"Your King & Country Need You" - Scarratt's Call to Arms

The Barracks, Derby, No. 993, publ. 1915
Albumen Glass Negative, by F.W. Scarratt of Derby
Image © and collection Brett Payne
This is the second of the two glass plate negatives purchased recently on eBay, both of which turned out to be originals from Derbyshire's first locally based picture postcard publisher, Frank W. Scarratt. It is not over-exposed, as the previous one was, and therefore required little in the way of digital manipulation to produce the image above, apart from inversion and desaturation of the original 24-bit colour scan. It depicts a group of young men waiting in line at the gates of Normanton Barracks, Derby, attended by a single soldier standing to attention, and with several onlookers - among them women and children - to the left of the entrance.

Gateway and Entrance, Normanton Barracks, 1915
Image © and courtesy of Picture the Past Ref. DRBY000681
This particular postcard is not listed in Rod Jewell's Yesterday's Derby and its Districts, the authority on Scarratt's work, so presumably not many examples of the postcard print have survived intact. I did find a rather inferior, unattributed version of the image on Picture the Past (Ref. DRBY000681). The barracks were built between 1874 and 1877, and became the headquarters of the Sherwood Foresters in Derby until 1963; they were demolished in 1981-1982.

Detailed examination of the posters pasted to the columns of the gateway reveals the announcement of the Embodiment of the Territorial Force and the General Mobilization of the Army Reserve, these having taken place in August 1914. I can't claim to have read all that from the indistinct scanned image, but there was enough to make out the general form of the poster and the Yanks, naturally, came to the rescue once again for the rest. I found exact facsimiles of three, and one similar to the fourth, in the fine digitized collection of war posters and postcards from the University of Minnesota Media Archive.

Territorial Force, poster 43x34cm, 3 Jun 1914
General Mobilization Army Reserve, Poster 54x41cm, 11 Aug 1914
Images © and courtesy of University of Minnesota Media Archive
Scarratt had maintained his prolific output during 1914 (139 views), somewhat reduced to 79 views published in 1915, but this was his first postcard which betrayed any sign that there was a war on. Judging from the dates of publication of the posters and the postcard's series number, it could have been taken any time from late 1914 until mid-1915.

Your King & Country Needs You
Another 100,000 Men Wanted, poster 76x51cm, Aug 1914
A Call To Arms, poster 152x102cm, 24 Aug 1914
Images © and courtesy of University of Minnesota Media Archive

Great War recruiting posters
Images © and courtesy of Library of Congress
There is another poster or signboard at the right hand edge of the postcard view. Sadly, it's not clear enough to make out anything much, but it might well be a recruiting poster along the lines of the two displayed above, of which there were a huge variety produced during the course of the war.

Initially I wondered if the glass plate was a copy negative made from a postcard, since an artifact on the image appeared as if it had resulted from a fold or crease. However, closer examination of the emulsion side of the glass negative shows a slightly darker stain over the bottom quarter.

Donington Hall and Entanglements, No. 1020, publ. 1915
Postcard by F.W. Scarratt of Derby
Scarratt produced very few views with subjects readily identifiable as having been taken during the Great War. Soon after the Normanton Barracks shot in 1915 he visited Donington Hall, Leicestershire, where the conversion of the grand building and estate into a German Prisoner of War camp, complete with barbed wire entanglements and sentry boxes, resulted in several published postcards (1006/1020/1021). Apart from these few examples, he appears to have left the coverage of wartime and military subjects to other local photographers such as W.W. Winter, Frederick K. Boyes, Pollard Graham of Derby, Albert Heath of Clay Cross, Henry Hinge and H.P. Hansen of Ashbourne, Fred Holbrook of Belper, Alfred Rippon of Chesterfield.

Sentry Box & Entanglements, Donington Hall, No. 1020, publ. 1915
Postcard by F.W. Scarratt of Derby
His production then dwindled considerably; 35 views in 1916, 33 in 1917, and a single view in 1918, and none in 1919, probably due to a combination of shortage of materials and a reduced market. When he resumed publishing in 1920, one of his first photographs was of the War Memorial in his home town, Barton-under-Needwood (1130).

