The remarkable Mr Banks from factory worker to photographer by Royal Appointment

Oldham Street looking towards New Cross

There is something magic about this picture of Oldham Street which dates from around 1900.

And I am not alone in thinking this.  My friend Sally commented that “the image draws you in” and certainly you feel right at the heart of the city on a busy working day.

We are actually just past Hilton Street looking up towards Great Ancoats Street and New Cross.

Off to our right at numbers 56-58 was Abel Heywood & Sons, the booksellers who had in their time published some of the most important books on Manchester.

Beside them at number 60 was Marks and Spencer Ltd and beyond were the businesses of White the manufacturing jewellers whose sign dominated the skyline and the equally impressive sign of Crosby Walker Ltd whose draper’s shop stretched across numbers 82-86 Oldham Street.

In between were a branch of Maypoles’ the grocery chain, a Yates’ Wine lodge, and assorted photographer’s tailors, coffee merchants and confectioners.

My own favourite, at number 62, is the premise of Miss Isabella, servants registry office which is a reminder that this is still the age when even relatively humble homes aspired to at least one servant.

What is all the more  remarkable is the number of photographers who were offering their services in this small stretch running from Hilton Street up to Warwick Street but then photography had come of age and one of its best exponent was none other than Robert Banks who took this picture.

He had been commissioned by the Corporation as early as 1878 to photograph a series of pictures of the newly opened Town Hall and went on to compile sets of albums including the opening of the Ship Canal, the unveiling of Queen Victoria’s statue, and King Edward’s visit in 1909.

Many of these appear in an old and battered book which Sally picked up recently.

The cover and binding had long ago been lost but the pictures were intact and they are a wonderful record of our city just a century and a bit ago.

Here are celebrated some of the great achievements of the Victorian period, from the towering textile warehouses, to the impressive public buildings and in between street scenes of everyday life.

But few now know much about Mr Banks.  Back in 2011 a collection of his images was published by the History Press along with a short biography but the book sadly is now out of print.*

All of which is a shame because his was an interesting life and reflects that classic view of the self made Victorian.

He was born in 1847, his father was a journeyman carpenter, and at fifteen he was employed as a woollen piercer in Upper Mill.  At the age of twenty he was an illustrated artist working for the Oldham Chronicle and in 1867 had set up as a photographer in the High Street at Uppermill.

Reception Room, Town Hall

Now that move of course glosses over a lot because the step from illustrator to photographic studio I doubt could have been easy but at present I have no idea at the capital needed to begin such a venture or how he might have financed it.

Suffice to say that by 1873 he had moved to Manchester, set up home at 73 Alexandra Road in Moss Side and was renting a studio at 73 Market Street.

Over the next thirty years the business moved from Market Street to New Cross, and on to Franklin Street and Victoria Street and in 1903 was at 126 Market Street.

Likewise the family home was variously on Alexandra Street, and later Mytton Street, but the buildings have long since been cleared.

That said it may be possible to locale the studio in Uppermill and there remains the census records from 1861 onwards and the Rate Books along with possible references in the Manchester Guardian.

I rather think I will also contact his biographer just because Mr Banks is an interesting chap who began in a factory and  along the way was given  the title By Royal Appointment.

Pictures; courtesy of Sally Dervan

Contributory research from James Stanhope-Brown

*Manchester From the Robert Banks Collection, James Stanhope-Brown, 2011, the History Press

That amazing Mr Banks ....... his pictures and other practitioners of his trade

Now I remain fascinated by what can turn up in an old cupboard, under the floor boards or in this case the family picture album.

And for what follows I have my old friend Oliver Bailey to thank, who having read the story on the photographer, Robert Banks, sent up a selection of the trade cards which accompanied some of the family pictures.

Oliver told me that "glancing through your blog on I saw the name Banks, which rang a bell as he was one of many that took photos of different branches of the family and I attach copies of mountings he used plus a list of all the practitioners of the art that the family used".

All of which was a find indeed.

