Sepia Saturday 279: Looking for the Bonanza

In the introduction to last week's edition of Sepia Saturday, Alan Burnett asked whether the meme is becoming old and tired, perhaps prompted by a recent reduction in the number of participants. Personally, I find the stimulus of a fresh sepia image chosen by someone else each week is just what I need to keep me blogging regularly, that is when I'm not too submerged in work or other projects to find the time. Following the theme is not a requirement, which gives me plenty of leeway to sail off on another tack when the mood takes me, or on the odd occasion that I fail to be inspired by the chosen image.

Many of my Photo-Sleuth articles are weeks or months in gestation, perhaps searching for that extra bit of information, cosidering the right angle to tackle a particular photograph, or waiting for the right image prompt, so always having images from a couple of weeks ahead to work on at the same time suits me well. My first SS contribution appeared four years ago (SS 64) and my 93 subsequent contributions have been made as and when the opportunity presents itself. I'm very grateful to Alan and Marilyn for the time and effort that they put in to making Sepia Saturday happen. I'd also like to acknowledge the body of fellow Sepians for the inspiring photos they post and thoughtful feedback regularly provided here. Without it, I fear that my blog would have fallen into disrepair long ago.


Unmounted paper print, 61 x 89mm
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
On the face of it, these two snapshots might appear a strange purchase for my collection of old photographs. Of unknown provenance, all contextual information apart from the captions handwritten on the backs has gone, leaving us with few clues to the identity of the subjects, even to where they were taken. It wasn't the challenge of sleuthing, though, that attracted me, but rather the content of the first image.

Even without the brief annotation on the back describing it as "The Mill," I recognised it as a three-stamp mill of the type commonly used in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to process gold ore, complete with heavy timber frame, driving wheel, cam shaft with tappets, stamper stems, mortar box with discharge screen, tables and amalgam plates. When I first started work as an exploration geologist in the Midlands of Zimbabwe during the mid-1980s, I came across a few of these antiquated but effective pieces of equipment still being used in remote bush locations, usually by equally aged smallworkers in a forlorn quest for their own bonanza.


Reverse of paper print
The caption identifies the subjects as 'Hamish,' with his back to the camera, 'January,' the mill foreman and presumably one of the two black men standing either side of the tables, and the two children 'A & J.'. The mere fact that January and the other gold mill worker are black doesn't necessarily mean that the photograph was taken in what was then called Southern Rhodesia (it became Zimbabwe after independence in 1980), but the countryside and vegetation depicted in the second of the two snapshots are very familiar to me, and I think it highly likely.

In 1945, after the end of the Second World War, the Southern Rhodesian government set up an ex-serviceman's rehabilitation scheme, whereby returning white soldiers were provided with training in small-scale mining at a former air force training facility at Guinea Fowl, near the town of Gwelo, now called Gweru. (As a sidebar, I might note that black soldiers also returning from the same war got absolutely nothing.) After completion of their training, they were given soft loans to re-open old gold mines closed during the war or start up new operations. With 221 men trained and 279 mines re-opened, the scheme was regarded as successful (Dreschler, 2001), and it seems quite likely that 'Hamish' could have been one of these smallworkers.


Unmounted paper print, 83 x 60mm
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
The second photo shows 'Joan, Heather & Andrew, on lawn, 1950, May' (resumably from right to left), so it was taken about four years later. Now there are three children, all wearing wide-brimmed hats to ward off the harsh African sun, and playing on a manicured lawn, rather than hanging around the dangerous mill site. The wide variety of toys suggests that Hamish had achieved at least some success at the mine.


Reverse of paper print
The snapshots are both roughly 2¼" x 3¼", equating to the 620 roll film format that was introduced by Kodak in 1931, and rapidly replaced the similarly sized 120-format film which used a slightly larger spool. By the mid-1940s various versions of the Six-20 Brownie box and Six-20 Kodak folding camera were probably the most popular options available to casual amateur photographers. Many of the folding models used an eye-level viewfinder by this time, and it looks to me that these shots were taken from the lower, waist-level view point characteristically employed with the box Brownies. In the first shot, the eyes of the older girl are on a level with Hamish's waist.


