Orphan Payne photos from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania

The following three photographs are cartes de visite of Payne family members from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the United States that were "rescued" by Shelley Cardiel. If anyone thinks that they could be a member of this family, they are welcome to get in touch with me, or contact Shelley directly (Email). She is keen to see them being "returned to the care of the family."


The first is a portrait of Martha "Mattie" Payne which was taken at the Van Pelt & Webber Studio in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The photograph appears to me to have been taken in the early to mid-1860s, with Martha likely in her late teens or early twenties at the time it was taken. In addition to her name, someone has written "died age 23, single" and "Great Grandmother Payne's youngest daughter" on the back of the card mount.


The second is a half-length seated portrait identified in pencil on the front as "Great Grandmother Payne". The card mount shows it to have been taken at the Dabbs Studio, also in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, probably sometime in the mid- to late 1870s. The woman in the photograph appears to be in her sixties or seventies.


The last carte de visite in the series is a head-and-shoulders portrait identified in similar pencilled handwriting on the front as "Great Grandfather Payne," and was also taken at the Dabbs Studio in Pittsburgh. It is likely to have been taken in the mid- to late 1870s with the man in the photograph also probably in his 60s or 70s.

Although one branch of my Payne family - from Derbyshire in the English Midlands - did emigrate to Allegheny County, Pennsylvania in the late 1830s, I don't believe Mattie and her parents are related in any close manner. To be honest, I'm not sure I would want to take on these rather severe looking "great-grandparents."

More photographs of and by F.J. Seaman

Further to my previous article about Frederick Joseph Seaman (1874-1953), I've received further information and photographs from his grand-daughter Anne Williams, and John Bradley, which are probably worth including as a separate post, rather than merely appending to the original one.


Anne sent me this rather nice studio self portrait by F.J. Seaman, taken at an unknown location and date. It appears to be a post card size, although I don't know if it has anything printed or inscribed on the reverse. Based merely on a comparison with other portraits of FJS, I estimate it was taken around the time of the First World War.


She also sent me a later family portrait, possibly taken in the mid- to late 1920s, showing FJS with Evie, Mable Maude (seated - the elder daughter, and always known as Maude) and Maud's husband, Ormonde Vivian O. Blackmore. Maud and Evie's mother Bertha died at Sculcoates (Hull) in 1912, and their father remarried the following year, also at Sculcoates, to Hilda Blanche Bailey Jackson. Their twin sons Austin and Stanley were born in 1914 at Blackpool. They moved to Doncaster in 1915 and stayed there until 1926, when they moved back to Chesterfield and lived over the shop.

This now gives a continuous and very useful time frame for the operation of the various F.J. Seaman studios as follows:

(1891-1896 : Chesterfield, Ilkeston, Alfreton in Derbyshire - as Seaman & Sons)
1897-1903 : Hucknall Torkard, Nottinghamshire
?1898-1903 : Heanor, Derbyshire (also possibly open in 1905-1906)
1903-1907 : Sculcoates, Hull, Yorkshire (also at York, Beverley, Darlington, Bridlington and Scarborough?)
1907-1915 : Blackpool, Lancashire
?1909-1912 : Davygate, York, Yorkshire
1915-1926 : Doncaster, Yorkshire
1926-1950 : Chesterfield, Derbyshire


John Bradley has this post card portrait of a very smartly dressed young couple taken in F.J. Seaman's Blackpool studio, probably shortly before the war, say between 1910 and 1914.

Many thanks to Anne Williams and John Bradley for their contributions.

Henry Lord (1815-1887) of Huddersfield & Buxton

One of the difficulties in creating a historical database, for example a list of commercial portrait photographers who operated in a particular area over a particular time period, is the fragmentary nature of the evidence. My compilation of an index of photographers and photographers in Derbyshire, England can therefore never really be considered complete, and indeed it is difficult to determine at any time what proportion of the photographers have been discovered. Although I believe I have found and documented the bulk of those professionals who plied their trade in the county for any length of time, there were many who only operated for a couple of years, or even months. I still come across new candidates for the index on a regular basis, and most can be broadly categorised as follows:

• travelling photographers, who often lived in and worked from caravans, and moved between counties from month to month, following country fairs or other events,


• professionals who only worked in Derbyshire for a short period, before moving on and setting up elsewhere,


• those who were well established elsewhere, and merely visited Derbyshire on a seasonal basis, or briefly operated a branch studio in the county,


• people who tried their hand at professional photography but, for whatever reasons, moved on to another profession fairly quickly,


• individuals whose primary profession or employment was in another field, either associated or completely unrelated, but who carried on portrait photography as a sideline, usually from home, often for some years,

One example from the third group is provided by a carte de visite in the collection of John Bradley, an image of which he sent me recently.