Mr Banks was born in 1847, his father was a journeyman carpenter, and at fifteen he was employed as a woollen piercer in Upper Mill.  At the age of twenty he was an illustrated artist working for the Oldham Chronicle and in 1867 had set up as a photographer in the High Street at Uppermill.

From there he set up in Manchester, was employed to take family photographs, and went out on to the streets of the city to record what he saw.

He was commissioned by the Corporation in 1878 to photograph a series of pictures of the newly opened Town Hall and went on to compile sets of albums including the opening of the Ship Canal, the unveiling of Queen Victoria’s statue, and King Edward’s visit in 1909.

The mountings on the back of Oliver’s family photographs record the growing success of Mr Banks who by degree began opening studios across the city and beyond including Blackpool.

Along with these cards, Oliver provided a list of 35 other photographers, many of whom were working outside Manchester and include places ranging from Todmorden, Southport, Rochdale, Pendleton, Halifax and Burnley.

At which point I will have to go back to Oliver and enquire as to how so many far flung photographers were snapping the family.  I suppose the explanation for some like Southport, Hollingworth Lakes, and Douglas in the Isle of Man will be holiday opportunities, But Sierra Leone will throw up a story.

The list is a treasure trove, because it offers the chance to pursue the careers of each of these picture takers.
I know the Manchester ones will be there in the local directories which I have but the ‘out of town’ ones are all new to me and over time I will pursue them.

Just leaving me to thank Oliver, whose family farmed in Chorlton from the 1760s.

Location; everywhere






Pictures, trade cards from Robert Banks, late 19th, early 20th centuries, from the collection of Oliver Bailey

One camera … a castle … a bit of Dorset

The romantic in me would like to think that in the summer of 1643 Lady Mary Bankes might have stared out of this window down on the Parliamentarian forces who were besieging the castle.

Lady Mary's view, Corfe Castle, 1983

She was holding the fortification for the Royalist cause in the Civil War which had broken out the year before.

The castle, 1983

The siege was broken off in the August but two years later the army of Parliament returned and was successful in capturing the castle. *

My Wikipedia tells me that “Corfe Castle is a fortification standing above the village of the same name on the Isle of Purbeck peninsula in the English county of Dorset. 

Built by William the Conqueror, the castle dates to the 11th century and commands a gap in the Purbeck Hills on the route between Wareham and Swanage. 

The first phase was one of the earliest castles in England to be built at least partly using stone when the majority were built with earth and timber. Corfe Castle underwent major structural changes in the 12th and 13th centuries” **

It was sold on by Elizabeth 1st and was eventually bought by the Bankes family in 1635.

Not that I knew anything about it’s past when we happened in the place during a short summer holiday in Swanage which is just over 5 miles from Corfe.

Nor can I remember much of either the town or the holiday, suffice to say that the pictures I took over 40 years ago record long walks along the beach, the stunning cliffs and a few of Swanage.  

Swanage Town Hall, 1983

Of these there is an indifferent photo of the Town Hall, which Wikipedia says was “Constructed by the local building contractor George Burt in 1882–83, it reused materials salvaged from demolition works in London. 

The façade was rescued from London's 17th-century Mercers' Hall and the external clock is dated to 1826. It was not universally welcomed and one critic in the 1930s described it as ‘positively dreadful’. The hall serves as the chamber for the current town council and has previously hosted the magistrates' court, fire brigade and citizens' advice service”.***

Four decades on the streets near where we stayed haven’t changed that much, although one of them does look a little shabbier and has lost its street name.

But I rather think I located the holiday property and just wonder how different the interior looks from when we stayed there.

Back then the décor and furniture were fixed sometime in the 1960s and the place suffered from only being used a few times a year.

Marshall Row, 1983

And so there so there was a feel of quiet neglect compounded with a slight mustiness, made worse by the dust which caught the morning sunshine.

That said the beach, The Downs and the shops were just a few minutes away.

Revisiting the place forty-two years later I must confess that I can’t remember much else about the town, other than a curious conversation with a man in a pub, who offered us a drink back at his place.

In what seemed a more innocent time I was up for going but my companions were less sure and looking back I guess "stranger danger" was more appropriate. 