Kodak Six-20 Popular 'Brownie' box camera, 1937-1943
Image © and courtesy of Tauranga Heritage Collection
I suspect they were taken with something like the Kodak Six-20 Popular 'Brownie' which was manufactured from 1937 until 1943. It also seems safe to assume that the children's mother was both the photographer and the person who annotated the prints once they had been printed. Presumably Joan, Heather and Andrew were children of the said Hamish, and there is a remote chance that some member of the extended family of Scottish origin (after all, who else would have the name Hamish) will recognise them and get in touch.


Visiting smallworker gold claims, Munyati River, Zimbabwe, 1985
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
You might have thought the scene of such a rudimentary mining operation might have long gone by the 1980s. I don't have photos of the mill - which were indeed very much like the one depicted above - but I do have a snapshot that I took of my sister and a friend visiting Uncle Bob Huntly's smallworking near the Munyati/Umniati River south of Kadoma in 1985. The equipment at the head of the mining shaft consists of nothing more than a bucket suspended on a rope around a hand-operated windlass - not even a ratchet in case the hands slipped. I can't believe it, but I went down there, probably without even a hard hat.


The Stamping Ground, Rocky Creek Railway
Working Model by Glen Anthony
I'll close off with this entertaining video of an incredibly accurate working model mine, made by a very clever man in Christchurch, New Zealand. Once you've finished watching that I'm sure the rest of this week's Sepia Saturday participants will keep you entertained a while longer.

Shades of the Departed Magazine: Toys

The latest issue of Shades of the Departed Magazine is out, and I'm very pleased to have a contribution of mine included, covering the subject of toys used as studio props.


Watch The Birdie
Toys Used As Accessories In Photographic Studios
Shades of the Departed is a free digital online magazine catering for those with a fascination for old photographs. The brainchild and creation of footnoteMaven, who has blogged about old photos since 2007 the magazine first appeared in November 2009. Fourteen issues since then have covered a wide range of themes, from weighty matters such as the Civil War and politics through lighter topics such as the Wild West, occupational and wedding photographs to the downright morbid with Memento Mori. Back issues are available at the Shades Of The Departed Archive.

Contributers in this edition include fM herself and well known geneabloggers Sheri Fenley, Denise Levenick, Craig Manson, Denise Barrett Olson, Caroline Pointer, Janine Smith and Maureen Taylor. I'm honoured to be in such illustrious company and look forward to reading the articles myself.

Sepia Saturday 146: Model ships as studio props

The nautical theme of the Sepia Saturday image prompt this week reminds me that I have long intended to do a series of articles featuring items commonly used as studio props and accessories. Maritime studio settings were common, and not restricted to coastally located towns. They were encouraged by the long-lived fashion for sailor suits lasting well into the 20th Century, and often featured appropriately painted backdrops, life-sized boats, coils of rope, lifebelts, mastheads, etc.

I have a few featuring models of sailing ships and toy boats in my collection which give a fair idea of the range used by Victorian and Edwardian studio photographers.


Two unidentified young men & model of sailing ship
Carte de visite by Abderame's Crescent Studio of Bristol, c.1875-80
This carte de visite is one that I have featured previously, and I suspect that the fine model of a two-masted brig was intended to provide a nautical flavour rather than as a toy for the amusement of children for the duration of the portrait sitting. The portrait came from an album which belonged to a family who emigrated from England to Australia and New Zealand, so perhaps these young men were readying themselves for a life abroad or on the ocean wave.

The New Bedford Whaling Museum has a fine example featuring a Captain Howland admiring a magnificant model of what is presumably his own sailing ship.


Unidentified child with model of yacht
Cabinet card by W.W. Winter of Derby, c.1890-91
An annotation pecilled on the reverse of Winter's card mount suggests that this boy in a smart sailor suit might be Charles Richard Mapp (1887-1955), whose father Richard William Mapp (originally from Derby) was the station master at Woodville Railway Station in 1891.


Unidentified child and model of yacht
Cabinet card by J.L. Hart of Ashbourne, c.1894-98
This pond yacht lies momentarily unattended on the seat of the wicker chair - perhaps its owner is concentrating on balance rather than the promise of a play at the boating pond after the studio visit?