It is a full length portrait of a young mean seated in a studio setting which is fairly standard fare for the mid- to late 1860s or early 1870s.


The reverse of the card mount has a design consisting of a coat of arms and lines of text in several different fonts, typical of the mid-to late 1860s. The photographer was, "H. Lord, St Peter's Street, Huddersfield and Spring Gardens, Buxton." Henry Lord (1815-1887) was an established Huddersfield photographer who was originally a painter, but set up a studio in St Peter's Street in the late 1850s. He continued to operate in Huddersfield at least until the 1880s, and died there in 1887. His third son Ralph Herbert Lord was an assistant in the studio as a teenager, but after his marriage in 1878, he settled in Chesterton, Cambridgeshire, where he opened his own photographic business.


Roger Vaughan has a carte de visite of an unidentified couple by Henry Lord of St Peter's Street, Huddersfield on his web site, probably taken in the early to mid-1870s. The reverse does not list the Buxton branch, so it was presumably short-lived.

Thus far, I have been unable to find any other documentary evidence of Lord's visit (or visits) to Buxton. Buxton was a tourist town, even then, and a huge industry had grown up around catering for the many summer visitors to the mineral springs. Spring Gardens is shown by a later post card and trade directories of the period as a row of four-storey buildings with many lodging houses. I suspect that Henry Lord would rent a room there during his visits to Buxton, presumably designed to look for business at the peak of the holiday season, when many of his more affluent Huddersfield clientele would presumably be out of town.

Although it is possible that further sightings of Henry Lord in Buxton may be discovered in due course - indeed, that is part of the reason for my writing this article on Photo-Sleuth - addresses printed on the reverse of card mounts may subsequently prove to be the only evidence of their presence in a particular location.

Frederick Joseph Seaman (1874-1953)

The Chesterfield firm of Seaman & Sons was started by Alfred Seaman (1844-1910) around 1876, and by the early to mid-1880s his sons were joining him in the business. Many members of the Seaman family eventually entered the photographic profession - indeed, there is a descendant still operating in Chesterfield to this day - but it is Alfred's fourth son Frederick Joseph Seaman (1874-1953) who will be the focus of this article.


George Seaman, Albert Seaman, Dennis Seaman
& F.J. "Joe" Seaman (right at back)
Image © Anne Williams & courtesy of John Bradley
This fine portrait from the collection of Joe Seaman's grand-daughter, Anne Williams, shows the four brothers, sons of Alfred by his first wife Elizabeth Dennis (1844-1874), taken in the early 1890s, presumably taken by their father Alfred, shortly after Joe had entered the business. All four of them are shown together in the 1891 Census (see image below), living at 49 Durrant Road, Chesterfield.


During the late 1880s and 1890s, the firm opened new branches in Ilkeston (by 1887), Alfreton (by 1895), Sheffield and Leeds (by 1899), and it seems likely that the sons played a major part in running these branches.


By 1897, however, F.J. Seaman was working from a new studio - not part of the Seaman & Sons chain - at 2 High Street, Hucknall Torkard, north of Nottingham. The cabinet card portrait of him shown above has the Hucknall premises printed on the mount.


In the same year (1897) he married Bertha Beatrice Thorpe at Basford, Nottinghamshire. The cabinet photo above, probably taken around 1897-1898, and possibly also by Alfred, since it is mounted on a Seaman & Sons card, shows Joe and Bertha with an older brother and sister-in-law.


At the end of March 1901 (see census image above), they were living at 2 South Street, Rushcliffe, Nottinghamshire with their three month-old baby Mable [sic]. He described himself as a "photographer & picture frame maker" working from home. According to Heathcote & Heathcote the Hucknall studio remained open until 1903.


Unidentified young woman,
taken c. 1897-1898 by F.J. Seaman of Hucknall Torkard & Heanor
Image © and courtesy of Malcolm Dabell
During some of this period, i.e. 1897 to 1903, he also operated a studio across the county border in nearby Heanor (Derbyshire). The above photograph of an unidentified young woman was sent to me by Malcolm Dabell. It is a standard cabinet card with rounded corners, with an art nouveau design which is typical of the late 1890s and early 1900s. Merely from the style of clothing worn by the subject, I would have suggested that it was taken some time between 1895 and 1898. The enormous "leg of mutton"-style sleeves which are partly visible in the vignetted portraited were characteristic of the mid- to late 1890s. However, as both the Hucknall and Heanor studios are shown, the possible dates can be narrowed down to c. 1897-1898.