Sepia Saturday 134: Normanton "Rec"

The photo prompt for Sepia Saturday this week titled, "Autriche Vienne," is a glass negative under the by-line of pioneer French photojournalist and press agent Charles Chusseau-Flaviens, borrowed from the George Eastman House collection on Flickr, a resource that I've often referred to myself. It was chosen by Marilyn aka Little Nell who has been very capably caretaking Sepia Saturday for the last few weeks while our usual host Alan was away.

Belvedere Gardens, Wien, October 1989
Image © 1989 Brett Payne
Fellow contributer Rob from Amersfoort has confirmed what I already suspected, that it was taken in the magnificent Belvedere Gardens in Wien (Vienna), which I had the good fortune to visit in 1989 and again in 1993. The wall in the background is that of the Convent of the Salesian Sisters, the dome of which is clearly visible at the right of my photo. Apart from the conical conifers in the sunken garden which have disappeared, and some extra ivy on the wall, little has changed over the last century.

Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
Albumen on glass plate negative by F.W. Scarratt of Derby
(Image reversed) Collection of Brett Payne
Just as that image stirred memories, so did the recent purchase which I have as my contribution this week, although in a somewhat different manner. Like the photograph of a Viennese woman pushing her baby in an elaborate pram through the Belvedere gardens, mine too is an albumen on glass negative, showing children in a playground and including several prams or pushchairs. There are few clues to where it was taken - although it was accompanied by another glass slide clearly titled as being from Derby - and the view seemed very familiar. Once the purchase arrived I scanned it and started wading through the few books of Derby photographic views that I own, in particular the two volumes of WW Winter Collections, Maxwell Craven's Keene's Derby and Rod Jewell's Yesterday's Derby.

Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
Postcard No. 466 by F.W. Scarratt of Derby
Image © Rod Jewell from Yesterday's Derby
It didn't take long for me to locate the image I had remembered, and my purchase proved to be exactly the same scene as that of Normanton Recreation Ground in one of a series of four postcards (Nos. 465-468) produced by F.W. Scarratt in 1911. The playground was opened on 4 September 1909, and the photographs could been taken any time between then and their presumed 1911 publishing date. The example illustrated in Rod Jewell's book was posted on 30 August 1911, with this charming message:

Dear Daddy, Thank you for your PC, This is where I see-saw. I do so like it. With lots of love, Mary.

Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
Postcard No. 467 by F.W. Scarratt of Derby
Image © Rod Jewell from Yesterday's Derby
Postcard number 467 is a similar view of the same playground, probably taken just a few minutes before or after number 466. This image shows even more prams, including a rather small one in the foreground, presumably containing a doll, but I could find no no see-saws. Jewell notes that the boy in shorts on the right hand side must have been trespassing, as this was a "girls only" playground, and the boys' one was separate.

My grandfather Leslie Payne (1892-1975) grew up in New Normanton, but by 1909 he would have been a little old for playgrounds. His younger brother Harold Victor Payne (1898-1921) was then 11, so could easily have been in the boys' section nearby, while his cousins Harry Payne (1906-1974) and Clarence Benfield Payne (1907-1982) might well have been occupants of one of the prams, perhaps attended by one of their aunts Lily Payne (1882-1968) or Helen Payne (1883-1933). It seems likely my grandmother Ethel Brown (1894-1978) or one of her three younger brothers would also have been frequent visitors to the Normaton Rec.

Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
Postcard No. 468 by F.W. Scarratt of Derby
A third postcard in the series (I haven't yet found an image of number 466) has a more general view of the "Rec," as it was commonly termed. Young trees are widely spaced on either side of a broad path, bordered by a wide expanse of lawns, and with the park pavilion in the background. The view includes several women and children out for a stroll, the former wearing the wide-brimmed hats so fashionable in the pre-War years, and a man seated on a park bench who is either lifting is straw boater to the passing ladies or shielding his eyes from the low afternoon sun.

Detail of Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
I was a little surprised at the wide variety of perambulators seen in these images, demonstrating that the ornate versions seen in studio portraits weren't necessarily just studio props.

Detail of Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
The small pavilion at the back of the playground, looking suspiciously like a railway carriage - Midland Railways' carriage works were located not far away from Normanton Rec - is probably where the mothers are sheltering.