Unidentified young child with model of sailing ship
Cabinet card by C.S. Swift of Derby, c.1903-06
Swift's elaborate studio furniture didn't have much to do with sailing, but he was able to captivate this child shortly after the turn of the century with a model of perhaps a three-masted barque.


Flickr user oldsailro has an entire collection devoted to model boats, a good proportion of which are late 19th and early 20th Century studio portraits, illustrating the huge popularity of pond yachting as a pastime for children at that time.

For more photographs of a nautical flavour head over to Sepia Saturday.

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 124: John Bradbury Winter, modelmaker

It's been almost six months since I last wrote an article for Photo-Sleuth or made any contribution to Sepia Saturday. The reason for this has been my involvement, in a variety of roles, in the Rena Oil Spill Response which has just been wrapped up. I've posted a few photos taken during my Rena adventures since mid-October over at my Gluepot Gazette blog if you're interested in seeing what I've been up to. I'm afraid there just hasn't been the time for catching up with fellow SS enthusiasts' efforts, let alone researching old photographs. While I await the outcome of several job applications currently in the pipeline, I'll hopefully have a little more time to do both over the next few weeks.

Several family members worked for the railways during Victorian and Edwardian times, but they appear to have left little in the way of ephemeral evidence of such employment. I'm concentrating, therefore, on the "model railway" aspect of Alan's photo prompt with an example from my collection of purchased photographs.

I'm not sure why I purchased this one; it doesn't have the usual pre-requisites for my eBay purchases, e.g. from Derbyshire. Perhaps it reminded me of my brief childhood passion for making models, although I never made anything approaching the quality of this example. It is a print (100 x 70mm) mounted on card with rounded corners and unusual dimensions (105 x 82mm), a size/shape I tend to associate - rightly or wrongly - with shots taken by amateurs in the late 1890s and early 1900s.

The subject appears to be a model of an early railway locomotive, its wheels resting on wooden rails. My knowledge of early steam is so meagre that I couldn't begin to make an identification, but from a cursory glance through a selection of Googled images I'm guessing it was a design from the mid-1800s. An inscription handwritten in pen at the base of the mount, below the print, suggests that the photograph was taken in Brighton on 10 October 1905 (10/10/05).

The reverse shows a handwritten insciption in pencil, Built by J.B. Winter, probably in a different hand to that on the front. A little research on FreeBMD and Google revealed that this is most likely to be one John Bradbury Winter (1869-1950), a medical doctor and renowned model maker. Born in 1869 at Brighton, Sussex, he was the son of John Newnham Winter (1830-1907) and grandson of Thomas Bradbury Winter (1797-1874), both surgeons.

It has occurred to me that the inscription could have been made much later than the photo was taken, and might even be a hopeful, rather than strictly factual, attribution. I'd therefore be interested in hearing from model makers and enthusiasts who might be able to identify the model of locomotive and suggest whether the workmanship is up to Mr Winter's calibre.


Model of Stephenson's Rocket by Dr J. Bradbury Winter
Collection of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers
Image by kind permission of © Alan Stepney and courtesy of Flickr
This miniature version of Stephenson's Rocket was constructed in silver by John Bradbury Winter for the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, who still own it. The following is an extract of a post on a model makers' forum:

Dr John Bradbury Winter was a model maker with incredible skill and patience, and everything he made was simply a reduced version of the prototype. I remember reading long ago about a model he built of William Stroudley's "Como" that involved him crawling inside the tender of the original to ensure that he had every detail correct. It's currently in the Brighton and Hove Museum.

If you have any further information to add to the story, please leave a comment or get in touch by email. Also, please do visit the contributions by other Sepia Saturday participants this week. You're guaranteed to be entertained.

Sepia Saturday 94: Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross

Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross,
To see a fine lady upon a white horse;
Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,
And she shall have music wherever she goes.

