Move-O-Graph, The Live Portrait

Sadly, this example of a Move-O-Graph "Live Portrait" is missing half of the image, which means that it no longer "moves." I estimate that it was taken in the late 1910s or early 1920s, merely by the hairstyle and moustache, but I could be well out.


I've found very few examples of this style of portrait on the net.


In an article entitled Animated Portrait Photography Stephen Herbert quotes another article published in the Amateur Photographer in 1916 in which Living Portraits are described in rather sarcastic and derogatory terms. He also includes an example from his own collection. I can't find many references to this style of portrait, so I presume that they never became very popular.


I've taken the liberty of trying to recreate the effect that this Move-O-Graph Portrait would have had by using an animated GIF. You'll have to be the judge of whether or not you would have wanted yourself preserved for posterity in this manner.

If any other readers have such Move-O-Graph portraits in their collections, I'd be keen to hear from you, particularly if their "movements" remain intact.

References

Herbert, Stephen (1989) Animated Portrait Photography, in History of Photography, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Jan-Mar 1989)

Dating photos with the aid of trade directories

I've recently been having another detailed look at an album in my non-family collection that I've been researching off and on over the course of several years. Within the album is a group of cabinet portraits taken at studios in Detroit, Michigan during the last two decades of the 19th Century. In an attempt to date the photos more accurately than my knowledge of clothing fashions would permit, I turned to city/trade directories, a good selection of which are now available on both Ancestry and Footnote. Sadly my month-long subscription to the latter is at an end, and I don't use it often enough for my own family research to really warrant a renewal. However, I have been able to build up a suprisingly detailed history of the photographic studios operating in Detroit. It's a valuable lesson to me as to how much it is sometimes possible to narrow down dates using this one method alone.


Perhaps the first in the series, timewise, is this enchanting portrait of a young woman from the studio of J.E. Watson of 41 & 43 Monroe Avenue. The style of card mount design is typical of those produced in the mid-to late 1870s, but the portrait itself could be as late as the early 1880s.


The next pair of photographs in the group are vignetted head and shoulders portraits of a young woman and a young man, both taken at the studio of Bracy, Diehl & Co. of 35, 37, 39 (or 35-39) Monroe Avenue. My initial estimate from clothing styles is that these two were taken at roughly the same time, perhaps in the early to mid-1880s.


Although the text and colour of the ink on the front of each is similar, the colour of the card mounts is different, as are the intricate designs on the reverse.


This effect of this charming portrait of two young children, possibly brother and sister, has in my view been somewhat lessened rather than enhanced by the slightly asymmetrical diamond-shaped frame. The studio here is that of Bracy & Gibson of 246 Woodward Avenue, and the introduction of the finely scalloped, bevelled and gilded edges to the card mount suggest to me a date of the mid- to late 1880s, or perhaps early 1890s.


This vignetted portrait of a rather wistful young woman by Diehl, Ladd & Co. of 246 Woodward Avenue is of a similar style to several of the others in the group, and could be from any time in the 1880s or 1890s. Unfortunately little of the woman's dress is showing, although the hairstyle, bodice and collar are perhaps more of an 1890s style than 1880s.


Finally, there are three similar cabinet card portraits, all of young boys, by the studio of Angell & Diehl at 246 Woodward Avenue, only two of which are shown above. They are difficult to date but could be from any time in the late 1880s or early to mid-1890s. The style of the one on the right, of the younger child, feels to me more from the early 1890s.

A pattern is immediately apparent in the photographers and studio addresses: Diehl, Bracy, Monroe Avenue and Woodward Avenue are all common to two or more of the sets shown above. Peter Palmquist's comprehensive bibliography Photographers: A Sourcebook for Historical Research makes no mention of a collated resource for Detroit photographers, so I turned to the city directories. While these have proved a very handy, if somewhat sporadic, resource for my research into the studio photographers of Derbyshire, England, I haven't a great deal of experience in using them for other locations. However, Footnote.com has a very useful complete collection of digitised city directories for Detroit , Michigan from 1861 until 1923. Although time consuming to search, with a little patience one can eventually build up a decent time sequence, as I did.