He may have been lonely or just friendly but the invitation was not taken up and we walked out into the night looking for a chippy and the offi.

And his collection of fossils and Purbeck stone were left to gain their own film of dust, along with stories and book on Corfe Castle.

The armchair, Park Road, 1983

Location; Corfe Castle and Swanage

Pictures; a castle and a town, 1983, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Lady Mary Bankes and the fall of Corfe Castle, Poole Museum Society Blog, https://poolemuseumsociety.wordpress.com/2015/02/18/lady-mary-bankes-and-the-fall-of-corfe-castle/

**Corfe Castle, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corfe_Castle

***Swanage Town Hall, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanage_Town_Hall

The mystery collection part 4 ............. the portrait, the town and the men at sea

Now I am back with that mystery collection of photographs of which we know very little about.

In all there are forty-six images which were originally on 4x5 glass negatives showing everyday life somewhere on the Belgian coast at the beginning of the last century.

In all probability they would have been lost had they not been given to friend of David Kennedy who thought he might be interested in them and as they say the rest is photographic history.

I dare say there are collections with a greater claim on photographic history but these nevertheless capture the moment.

Today I am drawn to three very different images.

The first is of an unknown man and his son.

They stare back at us with all the confidence of people who have the money to command a posed studio photograph.

And like most people I focus on their appearance.  The father is in a well made suit with matching waistcoat and tie and his son is dressed in a sailor suit which was standard dress for his class from the mid 19th century onwards.

But look a little more closely and it is apparent that this is a working photograph perhaps the first of a series because the backdrop doesn’t quite fill the whole picture.

Behind them are shelves full of photographic props along with discarded frames and pictures and if we look even closer the backdrop itself is uneven and creased.

So, perhaps this is not the high class studio I had at first thought.

That said our photographer was not averse to getting out and recording the everyday life of the streets and the workplace.

Of these one of my favourites is the busy town square with its row of cafes, bars and hotels and a  mix of people going about their business.

I did try using the names of those hotels to locate where we are but the passage of a century and a bit pretty much meant this was a dead end.  Still I always travel in hope and it may just be that one of them will crop up on an advert or in a directory.

Which just leaves me with the third which unlike the others is one of those work a day images.

Almost half of the collection concentrates on men at sea and this one I like because there is nothing staged about it rather it captures a moment at sea with the captain and first mate deep in conversation while the
business of steering the ship goes on.

Pictures, from the collection of David Kennedy

The mystery collection........... part 3 a working day

The last in the series featuring an unknown collection of photographs from the beginning of the 20th century.

Now I am always fascinated by pictures which challenge you to uncover their secrets.

They are usually ones where there are few clues to where they were taken with no date and often shed no light on the identities of the people who stare back at you.

And that is pretty much what we have here from a collection of images which belong to David Kennedy.

The originals were 4 by 5 glass negatives and date from sometime around the end of the 19th or the beginning of the 20th century.

Some are of street scenes, others of men and women at work and include a fair number showing life on board a selection of working ships.

They range from causally posed scenes to ones where the photographer has caught his subjects fully occupied and perhaps unaware that they are being photographed.

And amongst the collection are some which open up the world of work in a town somewhere just across the Channel.

Now I say that because at least one picture carries references to Belgium and in particular the towns of Nieupoort and Ostend and intriguingly to a number of restaurants which in the fullness of time might yield some more information on the location of the pictures.

But that aside they capture perfectly a group of people going about the daily routines of work.

A man trundles a cart accompanied by two dogs and given the umbrella covers the top of the cart and his white coat I wonder if he is out selling ice cream.

Of course that is bordering on a heap of speculation, but I am on firmer ground with the working boats and what might be a water tower.

And lastly there is the building with its posters advertising a host of different things including that word Telegraaf which Google Translate tells me is Dutch but is more equally Flemish or Belgian Dutch which fixes our photographs in the northern part of Belgium.

Of the three this one interests me the most.

Our photographer has caught one of those quiet moments perhaps during the midday lunch break when only the dog is out in the heat of the sun.

Something has been going on and I guess will do so again as the open cellar doors and the nearby wagon testify.