Traditional

Only time and the collective judgement of fellow Sepia Saturday contributers will tell, but I may be able to make a claim as the closest follower of Alan's theme this week. I believe this young lady, pictured in an unnamed 4¼" x 3¼" paper print from c.1910-1914, and doing her best to ignore the persistently annoying younger brother still in nappies, is well into her training for a career to be spent astride ponies of the inanimate kind. Judging by her apparent age, she may even be the same curly-headed young Queenslander who later caught the roving eye of that wheeled toy horse in 1937.

Here, however, she is less concerned with pretending any skill at polo or other frivolous pursuits. It is clear that she is determined to ride her steed through the jungle ahead, but is just starting to appreciate the importance of an unexpected photo opportunity. For more of those captured moments presented by a squad of sepia sycophants, check out Sepia Saturday's offerings.

Sepia Saturday 76: The trouble with animals and children

There’s a good reason photographers were often reluctant to photograph animals or children in the 19th Century, one which is ably demonstrated by blurred pet in the photo for Alan Burnett’s Sepia Saturday prompt this week.  Of course, some practitioners carved a niche for themselves by specialising in children.  The thing is, they’re difficult to control, particularly in an unfamiliar environment, won’t keep keep still for more than a few seconds at a time, and are pretty unpredictable.


In order to avoid such errant motion on the part of babies or pets, portrait photographs were sometimes taken while they were dozing.  In this nicely balanced portrait, however, Derby photographer James Brennen has successfully managed to capture a dashing young man in a smart outfit with his very well behaved dog, the latter alert and facing directly into the camera lens. This was pretty unusual for the day – I think it was taken in the mid- to late 1870s – as gelatin dry plates with their greater speeds had yet to become commonly available.  The slightly washed out appearance of the print and the paucity of well defined shadows suggest to me that Brennen may have used reflective lighting panels, or more likely took the portrait outdoors.  The additional light would have permitted a shorter exposure time, making such a portrait possible, but would not have been easy, and it demonstrates some considerable skill on the part of the photographer.


By the time this unidentified young lad visited some unknown studio for his postcard portrait half a century later, perhaps in the 1920s or 1930s, artificial lighting was being used for visual effect, rather than to freeze motion.  However, the photographer still found it convenient to have stuffed dog on wheels to grab the attention of his young subjects.  The promise of a play with the toy afterwards no doubt encouraged the boy to stand where and how he was told, and give a most rewarding smile when prompted.

Sepia Saturday 70: A boy and his toy

This boy's parents may have scrimped a little on Christmas presents by putting off buying him a new suit, but they spared nothing in acceding to his demands for the latest in locomotory accessories. I exaggerate a little, of course, since most of the several hundred Google images of "antique horse tricycles" are full-bodied models, close cousins to the fancy rocking horse featured in a previous Photo-Sleuth article, and far more elaborate than this pared down version. Judging by the number of horse tricycles that seem to have survived, they were not that uncommon. Sadly, the identity of the proud young lad, caught in the moment before he escapes down the driveway to show it off to his friends, is unknown.


The photographer's name, on the other hand, is clearly displayed on both the front and reverse of the card mount. By the time he took this photograph, perhaps in the mid- to late 1880s, Frederick William Broadhead (c1846-1925) was a well established Leicester photographer, although the bulk of his commissions were conventional studio-based portraits, rather than outdoors shots. This example was clearly taken outdoors, but whether outside the studio premises or in the boy's own garden is unknown. It is perhaps a useful reminder that we should always examine the background to such outdoors photographs in our family collections for clues as to their location.


"View of Castle Cornet St Peters Port Guernsey Taken from the Hights" by F.D. Broadhead, oil on panel, c.1870
Image © and courtesy of Christies
Broadhead's father Frederick Dodson Broadhead (c1812-1878) was a portrait and landscape artist, and the son also occasionally advertised as an artist. Although he was born in Kennington in London, Frederick William's family moved frequently, so that by the time he started work aged 14 as a lithographer in Litchurch, Derby, they had already lived in London, Bath and Nottingham, where his father presumably found commissions.

The Broadhead family moved again in the late 1860s to Leicester. Frederick junior was working as a photographer by November 1869, when he announced his removal to "more convenient premises [at] 14 Welford road." Cartes de visite were advertised from 6s per dozen, and portraits in oil from one guinea upwards. It is not clear whether the portraits were photographs finished in oils or miniature oil paintings, although I suspect the latter, as an article in the Leicester Chronicle in 1876 reported his having painted "a pair of life-size bust portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Thornton."