1875
- no entries for Bracy or Diehl
- Bigelow Lyman G, photographer, 244 Woodward ave, h cor Duffield and Clifford

1876
- Bigelow Lyman D, photographer, 244 Woodward ave, h 262 2d
- Diehl Ambrose J, operator Lyman G Bigelow, bds 252 Woodward ave

1877
- Bigelow L D, photographer, 244 Woodward ave
- Diehl Ambrose J, photographer, rooms 98 Farrar

1878
- Bigelow Lyman D, photographer, 244 Woodward ave

1879
- Bigelow Lyman G, photographer, 127 park
- Bigelow & Taylor (Edwin B Bigelow, Elmer W Taylor), photographers 244 Woodward ave.
- Diehl Ambrose J, operator J E Watson, h 14 Barclay.
- Watson J E, 41 and 43 Monroe ave.

1880
- Bracy Frank C, photographer, G Watson, rooms 94 Gratiot ave.
- Diehl Ambrose J, photographer J E Watson, rooms 317 Jefferson ave
- Watson J E, photographer, 41 and 43 Monroe ave.

1881
- no entries for Bracy or Diehl
- Watson Joseph E., photographer, 41 and 43 Monroe ave, bds 264 1st.

1882
- Bracy Diehl & Co (Frank C Bracy, A J Diehl, A Lapham), Artistic Photographers 35 to 39 Monroe ave
- Bracy Frank C (Bracy Diehl & Co), rooms 39 Monroe ave.
- Bracy Lemuel, printer Bracy Diehl & Co, rooms 39 Monroe ave
- Diehl Ambrose J (Bracy Diehl & Co), h 113 Catherine
- Enright Miss Mary E, clk Bracy, Diehl & Co, bds 247 Jefferson ave.
- Gardner Eugene, clk Bracy Diehl & Co, bds 113 Catherine
- Lapham Abraham (Bracy Diehl & Co), h 67 Montcalm e.

1883
- Anthony Miss Josephine, finisher Bracy, Diehl & Co., bds 121 Porter
- Bracy Diehl & Co (Frank C Bracy, A J Diehl, A Lapham), Artistic Photographers 35 to 39 Monroe ave
- Diehl Ambrose J (Bracy Diehl & Co), h 200 Locust
- Coman Miss Annie S, clk Bracy, Diehl & Co, bds 45 Miami ave
- Lapham Abraham (Bracy Diehl & Co), h 73 Montcalm e.

1884
- Bracy Diehl & Co (Frank C Bracy, A J Diehl, A Lapham), Artistic Photographers 35, 37 & 39 Monroe ave
- Bracy Frank C (Bracy Diehl & Co), bds 79 Miami ave.
- Bracy Lemuel, printer Bracy Diehl & Co, h 143 Sycamore ave
- Colman Miss Annie S, clk A J Diehl & Co, bds 45 Miami ave
- Diehl Ambrose J (Bracy Diehl & Co), h 200 Locust
- Johnson Ralph, printer Bracy Diehl & Co, h 302 2d
- Lapham Abraham (Bracy Diehl & Co), h 671 Montcalm e.

1885
- Bracy Frank C, photographer, h 145 Sycamore
- Bracy Lemuel A, printer A J Diehl & Co, h 111 Catherine
- Colman Miss Anna S, clk A J Diehl & Co, bds 45 Miami ave
- Diehl A J & Co (Ambrose J Diehl Abram Lapham), Photographers 35 to 39 Monroe ave
- Diehl Ambrose J (A J Diehl & Co), h 109 Catherine
- Lapham Abram (A J Diehl & Co), h 74 Montcalm e
- Winiker Edward J, printer A J Diehl & Co, bds 120 Hastings

1886
- Bracy Lemuel A, photographer A J Diehl & Co, h 111 Catherine
- Colman Miss Anna S, clk A J Diehl & Co, bds 120 Miami ave
- Diehl Ambrose J (A J Diehl & Co), h 109 Catherine
- Diehl A J & Co (Ambrose J Diehl, Charles Merbach, Abraham Lapham), Photographers 246 Woodward ave
- Lapham Abraham (A J Diehl & Co), real est, h 651 Trumbull Ave
- Merbach Charles J (A J Diehl & Co), h 269 St Aubin ave
- Schmidt John, apprentice A J Diehl & Co, bds 326 Hastings
- Tromby Maxim A, retoucher, A J Diehl & Co, h 141 Adams ave e
- Winiker Edward J, printer A J Diehl & Co, bds 120 Hastings

1887
- Diehl Ambrose J (Diehl & Sharpsteen), h 109 Catherine
- Diehl & Sharpsteen, 246 Woodward ave
- Sharpsteen Samuel (Diehl & Sharpsteen) bds 250 Woodward ave
- Winiker Joseph E photographer Diehl & Sharpsteen, bds 120 Hastings

