Past
Image Ref. NTGM009920
They lived at number 18 Rye Hill Cottages, in a close on the south side of Kirke White Street, Exchange Ward, and that is where Annie gave birth to twin boys named Christopher Dickenson and Frederick Montague Brown (my great-grandfather) on 17 April 1870. The actual building where they lived was probably one of the Victorian terraced houses shown in the photograph above, taken a century later, just before they were demolished under a 1970s clearance scheme. It was located in the former King's Meadow area, not far from Nottingham's Midland Railway station. The census of a year later shows Jabez again working as a railway clerk. A daughter Maggie and another son John Henry were born in 1872 and 1875, but sadly the elder of the twins Christopher died in late 1872, aged two-and-a-half.


Junction of Rose Hill & Madeley Streets, Litchurch, Derby, c. 1980
Image © John S. Grant and courtesy of Picture the Past
Image Ref. DRBY002084
Some time in the twelve months prior to November 1880, the Brown family moved to Derby and into a house at 14 Rose Hill Street, Litchurch. Jabez again described himself to the 1881 Census enumerator as a railway clerk.


The former Brown residence, 50 Sale Street, Litchurch, Derby
Image © and courtesy of GoogleMaps
Click on image for interactive Streetview version
In June 1887 Jabez Brown stood unsuccessfully for election for the post of Relieving Officer with the Derby Board of Guardians (The Derby Mercury, 22 Jun 1887). The Derby Borough Electoral Registers show them living at the Rose Hill Street address until October 1887, after which they moved to 50 Sale Street, also in the suburb of Litchurch and only a few blocks away. By census night of 5 April 1891 all three sons - George (23), Fred (20) and John (15) - had become railway clerks too! This was the last census that would find all of the family together in one house. George married a year later and moved to Station Road, Borrowash (just east of Derby). Fred married my great grandmother Edith Newman Miller at Mugginton in 1894; they settled first at 18 St Giles Road, Pear Tree, Derby, and in the early 1900s at 121 Crewe Street, Normanton. John became a commercial traveller and moved to Nottingham, where he married prior to 1901. It is not known what happened to daughter Maggie Brown.


Derby Union Workhouse, Uttoxeter New Road, Derby, c.1908
Postcard by Frank W. Scarratt
Image © and courtesy of Picture the Past
Image Ref. DRBY001173
Annie Brown died at 60 Holcombe Street, Litchurch on 18 August 1914. Jabez's death certificate shows that he died on 14 February 1921 at Boundary House, Derby. Boundary House was the former Derby Workhouse in Uttoxeter Road. After 1948 it was known as the Manor Hospital, and it was where my grandfather died in 1975 too. I can remember my father telling me that it still had all the old connotations of being the former workhouse, and my grandfather had a dread of going in there when he got sick.

Instead of restricting myself to three things that I know concerning my great-great-grandfather Jabez, I'm going to list three things that I still want to find out about him. The first of these concerns some Crimean War medals that my father recalled seeing in the Brown family household when he was a boy - that is, the family of his maternal grandparents Fred & Edith Brown - together with clasps for several of the battles. He didn't know who had earned them, but presumed it was a member of the Brown family. Sadly, nobody seems to know what has happened to them. The Crimean War took place between 1853 and 1856, when Jabez was aged 10 to 13, and it seems rather unlikely that he was the one, unless he was perhaps a drummer boy, but who else in that branch of the family could it have been? What happened to the medals, and who earned them? I hope to answer that question one day.


Nottingham Road Cemetery, Derby
Image © Daniel Richardson and courtesy of Geograph.co.uk
Licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence
The next thing I'd like to know is where Jabez and Annie Brown are buried. The location seems likely to have been the Nottingham Road Cemetery in Derby, about which I have written previously, since several other of my Derby family were buried there during that time frame. Created in 1855, it was the first municipal cemetery in Derby and is still used to this day. The cemetery registers are kept on site, but sadly they don't appear to have either an online presence or an email address. Perhaps they are wary of the flood of enquiries such a move might precipitate.