According to a newspaper article in 1879, F.W. Broadhead was one of the early practitioners in the use of artificial light in studio photography.

Leicester Chronicle & Leicestershire Mercury, 11 January 1879.

Night Photography.
Mr. Broadhead, of 65 Welford road, has secured a patent luxograph, by means of which portraits can be taken at night, and by which daylight and the sun's rays are not rendered indispensable accessories to the production of a good picture. The process is apparently very simple; the principle upon which it is worked being the concentration of the rays emitted from a series of carefully arranged reflectors directly upon the sitter. The light is produced by the ignition of chemical powders, and is of pale blue colour. Although for an instant its brilliancy is rather dazzling, it softens down into a soft mellow hue, void of all garishness, and rather pleasant to the eyes than otherwise. By this artificial means a portrait can be taken in from seven to twqelve seconds, and even this period is decreased to about five seconds when it has to be taken on a ferrotype plate. At present there are only two or three machines in use throughout the kingdom, but when its properties are well known they cannot fail to be highly appreciated.

Barker & Co.'s Directory for Leicestershire & Rutland, 1875
Trade directories, census, Royal Photographic Society registrations, newspaper entries and advertisements provide a detailed record of his studio addresses during the thirty years he was in business:

1869: 84 Humberstone Rd
Nov 1870-1875: 74 Welford Rd
1876-1877: 72 & 74 Welford Rd
1877-1885: 65 Welford Rd
1884-1892: 55 Welford Rd
1888: 24 Gallowtree Gate
1892: 44 London Rd
1895-1896: Stanley Chambers, 30 Gallowtree Gate
1898: Stockdale Terrace, 19 London Road
1900: 55 Chestnut St & 102 Welford Rd


Directory entries and designs on the reverse of his card mounts demonstrate that he also operated periodically in the nearby towns of Loughborough and Market Harborough, although the evidence for his presence in these places is more patchy. It appears that he may merely have visited periodically, as an 1883 trade directory entry indicates weekly attendance:

Broadhead Fdk. Wm., artist and photographer, High street (attend Tu.), Market Harborough

Leicester Chronicle & Leicestershire Mercury, 10 June 1882
In addition to opportunistic shots of Royal processions and general views of the town and local tourist spots, Broadhead was not averse to seeking other photographic commissions away from his studio premises:

Leicester Chronicle & Leicestershire Mercury, 16 August 1879.

The Leicestershire Volunteers in Camp ... at Willesley Park ... Mr. F.W. Broadhead, Welford-road, Leicester, camped out with the volunteers all the week, and took a great variety of views of the camp, and of the men when on parade, by an instantaneous process, and he appeared to do a "roaring" trade under his "special appointment as a photographer to the camp.

Wright's Directory of Leicestershire, 1887-88
Leicester Chronicle & Leicestershire Mercury, 8 July 1882.

The Australian Cricketers. Mr. F.W. Broadhead, photographer, of Welford-road, has produced a pair of excellent group portraits of the Australian and Leicestershire teams who took part in the match lately played on the Aylestone-road Ground. The work has been carefully executed in variou-sized photographs, and give a life-like representation of the players ... No doubt a large number of these photographs well be secured in commemmoration of Leicestershire having played so well against the antipodeans.

He also gave evidence regarding photographic matters to the Leicester courts on several occasions.

Leicester Chronicle & Leicestershire Mercury, 12 April 1884.

Charge against a photographer ... according to the evidence of Mr. Broadhead, photographer, it was impossible for Daniels to have taken the photo from the condition of the camera and under the circumstances detailed by Mrs. Glover and the groom who attended prisoner. Mr Broadhead, however, admitted that the camera would take a negative, but it would not be passable .... Frederick William Broadhead, photographer, said that he had tested the lenses in question, and found that the lens produced perfectly fitted Professor Colton's apparatus.

Records of the Copyright Office, Stationers' Company:

Photograph of the Mayor & Council of Leicester, consisting of 50 persons including the Mayor". Copyright owner and author of work: Frederick William Broadhead, 35 Welford Road, Leicester. Form completed 12 November 1892. Registration stamp: 14 November 1892.