Unidentified child,
taken c. 1900-1903 by F.J. Seaman of Hucknall Torkard & Heanor
Image © and courtesy of Lies Ligthart
This cabinet card portrait of an unidentified young child belongs to Lies Ligthart, to whom I am most grateful for permission to reproduce it here. The style of clothing, elaborate wicker chair and potted aspidistra used as studio props, and art nouveau-style design on the card mount all point to a date of the early 1900s for this portrait, say between 1900 and 1903.

Adamson (1997) states that F.J. Seaman had a studio in the Red Lion Square, Heanor in 1905 and 1906. His obituary stated that, "after six years at Hucknall he moved to Hull, where he started a business and within a short period had branch establishments at York, Beverley and Scarborough." Other sources state that he was operating a studio at Davygate, York between 1909 and 1912. "In 1907 he went to Blackpool, where he carried on a photographer's business for 17 years, and for a short period before he came back to Chesterfield in 1926 he was in business at Doncaster ... The business he established at Scarborough was taken over by his brother, the late Mr. Alfred Seaman, and subsequently by Mr. A. Seaman's son.." The Exhibition Study Group web site lists postcards dated c. 1908 which suggest that he was then operating primarily from Hull and York, but had branches in Beverley, Darlington, Blackpool, Scarborough and Bridlington.


This vignetted postcard portrait of a young girl, identified on the reverse only as "Rita," is from my own collection. It was taken at the Doncaster branch studio, as evidenced by the studio name blind-stamped in the lower right-hand corner. It was possibly taken shortly after the Great War or in the early 1920s. Certainly he was in Doncaster by 1922.


F.J. Seaman with his wife Hilda, daughter Evie and the twins, Austin & Stanley
Taken on 25 August 1935 to mark the twins' 21st birthday
Blind stamped, "F.J. Seaman & Sons"
Image © and courtesy of Anne Williams
Upon returning to Chesterfield in 1926, he took over the premises in Irongate, "and carried on business there up to his retirement in 1950, when his son, Mr. Stanley Seaman, took over the business."


Frederick Joseph Seaman died at St. Margaret's Hotel, Torquay on 26 March 1953, at the age of 79.

Many thanks to F.J. Seaman's grand-daughter Anne Williams for several images of the Seaman family and a wealth of information. I am grateful also to John Bradley for images and a continuing interest in my projects, and to Malcolm Dabell and Lies Ligthart for images of photographs in their collections.

References

Adamson, Keith I.P. (1997) Professional Photographers in Derbyshire 1843-1914, Supplement No. 118 to The PhotoHistorian, September 1997, ISSN 0957-0209.
Heathcote B. & Heathcote, P. (n.d.) Pioneers of Photography in Nottinghamshire, Nottinghamshire County Council, ISBN 0 902751 38 7.
Death of Mr F J Seaman, Unidentified newspaper cutting, dated 2 April 1953, courtesy of Anne Williams.
Index to GRO Birth, Marriage & Death Indexes from FreeBMD
International Genealogical Index (IGI) from the LDS Church's FamilySearch database
Indexed 1841-1901 UK Census Images from Ancestry
Emails from Anne Williams & John Bradley

A young girl with a doll, by R. & R. Bull of Ashbourne

The indefatigable Cynthia Maddock also sent me these scans of another postcard portrait, which are of her friend's mother as a child, holding a doll.


She was Harriet Elizabeth Barker, born at Snelston near Ashbourne on 23rd November 1908. Her parents were Robert and Ellen Elizabeth Barker. She earned her living in domestic service in Derby until her marriage. In later life she lived in Loughborough and died in 1998 aged 89 years. If she was between three and four years old when she visited the studio for this portrait, it was probably taken in 1912.


The portrait was taken by the firm of Robert Bull and his nephew, another Robert Bull, trading as R. & R. Bull of Ashbourne. The "A half-penny stamp for inland one penny foreign" postage rate specified in the stamp box was standard in the United Kingdom until 1918 (Source: Peter Stubbs' EdinPhotos Post Card History).