Detail of Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
I was also intrigued by the presence of another, slightly older, boy in this photograph. I think he's getting bored with being ordered around by those two bossy girls, and is about to poke his eye out with that large stick. Perhaps readers would like to come up with a caption or explanation of their own for this playground vignette?

Detail of Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
Judging by the "tab" visible at the left hand edge of this glass plate negative - probably an artefact from the camera used to take the photograph - I believe this must be one of Scarratt's originals, or possibly a roughly contemporary copy made from the original for production purposes. By 1911 Scarratt had been producing postcards for only eight years, but had built up an extensive catalogue of views to rival the much larger regional or nation-wide publishers. He was Derby's first picture postcard publisher, and was in business until 1938. How an original example of his work ended up on eBay, I've no idea, but I count myself fortunate to have chanced on this fragment of Derby's postcard history.

Sepia Saturday 129: Shall we stop for a cuppa, dear

Since there appears to be a dearth of tiffin-related items in my own family photo collection, I will delve into my mother-in-law's archive of images for a contribution to this week's Sepia Saturday mix.


Stopping by the side of the road for a cup of tea must, I suppose, have been a relatively common occurrence, even in the late 1930s when this snapshot was taken, but it must have been a pretty quiet country lane to contemplate laying out the picnic paraphernalia in the roadway itself. My mother-in-law - I'm guessing around six years old at that time, and therefore dating the photograph to the late 1930s or early 1940s - is sitting on the running board of the car while her mother prepares the tea. My wife tells me that this was achieved with the aid of a parafin stove - hence the need for a flat, stable surface, I suppose. She doesn't look particularly enamoured at the prospect, but perhaps there were some rather fearsome cows or an over-friendly cart horse in a field off camera to the left. The car appears to be a Rolls-Royce Phantom II Continental, the chassis for which was built in Derby, but I'll leave further identification of the make/model/year to those more knowledgeable.


The inter-war period saw a dramatic rise in the use of cars for leisure outings and there was, of course, a corresponding market for accessories, such as the all important touring maps ...


... and travel guides. These maps and guides are from my own collection, purchased over a number of years from a number of sources - mainly on eBay - and therefore relate to the Midlands, from where my father hails, rather than the south of England.


Unfortunately my copy of The AA Road Book of England & Wales (Member's Copy) (kindly given to me by Nigel Aspdin) doesn't show a date of publication, but I suspect it was published in 1936 or 1937, since in the Introduction it refers to "new arterial roads and by-passes ... being developed under the Five Year Plan announced by the Government towards the end of 1935." It sounds very much like the Revised and Enlarged Edition of June 1936 which I found described thus in a second-hand book listing:

First edition hard back binding in publisher's original burgundy cloth covers with rounded corners, gilt title and author lettering to the spine and to the upper panel. 8vo. 8½" x 5½". Contains over 600 printed pages of text with colour maps, cord bookmark with opaque plastic tag with AA logo.

I was most intrigued by this explanation of the origins of the Automobile Association:

After the passing of the Motor Car Act in 1903, it was almost impossible to go anywhere in a motor car without receiving summonses for exceeding - sometimes by a mere fraction - the legal speed limit of twenty miles an hour. To meet the situation some motorists organized and maintained at their own expense a few cyclists on the London-Brighton road whose task it was to warn all passing motorists of "police traps." In August, 1905, the work was put on a permanent basis and the Automobile Association came into existence with exactly ninety subscribers.

The AA Road Book was first published in 1925 but by the time this edition came out, they were doing a lot more than warning their members of pesky speed traps. The first section includes a comprehensive series of 785 itineraries, with a map index, for all the major and minor routes around the country, including that for Leamington to Derby, shown above.


Much of the book (pages 211-648) is taken up with a Gazetteer, with potted descriptions of towns and some villages, including suggestions for "day drives" emmanating from the larger towns.


Simplified maps of the larger centres show the arterial routes and some of the major roads for ease of navigation.


Finally, there is a full colour atlas or map section, based on the Bartholomew series, with a series of 23 pages covering England, Wales and Scotland as far as Edinburgh. Presumably any decent Englishman wouldn't think of driving any further north than that without a passport and a Baedeker.

Enough from me for this week, as I'm about to head off on some travels of my own, although not in such grand style. I'll be away for some weeks, but I will have my notebook computer with me and supposedly decent internet access, in spite of the exotic, remote location, and therefore hope to keep blogging at fairly frequent intervals. Whether I find something appropriate for Sepia Saturday is another matter, but for now you can head over to catch everyone else's contributions.

Sepia Saturday 128: The Mikado

This week's Sepia Saturday theme gives me an opportunity to show off another eBay purchase, one which would have had a lot more relevance to my great-grandfather Charles Vincent Payne (1868-1941) than to myself.


This silver gelatin print mounted on thick white card with an embossed rectangular frame was an unusual purchase for me, as I know nothing about operatic musicals and, to be honest, am not particularly partial to them either. However, I am intrigued by the late Victorian fascination with all things Oriental, including The Mikado written by Gilbert and Sullivan and first produced at the Savoy Theatre by the D'Oyly Carte Company in March 1885.


I believe this group of nine young ladies dressed to the oriental nines, bedecked with fans and a multitude of hair ornaments, must be participating in the chorus for a performance, possibly amateur rather than professional, of "The Mikado." The group portrait appears to have been taken by photographer Henry Spink of Brighton on a visit to the performance venue, since the background includes appropriately painted oriental scenes.


The Mikado, Three Little Maids from School
Publicity poster for New York production, 1885
Image courtesy of Wikipedia
Their costumes are very similar to those shown in a poster for one of the professional D'Oyly Carte productions, depicting the "Three Little Maids from School."


Three Little Maids, London 1885
Image courtesy of Wikipedia
The Three Little Maids - in this case, the actresses Sybil Grey, Leonora Braham and Jessie Bond - are also shown in this photograph from the first D'Oyly Carte performance at the Savoy Theatre. Whether the painted scene is a theatre prop from the actual performance or a specially prepared studio backdrop is unknown.


Three Little Maids, c.1885
Tintype by unidentified U.S. photographer (5.7 x 8.4 mm)
Image courtesy of The American Museum of Photography
The instant success of the opera, even across the Atlantic, is demonstrated by this tintype from the mid- to late 1880s (courtesy of The American Museum of Photography), also showing the "Three Little Maids" in a pose which was widely emulated for advertising purposes. In this case, the painted backdrop seems to be a generic, rather then specifically oriental scene.


Advertising Card for the Tricora Corset, c.1885
Chromolithograph, by unidentified artist
Image courtesy of The American Museum of Photography
A delightful card for The Tricora Corset is a typical example of the advertising produced with this theme.


Geraldine Ulmar as "Yum-Yum," The Mikado, 1886
Cabinet card by B.J. Falk of New York
Image courtesy of the New York Public Library
Photographers also made full use of the commercial possibilities, such is in this "paper moon" style of cabinet card portrait by celebrity hunter B.J. Falk picturing Geraldine Ulmar, one of the cast in the original 5th Avenue D'Oyly Carte production which ran from August 1885 to April 1886. She also appears as the central figure in the "Three Little Maids from School" poster.


David Simkin's thoroughly researched work on the Spink family of photographers from Brighton very usefully includes a dated list of studio addresses. This suggests that Henry Spink Junior operated from 109 Western Road, Brighton from 1896 to 1934, but that his portraits show the name "Henry Spink" - as opposed to "Henry Spink (junior)" or "Spink (Brighton) Limited" - only from 1911 to 1921. It seems likely to me that this group portrait is from the early, pre-War part of that period, say between 1911 and 1914.


The Mikado 1904 by the Leicester Amateur Music & Dramatic Society
Image © and courtesy of Alan Craxford
By the turn of the century - perhaps even earlier - The Mikado was being performed by amateur dramatic societies. Alan Craxford has written about his grandfather's involvement with local amateur dramatic society in Leicester in the 1920s and early 1930s, and includes a programme for a performance of The Mikado in April 1904 which he surmises that his grandfather may have attended.

It seems likely that after the Second Savoy repertory season from April 1908 to March 1909, a revival of interest may have led to increased amateur performance of the opera throughout the United Kingdom. I haven't yet found documentation of such a performance in Brighton, but I'm sure that if there was one, the records will appear on the net eventually. In fact, Brighton hosted the first provincial production of The Mikado in July 1884, a little more than a year after its original debut.