Wright's Directory of Leicestershire, 1889-90
In 1889 he celebrated his twentieth year in business. He appears to have retired not long after moving to Coalville a decade later. Frederick W. Broadhead died in 1925 at Farnham, Surrey, aged 78. He was married twice, and had two sons and two daughters with his first wife Sarah Ann Fisher, who died in 1898. His second wife Leah Reeves died in 1935.

This is my contribution to this week's Sepia Saturday. For more in a similar vein, head off there for a browse - I won't say quick, because you're likely to be there for a while!

References

Heathcote, B.V. & P.F. (1982) Leicester Photographic Studios in Victorian & Edwardian Times, Royal Photographic Society, The Photohistorian supplement.

A Scottish family in Staffordshire

Robert William Melbourne, September 1896
Cabinet card portrait by George Renwick of Burton-on-Trent, Negative #16601
Image © and courtesy of James Morley & What's That Picture

James Morley recently sent me scans of a group of cabinet cards by Burton-on-Trent photographers George Renwick and Richard Keene Junior which he purchased at an auction. Quite apart from my interest in Burton studios, this group includes some fine identified and dated portraits, which enabled me to do some background research on the subjects. The first four in the series were clearly taken at the same sitting - the negative numbers appear to have been 16599-16602, although one of them is not legible.

Negative #16602

The birth of Robert William Melbourne was registered in the September quarter of 1892 at the Burton register office. He was born in Burton-on-Trent, the only child of Charles James Melbourne (1858-1935) and Elizabeth Janet Smith (1860-1925), who were married in 1891. At the time of these portraits he would have been about four years old, plus or minus a couple of months. It's even possible that the visit to the photographer was a celebration of his fourth birthday.

Negative #16599

Robert's father was a commercial clerk who, by the time of the 1901 Census, had become manager of a brewery. I have been unable to discover which of the nineteen Burton breweries mentioned by Kelly's 1900 trade directory for which he worked. The largest, controlled by the firm of Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton, covered an area of 160 acres, but there were many smaller ones, and the area had become famous for the quality of its ales.

Negative # not legible

Robert William Melbourne continued to live in Burton until at least 1940 - I found an entry for him in a directory of that date at 128 Station street - but I'm not sure whether he married and/or had children.

Possibly Charles James Melbourne, c.1895-1900
Undated cabinet card portrait by Richard Keene Junior of Burton-on-Trent
Image © and courtesy of James Morley & What's That Picture

Charles James Melbourne was born in 1858, also at Burton, one of three children of brewer's clerk Charles James Melbourne (1826-1878) and his wife Helen Beck. Charles James senior was, in turn, born in Belper, youngest son of a nail manufacturer William Melbourne (c1783-1846) and his first wife Phebe Williams (c1786-1828). He was therefore a brother to Ann Melbourne, the wife of photographer George White (c1810-1880) of Chesterfield and Blackpool.

Probably Robert W. Melbourne and his mother Elizabeth Janet née Smith, c.1893-4
Undated cabinet card portrait by George Renwick of Burton-on-Trent, Negative #14693
Image © and courtesy of James Morley & What's That Picture

Robert William's mother Elizabeth Janet Smith was born at Tutbury in 1860, one of eight children of an engine smith James Smith and his wife Janet Mackie, both of Scottish origin. Although they lived first in Tutbury and later in Hatton, William Smith worked as a brewer's engineer, presumably in Burton. He had emigrated from Renfrewshire, Scotland to Staffordshire around 1852. Although the Melbourne family had lived in Belper for several generations, the other three of Robert's grandparents were born in Scotland. This strong Scottish heritage obviously influenced his parents' choice of the "Bonnie Prince Charlie" style of clothing worn for the two portraits by George Renwick.

Card mount designs from George Renwick's Burton-on-Trent artisitic & photographic studio, c.1876-c.1916

George Renwick (1849-1919) operated a studio in the Staffordshire town of Burton-on-Trent from around 1876 until at least 1916. Initially, he appears to have operated form his parents' home at 105 Station Street, but by 1880 he had moved into premises at 20 Station Street and remained there until 1905. Between 1905 and 1912 he moved to Bank Square.