But at that precise point in time nothing stirs save the dog, which just leaves us to focus on the posters and in particular that one high up on the wall advertising some long gone event.

Alas I doubt that I will ever know what it was

Pictures; by courtesy of David Kennedy

The mystery collection........... part 2 working the ships

Now I am always fascinated by pictures which challenge you to uncover their secrets and yesterday I featured a young woman and her baby.

I don’t know who they were or when and where the pictures were taken.

They come from a collection of glass negatives dating from the very beginning of the last century and were saved from being thrown away by David Kennedy.

They are usually ones where there are few clues to where they were taken with no date and often shed no light on the identities of the people who stare back at you.

Some are of street scenes, others of men and women at work and include a fair number showing life on board a selection of working ships.

They range from causally posed scenes to ones where the photographer has caught his subjects fully occupied and perhaps unaware that they are being photographed.

These I think must be from a cross channel steamer given that others from the collection  are of Ostend and the surrounding countryside.

If I have favourite it is the one of the three crew members taking a rest and staring back at the camera.

Working these ships was not easy and the rare moments for relation must have been treasured even if in this one there seems to have been a fair degree of acting in front of the lens.

But work and the demands of running such a ship will have crowded out many opportunities for play.
All of which just leaves me that image of the woman caught walking away from the photographer and like all good pictures you are left wondering what she was doing.



Pictures; by courtesy of David Kennedy

The mystery collection........... part 1 the photographer and his subject

Now I am always fascinated by pictures which challenge you to uncover their secrets.

They are usually ones where there are few clues to where they were taken with no date and often shed no light on the identities of the people who stare back at you.

And that is pretty much what we have here from a collection of images which belong to David Kennedy.

The originals were 4 by 5 glass negatives and date from sometime around the end of the 19th or the beginning of the 20th century.

Some are of street scenes, others of men and women at work and include a fair number showing life on board a selection of working ships.

They range from causally posed scenes to ones where the photographer has caught his subjects fully occupied and perhaps unaware that they are being photographed.

Amongst these are a few which may even be family members including this one which is a favourite of mine which is one of two.

In the first the mother is staring down at her baby and in the second she smiles back at the camera while in both the photographer is caught in the mirror.

There are no clues as to where they were taken but in one there is a reference to Ostend and a few carry the names of hotels and restaurants, added to which there is a very distinctive church  all of which should help.

And so over the next few weeks I shall feature more of these images and try to get closer to solving their mystery.

Pictures; by courtesy of David Kennedy

Down on Maple Avenue with more rare pictures

This is another of those wonderful images from Ray Jones whose family owned one of the houses on Maple Avenue for over a century, spanning the old Queen’s Jubilee, two world wars, and much else.

It was taken by Ray’s grandfather and dates from the 1920s.
That said I bet there will be someone out there who is an expert on such vehicles and can offer up the make, the date and more than a bit of its history.

In the same way there will be someone else who will follow up on the number plate and go to those sites which explain how the letters and numbers can date the car.

But for now I shall just thank Ray and make that obvious remark that there would have been very little other traffic parked up on that sunny day on Maple Avenue.

All of which is in direct contrast to today and leads me to wonder just when the transition happened.

Look at photographs from the 1960s and even early 70's and many roads will still be relatively empty and that I think highlights the need for more pictures from those middling decades.

The collection is full of images from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when commercial photographers plied their trade selling to local residents as well as the picture postcard companies.

But from the 1960s as the trade in picture postcards went into decline the numbers of photographs has also diminished.

I know they will be out there, mostly as snaps which now sit in family albums or at the bottom of the sock cupboard and bringing them out into the light would advance our knowledge of the area.

So that’s the appeal done, leaving me just to thank Ray and say I know exactly which house on Maple Avenue this is, but until I approach the owners it seems unfair to say more.

Instead I will close with a comment from Ray who thinks "the the motor is a BSA cyclecar but I'm not certain."