Charles Vincent Payne in costume, c.1894
Cabinet card by Pollard Graham, Derby
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
My great-grandfather, shown here in what I assume was one of his theatrical get-ups, might have had quite a different life had he chosen to take up a reputed offer of a contract with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. As it was, he worked as a coach builder, a builder and a grocer, then was in business as an estate agent for much of his working life in Derby, but many of his leisure hours were taken up with amateur singing and dramatics (see Whistling Bird, the Arizona Cowboy and the Disappearing Lady).

Join Sophie Tucker with her "I Can't Get Enough Of Your Love," and other such entertaining stories - head over to Sepia Saturday for this week's smorgasbord.

Sepia Saturday 127: Everyday life in Victorian photos

I haven't got off to a very good start with my return to Sepia Saturday, having missed last week's edition, but hopefully I'll manage to submit this week's in time. Alan's choice of image prompt depicts a vibrant, busy market scene at Ballybricken Green in Waterford. The photograph was taken by A.H. Poole in 1910, and is full of people, animals and character.


My own contributions this week are a carte de visite and two other mounted photos of similar size, but trimmed. All three are from an album that I purchased a few years ago on eBay. The carte de visite shows a man in working clothes, sturdy leather shoes and peaked cap in the act of filling a metal bucket with water from what appears to be a hand pump encased in wood, set against a brick wall. The pump looks to be fairly new - at least the casing's been freshly painted. The man's clothing is obviously not his Sunday best, and the brick wall looks somewhat decrepit.

With no photographer's details or an inscription to identify the subject, it's a little difficult to date, but I estimate it was probably taken in the late 1890s or early 1900s, a decade or so prior to Waterford market scene. I've chosen it for today's post because, even if posed, it represents something not often seen in family photos from this period, an accurate, natural and matter of fact depiction of everyday life.


The other two photographs have been trimmed to roughly CDV size, presumably to fit in the album slots. One shows a young man, again in trousers, shirtsleeves, waistcoat, leather shoes and flat cap, standing outside a stable, with a horse poking its head out. The walls of the very high-ceilinged stable look in substantially better trim than the wall seen in the first photo. There is a water trough made from a wooden barrel at lower left, with a tap for refilling it, and a cast iron grating - presumably a drain cover - can be seen at lower right.

Again there are no identifying marks to indicate the location or the name of either the photographer, the young man - or the horse, for that matter.


The third photograph is a silver gelatin print mounted on grey card with a slight fabric "grain" on the reverse, and was possibly taken some years later, although it is difficult to be more specific. It depicts a man, perhaps middle-aged, with a rather splendid white moustache, apparently interrupted while gathering in the hay. He is dressed, once again, in working clothes, but this time wearing a wide-brimmed fedora-style felt hat and carring a two-tined pitchfork.


The man stands in a field bordered by stone walls, and in the background a rural scene and collection of houses can be seen.


At the time I purchased the album, the only clue to its contents was an inscription in the front. There was not a single inscription on the photos themselves, or any annotations on the album pages. However, a good proportion of the portraits in the album were by Derbyshire studio photographers - indeed, that is what attracted me to the album in the first place.

Allestree
August 25th 1894
In Rememberance of past Kindness,
With Best Wishes from
Henry Mitchell

I had little success in tracing Henry Mitchell - it was just too common a name to be sure I had the right one. However, in February 2007 I posted images of several of the portraits by Derbyshire studios in the respective profiles on my Derbyshire photographers web site, including a CDV and cabinet card by W.N. Statham of Matlock Bridge. Some time later, I was very excited to hear from Marilyn McMillan and Betty Jane Rotteau, from Ontario and British Columbia respectively, who had identified some of the individuals in these portraits.


Henry and Ann Jane Statham
Image © & courtesy of Marilyn McMillan
Actually, an enlarged, coloured and framed version of one of the portraits, depicting her great-grandparents Henry and Ann Jane Statham, hangs on the wall of Marilyn's home, so there could be no doubt whatsoever about the identification.