Lastly, I'd like to able to confirm that Jabez Brown's employer from the early days in Lancaster until his retirement was indeed, as I have always assumed, Midland Railways. An article in The Derby Mercury in June 1887 stated that he had "been a collector on the Midland Railway for 25 years," giving a start date of around 1865, when he would have been about 22 years old. However the 1861 Census, taken four years earlier, also showed him working as a railway clerk. In January this year, my cousin Lynne Tedder from Alberta sent me some photocopied Midland Railway staff records dating from 1881 to 1906 for George William Brown which she had very kindly obtained on a visit to the National Archives at Kew, London. However, she could find nothing for William's father Jabez or William's brothers.

References

Midland Railway Staff Records for George William Brown, 12 Feb 1881 to 14 Mar 1906, National Archives, Kew, London, NA Ref. RAIL 491/1068, Courtesy of Lynne Tedder

Derby Borough Electoral Registers 1877-1900. Derbyshire County Record Office, Matlock, Derbyshire, England. Accessed on microfilms from the LDS Church Tauranga Family History Centre

1881 Census-As Enumerated Microfiche from the LDS Church Courtesy of Alan S. Flint

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

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

19th Century British Library Newspapers from Gale CENGAGE Learning
- The Derby Mercury

Slater (1869) Royal National Commercial Directory of Cumberland, Lancashire and Westmoreland from Ancestry.co.uk

The Workhouse web site, & the Osmaston Road Workhouse, Derby, Derbyshire

Seddon, Peter (2007) Nottingham Road Cemetery - Derbeians at Rest. Bygone Derbyshire.

William Seville (1797-1866), silhouette and photographic artist

I have written previously (here) about Derby's first photographers John Johnson and Thomas Roberts, who operated daguerreotype studios in Victoria Street from the summer of 1843 until September 1845, under license from Richard Beard. From then until about 1854, there appears to have been a hiatus in commercial photographic activity in the town.

Then, in the early to mid-1850s, with the expiry of the patent on the daguerreotype process and the popularisation of Frederick Scott Archer's patent-free wet-collodion process, there was a sudden and rapid flurry of photographic activity in Derby. Most, if not all, of the photographic artists who appeared are likely to have been offering collodion-positive portraits, or ambrotypes as they were popularly known.


Advertisement from The Derby Mercury, 20 March 1850
Image © British Library Newspapers and courtesy of Gale CENGAGE Learning
Many of these early photographers came to the profession from an artistic background, which included portrait painting in oils or water colours, full-size and miniatures, and silhouette portraiture. One such practitioner was William Seville, an experienced silhouette artist from Manchester. His first recorded appearance in Derby was in March 1850, when he placed an advertisement in The Derby Mercury advising residents that he was producing "the most striking and perfect likenesses" from premises at 42 Queen Street, Derby. He offered ...

... an exact likeness for 6d., beautifully shaded, 1s. 6d., extra finished in bronze, 2s. Full length figures highly finished in bronze, 4s.; children's full lengths, 2s. 6d. Miniatures on ivory and coloured likenesses at very low charges. Families attended without any extra charge.

William Seville was baptised on 5 March 1797 in the chapelry of Hey, at Lees near Oldham, north-east of Manchester, one of seven children of Joseph and Sarah Seville (or Sevill). According to the biographical notes in Sue McKechnie's British Silhouette Artists and their Work 1760-1860, William Seville started working as a silhouette artist in Manchester shortly before 1820 (Woodiwiss, 1965).


? Miss Margaret Clutterbuck (1780-1855)
of Alnwick & Newcastle-on-Tyne, undated
Gold-coloured black card cut-out silhouette by William Seville
Image © and courtesy of Cynthia McKinley & Wigs on the Green
It appears that he almost immediately started travelling widely as an itinerant artist, with a record of his being in North Shields (Northumberland) in April 1820 (Jackson, 1911).