One of the cabinet cards has a rather crumpled tissue protector depicting a rural scene with pond, tree and windmill. These tissue protectors, although very commonly used at the time, have often not survived. Many, like this one, were generic although some had the photographer's name printed on them.

Another of the photographs in James' collection was enclosed in a translucent envelope with the studio's name and address printed in brown ink, as shown above. In my experience, even less of thes envelopes appear to have survived. Many thanks to James Morley for the opportunity to feature this collection of portraits.

Boy with his Meccano tower

This postcard portrait of a young boy proudly standing next to his partially completed Meccano tower has no identifying marks showing either the subject or the photographer. The clothing is rather difficult to date, although Michael Walker kindly pointed to this BBC article which relates that short trousers became the norm for boys in the 1920s. The photograph has been taken outdoors, perhaps at the door to a corrugated iron garden shed, and the model stands on a rough wooden bench seat.


The reverse has a plain divided back design, obviously not too early and possibly post-Great War, but difficult to date with any accuracy.

I wondered whether the Meccano construction might provide some clues with which to date the photograph. Although I still have the set that I played with as a child, inherited from my Dutch uncle, my knowledge of the history of the toy is limited. After browsing several Meccano-related web sites, I realised that there is a huge community of Meccano enthusiasts. David Williams, a Canadian collector and "Meccanoman," who details some of the history of Meccano on his website, helpfully pointed me towards the "Spanner" Mailing List, an international group of mechanical model building enthusiasts.


List member Roger Thorpe thought that the boy's efforts might have been stimulated by the iron Eiffel Tower, completed in 1889. My thoughts had wandered down a similar track, and I discovered that Meccano still produce an Eiffel Tower set, shown above.


A very knowledgeable Charles Steadman offered the following very useful information, although cautious to emphasise that:

Of course, remember that we aren't yet certain whether all parts are Meccano or a clone ... The only thing we can be absolutely certain about is that it's after 1913, when the stepped part at the very top of the tower (described here) was introduced. Other than that, technically that could have been built from parts bought new up to at least 1926 (and of course much later if the parts were older) ...

I had wondered whether the fact that they appeared to be unpainted, unlike my set in which all the strips were red and green, could be used at all. Again from Charles:

The parts are all nickel plated, as they would have been up to 1927 (and indeed you could buy them nickel plated after that by special order), so that doesn't really help us.

The wood(en base) is home-made, not a Meccano part. The piece lying on the bottom appears to be an angle girder, part 8 (described here). Compare the parts 8.ni1 and 8.ni on that page (just click on the green boxes in the table at the bottom of the page). If you can see from your detailed photograph that this angle girder has rounded off corners then you can take the earliest date forwards to 1918 ... I have to say that I'm leaning towards that angle girder being round-ended, putting the photograph to at least 1918.

The other thing worth checking is the length of the bolts ... from a good close-up you might be able to identify whether they are the earlier long (5/16") type or the later short (7/32") type. If they are short, this would move the photo right on to at least 1922 ... (From the images above) the bolts look to be long, making their manufacture before 1922.

I'm very grateful to Michael, David, Roger and Charles for their help. It appears likely that the Meccano set from which this model was built was produced between 1918 and 1922, and I have a feeling, not unfortunately based on much solid evidence, that the portrait was taken some time after the end of the Great War or during the early to mid-1920s.


P.S. I've received an email from Michael J. Walker, who attached ...

... a page from a 1913 Meccano manual, showing a model of the Eiffel Tower (shown above), which is very similar in outline to the construction made by the taciturn boy in your featured photograph. It's my guess that the boy saw this model in a 1913 (or possibly slightly later edition) Meccano Instructions Manual, and decided to use the parts he had to make a passable version. In this he succeeded as we can see in the photograph.

Michael refers to the excellent NZMeccano.com web site hosted by Charles Steadman, the source of this image and many other Meccano manuals from as early as 1906, as well as images of the Meccano Magazine from 1917 to 1981. I particularly like this one from page 3 of the March 1917 issue: