Now a century old photograph has the power to draw you in and ask a set of questions to which I doubt there are any answers.
This is Miss G Sedgwick aged 19, taken on November 21 1917.
I have no clue as to where she lived other than that the picture postcard was produced by Van Ralty Ltd who had studios in Manchester, Liverpool Sheffield, Nottingham, Oldham and Bolton.
In 1911 they had two branches here in Manchester, one at 92 London Road and a second at 91 Oldham Street.
And despite a shedload load of their pictures offered on ebay and sitting in the digital collection at Manchester Archives + I can’t find a history of the business or any catalogue, which doesn’t mean there isn’t one out there just I haven’t found it yet.*
I would like to think that she posed for her picture in one of the Manchester studios, but it is equally likely it could be Liverpool, Oldham, Bolton or Sheffield but I rather think it might be Sheffield for no other reason than I have in the collection a picture of Miss Violet Sedgwick who was 20 in 1917 and was born and grew up in Sheffield.
That doesn’t mean they are related and so far there is no evidence that they were but the two pictures are part of the same batch which my friend David Harrop showed me so there will be a link, it is all a matter of finding it.
At which some point there will be a few who mutter that this is slim pickings and hardly amounts to story but I would disagree.
We have a picture and a name and somewhere there will be a story which will offer up some fascinating insights into a young women a hundred years ago.
Well we shall see.
Location; unknown
Picture; Miss G Sedgwick, 1917, from the collection of David Harrop
* Manchester Archives + https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/9247818576
**Miss Violet Sedgwick just 21 years old and busy in a munitions factory ......... stories behind the book nu 16, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-max=2016-04-15T12:16:00%2B01:00&max-results=7
I have no clue as to where she lived other than that the picture postcard was produced by Van Ralty Ltd who had studios in Manchester, Liverpool Sheffield, Nottingham, Oldham and Bolton.
In 1911 they had two branches here in Manchester, one at 92 London Road and a second at 91 Oldham Street.
And despite a shedload load of their pictures offered on ebay and sitting in the digital collection at Manchester Archives + I can’t find a history of the business or any catalogue, which doesn’t mean there isn’t one out there just I haven’t found it yet.*
I would like to think that she posed for her picture in one of the Manchester studios, but it is equally likely it could be Liverpool, Oldham, Bolton or Sheffield but I rather think it might be Sheffield for no other reason than I have in the collection a picture of Miss Violet Sedgwick who was 20 in 1917 and was born and grew up in Sheffield.
At which some point there will be a few who mutter that this is slim pickings and hardly amounts to story but I would disagree.
We have a picture and a name and somewhere there will be a story which will offer up some fascinating insights into a young women a hundred years ago.
Well we shall see.
Location; unknown
Picture; Miss G Sedgwick, 1917, from the collection of David Harrop
* Manchester Archives + https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/9247818576
**Miss Violet Sedgwick just 21 years old and busy in a munitions factory ......... stories behind the book nu 16, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-max=2016-04-15T12:16:00%2B01:00&max-results=7
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