Reverse of Clutterbuck silhouette
"Cut with common scissors by Mr Seville
without either drawing or machine"
Image © and courtesy of Cynthia McKinley & Wigs on the Green
At around this time - the exact date is unknown - William Seville probably married Frances Bethell (1803-1837), daughter of Joseph and Fanny Bethell of Chester. William's son Frederick William Seville was born at Durham (City) around 1824 or 1825. Certainly by April 1824 he was working in nearby Newcastle-on-Tyne. The silhouette portrait illustrated above - the subject of which has been tentatively identified as the splendidly monikered Miss Margaret Clutterbuck, daughter of eminent Northumbrian John Clutterbuck and his wife Ann Lyon - may have been from this or a later period.


Mr. W. Seville label
Image © and courtesy of Cynthia McKinley & Wigs on the Green
Seville was also in Lancaster during 1824, and then in Dundee from April 1825; McKechnie suggests that he may have spent much of that year in Scotland. There is a suggestion that he worked in East Anglia during the late 1820s in partnership with fellow artist John Stannard.


Unidentified man, undated
Framed, gold-coloured black card cut-out silhouette by William Seville
Image © and courtesy of Cynthia McKinley & Wigs on the Green
In August 1830 Seville was plying his trade in Castletown, Dublin, Ireland, known from a dated portrait (McKechnie).


Advertisement from The Preston Chronicle, 22 September 1832
Image © British Library Newspapers and courtesy of Gale CENGAGE Learning
By September 1832 he appears to have been working in Preston (Lancashire) judging from the advertisement which appeared in The Preston Chronicle in that month, which suggests he had also taken "thousands of likenesses in Bolton, Lancaster, Edinburgh, &c.." His wife Fanny died at Sheffield on 10 May 1837 "after a long and painful illness," as reported in The Manchester Times and Gazette (13 May 1837).


Advertisement from The North Wales Chronicle, 21 August 1838
Image © British Library Newspapers and courtesy of Gale CENGAGE Learning
By August 1838, William Seville was working at Bangor in Wales. Apart from his usual full range of silhouettes, he also offered to teach the art of making wax flowers and gave lessons in landscape and flower painting, mezzotinting, velvet painting, &c."


Article extract from The North Wales Chronicle, 28 August 1838
Image © British Library Newspapers and courtesy of Gale CENGAGE Learning
A newspaper report a week later suggested that he was finding a steady stream of customers, but his last advertisements on 4 September and 2 October reported his intention to leave "in the course of a few days."


Article extract from Freeman's Journal & Daily Commercial Advertiser,
(Dublin, Ireland), 7 February 1843
Image © British Library Newspapers and courtesy of Gale CENGAGE Learning
McKechnie suggests that Seville had returned to Ireland by August 1842, and believes that his son may have been assisting him by this time. His son would have been about seventeen years old by then, and since neither of them has been located in the 1841 Census of the United Kingdom, it seems quite likely that they had both taken the short journey from Liverpool across the Irish Sea.


Label on the reverse of Smyth Family silhouette, shown below
Image © Courtesy of Peggy McClard Antiques
This is supported by a dated and signed silhouette of the Smyth family now in a private collection. An image of the label on the reverse kindly sent to me by Peggy McClard, who used to own the silhouette, states that it was "cut with scissors by F.W. Seville / Drogheda / Novr. 1842." A Dublin newspaper advertisement of February 1843, shown above, indicates that they remained there for some months.


Unidentified man, undated
Framed, gold-coloured black card cut-out silhouette by William Seville
Image © and courtesy of Cynthia McKinley & Wigs on the Green
By January 1845 Seville was in Shrewsbury (Shropshire), as evidenced by a dated portrait and handbill (McKechnie).


Advertisement from The Derby Mercury, 5 June 1850
Image © British Library Newspapers and courtesy of Gale CENGAGE Learning
The next sighting of Seville is when he appeared in Derby in March 1850. Business remained fairly brisk until early June, when the appearance of another advertisement suggested an impending departure from Derby.