1888
- Ambrose J. Diehl, photographer, Bracy & Gibson, h 109 Catherine
- Bracy & Gibson, 246 Woodward av.
- Bracy Frank C (Bracy & Gibson), h 145 Sycamore
- Bracy & Gibson (Frank C Bracy, Jefferson J Gibson), photographers, 246 Woodward av
- Cowen Miss Ina, clk Bracy & Gibson, bds 346 5th.
- Winiker Edward J, printer Bracy & Gibson, bds 243 Croghan

1889
- Diehl Ambrose J, photographer J J Gibson, h 109 Catherine
- Gibson J J, photographer, 246 Woodward av.
- Ladd B W, photographer, 22 Witherell
- Bracy Frank C, h 658 Fourteenth av

1890
- Ambrose J. Diehl, 109 Catherine
- Ambrose J. Diehl, Burrell W. Ladd & Jefferson J. Gibson, 246 Woodward Avenue & 82 Gratiot Avenue, Photographers

1891
- Diehl Ambrose J (Angell, Diehl & Co), h 109 Catherine
- Angell, Diehl & Co, photographers, 246 Woodward av

1892
- no entries for Bracy, Ladd or Gibson
- Angell George R, photographic materials, 216 Woodward av.
- Diehl Andrew J [sic], removed to Grand Rapids, Mich.
- Earle Photo Co, 246 Woodward av.
- Ladd Burrell W, 173 Canfied ave e

Although the last Diehl entry in this list is for an "Andrew J," it seems likely this is a misprint for "Ambrose J." I discovered recently that Ambrose J. Diehl is the common factor between all of these Detroit photographs, and this was due to the simple fact that he was married to the sister of the owner of the photograph album. It seems likely that the album owner, her husband and children, as well as her sister and her children, were all photographed by Ambrose Diehl at one time or another. The Diehls did indeed move to Grand Rapids in the early 1890s, where they are shown living in Hastings Street in the 1900 census. They returned to Detroit around 1905-1906, where Ambrose continued to work as a photographer, but apparently as an employee rather than owner of his own studio.

Going back to the list taken from the city directories, I was then able to construct the following detailed timeline for Ambrose Diehl.

1876	Diehl employed as operator in the studio of Lyman G. Bigelow, 244 Woodward Avenue
1877	A.J. Diehl operated a studio at 98 Farrar
1878	unknown
1879-1880	Diehl employed as an operator in the studio of J.E. Watson, 41 & 43 Monroe Avenue
1881	unknown
1882-1884	In partnership with Frank C. Bracy and Abraham Lapham as Bracy, Diehl & Co., 35-39 Monroe Avenue
1885	In partnership with Abraham Lapham as A.J. Diehl & Co., 35-39 Monroe Avenue
1886	In partnership with Charles Merbach and Abraham Lapham as A.J. Diehl & Co., 35-39 Monroe Avenue
1887	In partnership with Samuel Sharpsteen as Diehl & Sharpsteen, 246 Woodward Avenue
1888	Diehl employed as a photographer in studio of Bracy & Gibson, 246 Woodward Avenue
1889	Diehl employed as a photographer in studio of J.J. Gibson, 246 Woodward Avenue
1890	Diehl in partnership with Burrell W. Ladd and Jefferson J. Gibson as Diehl, Ladd & Co., 246 Woodward Avenue & 82 Gratiot Avenue
1891	Diehl in partnership with George R. Angell as Angell, Diehl & Co., 246 Woodward Avenue
1892	Diehl sold business to Earle Photo Co. (inc. 31 Mar 1892) and moved to Grand Rapids, Kent, Michigan
1893-1905	Worked as a photographer in Grand Rapids, status unknown
1906	Diehl employed as a photographer in studio of H.N. Imrie,
1907-1923	Worked as a photographer in Detroit, status unknown

Perhaps Ambrose Diehl was a particularly difficult person to work with, as each of his employment periods and partnerships never seemed to last very long. However, I have noticed that many of the other photographers in Detroit show similarly fluid employment/business histories, so it seems more likely that it was just a rather cut-throat business to be in. The great benefit for us is that the names and studio addresses of the card mounts can provide quite specific dates for the portraits.