Henry and Ann Jane Statham
I wrote an article about this exciting discovery here on Photo-Sleuth in February 2008. Apart from the information sent to me by Marilyn, I had done some of my own research into the family, because it turned out that not only were they closely related to the photographer W.N. Statham, but there was also a distant connection with my own family - one of the Statham photographers married my grandfather's sister-in-law, Jessie Louisa Hogg. However, I still had been unable to discover any links to a "Henry Mitchell."


Statham family of Matlock
Click image for a larger version
Then, in January last year (2011) Betty Jane Rotteau emailed me with details of a break through:

Just to give you a bit of our Statham ancestry to help make sense of this. Isaac Statham married Sarah Carline and they had 6 children who lived to adulthood. Isaac married in 1873, Henry was our gr-grandfather who you know about, Louisa and Caroline never married but lived together their whole lives, William was with Louisa & Caroline until 1911. I am still looking for a marriage and/or death for him. Then there was Clarissa. She married Henry Mitchell in 1882 and they had 3 children. I think this is the Henry who wrote the above message. From what I can figure Allestree was near Derby at that time, whether this is where Henry & Clarissa were living I don't know for sure. During the 1891 and 1901 census Henry, Clarissa and family were living in Derby area, Quarn Street and Elm Street. Their children's birth were all registered in Derby.

View Larger Map
Both Quarn Street and Elms Street are just off Kedleston Road, in a north-western suburb of Derby. In fact, both addresses are now shown as part of the same cul-de-sac, the road system having been modified somewhat over the last century or so. It is not too far from present day Allestree, which nowadays is really just another suburb of Greater Derby, although separated from it by the A38 motorway.


Masson Farm, near Matlock, Derbyshire
from Ordnance Survey One-Inch Map, Buxton and Matlock, 1947
My immediate thought was that Henry Mitchell could have been giving the album to his parents-in-law, but of course Sarah Statham was dead by that time. Isaac Statham died at Masson Farm, Matlock on 13 November 1894, less than three months after the inscription was made, and by 1901 the three remaining single children were all living at Masson Farm. Betty had an idea:

This just raises more questions. I wonder who Henry was referring to when he wrote his message. Could it have been a message to his sister-in-laws, Louisa and Caroline who took care of their father until he passed away in November, 1894.

I think it's quite possible that Henry gave the album to either Isaac Statham senior or Caroline and Louise, but most likely to his sisters-in-law. When Caroline died in 1931, the executors of her will were Frederick Lewis Mitchell and Edward Mitchell, the two sons of Henry and Clarissa. It seems very likely that either they or their sister Clarissa Zenobia, by then married to Thomas Hayes, inherited the album, perhaps along with other family effects.

That is, of course, just a wild theory. However, it would explain how photographs from Loughborough and Leicester found their way into the album, since I note that in the census records Henry Mitchell states that he was born in Loughborough. Most of the photographs are from Matlock, Matlock Bath, Chesterfield and Derby. It is important to note that there are many portraits which were taken well before the album was purchased and inscribed in 1894, so they must have been inserted afterwards. It is tempting to theorise that many of the older Derbyshire portraits could be of other members of the Statham family.


View from Salter's Lane, Masson Farm, near Matlock
Image © and courtesy of Google Earth Streetview
I am also intrigued by the possibility that the portraits of the man by the water pump, the horse hand, and the haymaker could all have been taken at or near Masson Farm. It's possible that all three may be the same man, Henry Mitchell's brother-in-law William Statham (1864-1944).


William Nathan Statham (1863-1940)
Image © and courtesy of Chris Statham
In May last year Chris Statham, grandson and great-grandson respectively of photographers Percival "Percy" Joseph Statham (1894-1977) and William Nathan Statham (1863-1940), was in touch with me. Subsequent emails have revealed that he has in his possession the family photo album of Abanathan "Nathan" Daffin Statham (1823-1874). Among other interesting items of information about W.N. Statham's career, Chris also sent this imposing portrait of the photographer in his Freemason's regalia. I am most intrigued, and the next step will be to ascertain whether any of the people who appear in the "Mitchell/Allestree" album also appear in the "Abanathan" album. In particular, my primary task will be to identify the man/men in the three farm portraits.

The other contributions for Sepia Saturday this week may not have chosen a similar theme to mine, but you can sure they will be well worth a visit.