The Smyth Family, Drogheda (Ireland), November 1842
Framed, gold-coloured black card cut-out silhouette by William Seville
Image © and courtesy of Cynthia McKinley & Wigs on the Green
Original in private collection
It is not clear what William Seville did for the next five years, although it is clear that this was probably one of the most challenging periods of his career, with daguerreotype photography - and the rapid introduction of collodion portraits after 1854 - providing some serious competition to his now old-fashioned silhouettes.


30 March 1851 Census Extract: North Tawton Devon NA Ref. HO107/1885/658/7/23
Image © The National Archives and courtesy of Ancestry.co.uk
On census night Sunday 30 March 1851, William Seville's son Frederick William was lodging with a bookseller's wife in the small village of North Tawton in Devon. He described himself as an artist. Sadly, his father is nowhere to be found - perhaps he was travelling in Ireland again.


Advertisement from The Derby Mercury, 15 August 1855
Image © British Library Newspapers and courtesy of Gale CENGAGE Learning
William Seville returned to Derby in mid-August 1855, the evidence being in the form of an advertisement in The Derby Mercury offering collodion photographic portraits at the "reduced" price of 2s. each, case included, from premises at No. 51 St Peter's Street, Derby, directly opposite St Peter's church.


Location of William Seville's photographic studio
at 51 St Peter's Street, Derby
View Derby Studios in a larger map


St Peter's Street, Derby (looking north), c.1890
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin
This view looking north up St Peter's Street was probably taken around 1890, some 35 years after Seville was there. The photograph belongs to Nigel Aspdin and shows the draper's shop of Hurd & Dean - number 54 St Peter's Street, at centre right - John Dean (1853-1918) being a relation of Nigel's. Although the building at number 54 was probably built after Seville's era, it seems likely that number 51 was located in a yard behind the shops. This would have been accessible through an alley to the right of the drapery shop, an archway to which can just be seen in a detailed version of the image (here).


Advertisement from The Derby Mercury, 12 September 1855
Image © British Library Newspapers and courtesy of Gale CENGAGE Learning
While his name was not mentioned in that particular edition of the newspaper, it is clear from a similar insertion four weeks later, on 12 September, that it was Seville who had succumbed to market forces and was trying his hand at the then fairly new wet collodion photographic process.


Advertisement from The Derby Mercury, 19 December 1855
Image © British Library Newspapers and courtesy of Gale CENGAGE Learning
At the onset of the Christmas season, the business had acquired the rather grand name of the "Crystal Palace Portrait Gallery." The Crystal Palace was built in Hyde Park, London to house the hugely popular Great Exhibition of 1851, but relocated to Sydenham in 1854. In the same year a book entitled The Portrait Gallery of the Crystal Palace by Samuel Phillips was published, being an official handbook or catalogue of portraits of eminent Victorians chosen for display at the exhibition. It is possible that Seville intended a play on the title of this book for added publicity.


Extract from F. White's 1857 History, Gazetteer & Directory of the County of Derby
Image © and courtesy of Ancestry.co.uk
He remained in Derby for several months more, long enough at least to appear in White's 1857 trade directory, presumably compiled in late 1856, at the same address. It is worth noting that while Seville inserted advertisements in many newspapers over the years, advertising his presence in a particular town for a few weeks or perhaps months, this is the only trade directory entry found thus far, indicative of the itinerant nature of his trade. There is no evidence that he ever operated a photographic studio in his presumed home town of Manchester.


7 April 1861 Census Extract: Shoplatch, Shrewsbury, Shropshire NA Ref. Ref. RG9/1873/41/10/68
Image © The National Archives and courtesy of Ancestry.co.uk
In late 1856 Frederick William Seville had married and settled in Shrewsbury (Shropshire), with a daughter being born to him and his wife Elizabeth late the following year. By early April 1861 William Seville had joined them, living in Shoplatch, close to the centre of the town where his son operated a photographic studio and tobacconist. Now aged 64, he described himself to the census enumerator as a retired artist.