Cabinet card portrait of Ella Wheeler
probably taken by A.J. Diehl c.1879-1880, at the studio of
J.E. Watson, 41 & 43 Monroe Avenue, Detroit
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
The first portrait was therefore taken at Watson's Monroe Avenue studio, probably by Ambrose Diehl who was working there as a photographic operator from 1879 to 1880. Ella Wheeler née Winnett (1857-1924) married Byron C. Wheeler (1829-1891) at Blissfield, Lenawee County, Michigan in April 1878. Initially they lived in Grand Ledge in Eaton County, where their first son Maurice was born in July 1880, and it seems liklely that Ella had this portrait taken during a visit to her sister in Detroit, prior to the birth of Maurice. The hat is quite something!


Cabinet card portraits of Ella and Byron C. Wheeler
Taken c. 1882-1884 at Bracy, Diehl & Co, 35-39 Monroe Avenue, Detroit
Images © and collection of Brett Payne
Ella returned to her brother-in-law's studio, where he was now a partner, with her husband some three or four years later, probably at around the time they moved to New London in Huron County, Ohio. She would have their second son Walter in 1886. The pose is almost identical, and Ella's fascination with decorative hats has endured.


Cabinet card portrait, possibly of Howard Diehl & unidentified sister
Taken c.1888 at Bracy & Gibson, 246 Woodward Avenue, Detroit
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
I believe that Ella's sister Lizzie Diehl sent her this portrait of her own two children around 1888, at which time Ella and her husband were running a saloon in New London. Ella had a second son Winnett, born in April 1888.


Cabinet card portrait, possibly of Lizzie Diehl
Taken c.1890 at Ladd, Diehl & Co., 246 Woodward Avenue, Detroit
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
I think that Lizzie sent this portrait of herself to Ella in 1890, the year that Lizzie had a third child Raymond, and Ella's second son Walter died.


Cabinet card portraits of Maurice B. and Winnett W. Wheeler
Taken c.1891 at Angell & Diehl, 246 Woodward Avenue, Detroit
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Ella returned to Ambrose's studio in 1891 for portraits of her two surviving boys, Maurice and Winnett. A third portrait with identical card mount from the album, shown below, appears to be of Lizzie's son Howard, then aged nine.


Cabinet card portrait, probably of Howard Diehl
Taken c.1891 at Angell & Diehl, 246 Woodward Avenue, Detroit
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Ella's husband Byron died in April 1891, and after taking care of the saloon business Ella moved to live with her brother's in Montana around July. From the evidence of these photographs, taken c.1891 she may have gone there via her sister's in Detroit.


I was also able to find on the net several other photographs from the studios that Ambrose Diehl was associated with, and out of interest I've reproduced a selection of these here. Hopefully they will be of use to someone else trying to date a Diehl photo.


Archie MacMillan, c.1882-1884
by Bracy, Diehl & Co., Detroit
Image © and courtesy of DeadFred

Unidentified woman, c.1882-1884
by Bracy, Diehl & Co., Detroit
Image © and courtesy of grannyspalapa on eBay

Unidentified woman, c.1882-1884
by Bracy, Diehl & Co., Detroit
Image © and courtesy of University of Michigan Library Repository

Unidentified woman with children, c.1885-1886
by A.J. Diehl & Co., 35 to 39 Monroe Ave., Detroit
Image © and courtesy of grannyspalapa on eBay

Unidentified woman, c.1885-1886
by A.J. Diehl & Co., 35 to 39 Monroe Ave., Detroit
Image © and courtesy of grannyspalapa on eBay

Unidentified woman, c.1885-1886
by A.J. Diehl & Co., 35 to 39 Monroe Ave., Detroit
Image © and courtesy of grannyspalapa on eBay

Ed Hanlon, Detroit, c.1885-1886
by A.J. Diehl & Co., 35 to 39 Monroe Ave., Detroit
Image © and courtesy of NYPL Digital Gallery

Unidentified man with magnificent moustache, c.1892
by the Earle Photo Co. 246 Woodward Ave., Detroit
successors to Angell & Diehl

1892 Advertisement for Earle Photo Co.
References

City Directories for Detroit, Michigan from Footnote.com

Palmquist, Peter E. (ed.) (2000) Photographers: A Sourcebook for Historical Research, Nevada City: Carl Mautz Publishing, 154p, ISBN 1-887694-18-X

Federal Census of the United States from Ancestry.com

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

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

Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome

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


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

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

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


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


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


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

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


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


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


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


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


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

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

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

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


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


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


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