H.E. Smallwood, 1841
Full length gold-coloured silhouette portrait by F.W. Seville
Image © and courtesy of AskArt.com
William Seville died in 1866 at the age of 68. Frederick William Seville continued to reside in Shrewsbury with his wife and three children, and described himself in census records as both artist and photographer until at least 1881. The dated silhouette portrait of H.E. Smallwood from 1841 shown above is ascribed to F.W. Seville.


Disaster at St Mary's Church, Shrewsbury, February 11th, 1894
Watercolour, signed and inscribed by F.W. Seville, 21" x 14.5"
Image © and courtesy of Live Auctoneers
No photographic portraits by the younger Seville have been located but he became a well known watercolourist, producing many views of late Victorian Shrewsbury. The watercolour shown above depicts an event which occurred on 11 February 1894, and is likely to have been painted shortly afterwards.

F.W. Seville's son, also named Frederick William, continued the tradition and became a photographer too, being listed with this profession in Shrewsbury by 1891 at the age of 23. After the death of both of his parents in 1899 he moved to Congleton (Cheshire), where his sister and brother-in-law were living, and was shown working from premises at 10 Lawton Street as late as 1914 (Jones & Jones, 1995).

After a career spanning some four decades William Seville left a vast body of work, probably amounting several thousand silhouettes. While only a small proportion of these have survived the subsequent century and a half, silhouettes by Seville appear not to be particularly uncommon. The status of any surviving collodion portraits, however, is unknown. Judging by the fact that many, if not most, of his silhouettes were identified with a label, it seems likely that his cased ambrotypes would have been similarly marked. I am hopeful that eventually one of his photographic portraits will surface.

I am very grateful to Cynthia McKinley for her generosity in allowing me to reproduce images of silhouettes in her collection and for providing me with material about William Seville's life and work. Cynthia's web site Wigs on the Green is an excellent source of information about silhouettes and silhouette artists.

Post Script: Thank you, too, to Peggy McClard who sent me images and information about the Smyth family silhouette, and gave me permission to use them to illustrate this article. Peggy has an absorbing web site Peggy McClard Antiques, devoted to antique silhouettes, Americana and related folk art, which is well worth a visit.

References

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

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

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

19th Century British Library Newspapers from Gale CENGAGE Learning:
The Manchester Times and Gazette
North Wales Chronicle
Freeman's Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser
The Derby Mercury
The Preston Chronicle

Trade Directories from the University of Leicester's Historical Directories Project:
Wright's Directory of South Derbyshire, 1874
Kelly's Directory of Shropshire, 1891
Kelly's Directory of Herefordshire & Shropshire, 1895
Kelly's Directory of Cheshire, 1914

Coke, Desmond (1915) The Art of the Silhouette. London: Martin Secker. Available from The Internet Archive

Jones, Gillian A. & Jones, Graham (1995) Professional Photographers in Cheshire 1849-1940. Bath, England: Royal Photographic Society Historical Group. The PhotoHistorian Supplement, No. 108, July 1995, 40p. ISSN 09570209.

McKechnie, Sue (1978) British Silhouette Artists and their Work 1760-1860, Sotheby Parke Bernet, 824p. ISBN: 0856670367. Extracts courtesy of Cynthia McKinley

McKinley, Cynthia. Guide to Collecting Silhouettes. Wigs on the Green web site.

Phillips, Samuel (1854) Portrait Gallery of the Crystal Palace. Facsimile edition published 2008 by Euston Grove Press, 240p. (PDF version)

Read, Gillian (1982) Manchester Photographers 1840-1900. Bath, England: Royal Photographic Society Historical Group Newsletter, Supplement No. 59, 1982, 20p.

White, Francis & Co. (1857) History, Gazetteer & Directory of the County of Derby, transcribed by Neil Wilson in PDF format & available from Ancestry's UK City & County Directories

Further Sources
Jackson, E. Nevill (1982) Silhouettes: A History & Dictionary of Artists, Dover Publications. ISBN 0486242102.
[in McKechnie, 1978]
Jackson, E. Nevill (1911) The History of Silhouettes, The Connoisseur. 121p.
Woodiwiss, John (1965) British Silhouettes, Country Life, 104p.