Location; Maple Avenue, Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture, a car, two kids, and auntie on Maple Avenue, circa 1920s, © Ray Jones

The story behind that path in Chorlton Park ............ discovering Sir Nicholas Mosley's grand drive

Walking towards the Hall. 2015

I must have walked this route countless times and never made the connection with that 400 year old house which sits away in the distance.

The house is Hough End Hall and we are in Chorlton Park.

Old maps show what will once have been a grand drive up from Barlow Moor Road to the hall.

In its time it will have been wide enough to accommodate a carriage and horses and may also have been flanked by avenues of trees.

This after all was the first glimpse that visitors would have had of the home of Sir Nicholas Mosley who made a fortune trading in the city of London, was elected its mayor and walked with royalty.

The end of the path with the hall opposite, 2015

And long after the Mosley’s had left Hough End and it had become a more humble farm house this was still the main way to get to the hall.

It shows up on maps from the 18th and 19th centuries and so when in the 1920s the Corporation created Chorlton Park it made sense to incorporate it as a pathway.

Now I grant you that this discovery may not rank with the great tales of history but it is the sort that I like pointing as it does to that simple observation that quite often there is a story where you least expect it.

The grand drive in 1845

Pictures; Chorlton Park looking towards Hough End Hal, May 2015, from the collection of Costel Harnasz, and the route to Hough End Hall,from the 1845 OS for Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk

*Hough End Hall The Story, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/hough-end-hall-book-on-sale.html

The picture that revealed a family story ................. the wedding photograph of Miss Lomax of Hough End Hall

The wedding of Miss Lomax and Mr Kitchin, May 1915

This is the wedding photograph of Ethel Mary Lomax of Hough End Hall and Harold Kitching and it is a picture I have long hoped would turn up.

For here are the faces of people I came to know during the four years of researching the story of the Hall and along with another thirty or so pictures began to help tell the story of the Lomax family who were tenant farmers at Hough End from the late 1840s through to 1940.

Until the family album turned up last week we had just one photograph dating from around 1900 which showed the children in the family garden.

There were of course the census returns, some birth, marriage and death certificates along with a few newspaper cuttings but nothing which put you face to face with any of them.

But the photograph album has changed all of that and now I can look upon Samuel and Ethel Lomax and begin to see how the children changed as they grew up.

That said there are many in the album who I cannot identify and I guess a few who will forever remain a mystery but others will come out of the shadows.

Of these there are some fine pictures of Evelyn Lomax in the grounds of the Hall in the 1930s.

She was the youngest of the children and was born in 1910, married Thomas Milburn in 1946 and died only in 2002.

Sadly she doesn’t appear on the wedding photograph because at the moment the photographer set up his camera she ran away hiding  somewhere deep inside the hall or maybe in one of the out houses.

Now that is a loss but before she died she did record the names of some of the wedding party all of which offers up rich pastures of research.

In time we may even discover how Harold and Ethel met.

I know that in 1915 he was living at number 14 Oak Avenue and gave his occupation as a merchant and that he grew up on Cheetham Hill Road.

Evelyn Lomax with Bobby the dog at the hall sometime in the 1930s

So had they come across each other at some social event or was it a chance meeting when Mr Kitchin was out walking past the hall?

Idle speculation maybe but it’s what makes looking into other people’s lives just that bit more fun and even if I don’t ever discover that little mystery I know in time I will find out where they set up home and a bit of what happened to them.

Already I know a some of the other wedding guests and a heap more about Evelyn so the rest is for the future, but it does underline that simple observation that you should never be surprised at the way something unexpected can turn up out of the blue.

And that means that the Lomax family and their time at the Hall has just got a lot more interesting.

Pictures; the wedding of Miss Lomax and Mr Kitching, 1915 and Evelyn at the Hall circa 1930s from the family album of Evelyn nee Lomax Milburn donated by Mrs D Miller

Pictures with no stories ........ no 1 on a beach sometime before now

Now I am fascinated by stories  and more than that the way that a photograph can offer up a story even when there is apparently nothing there.

And this is one of those.

It comes from a collection of picture postcards which were found by a friend of Ron Stubley who looked after them and recently passed them over to me.

They are a mixed bag, consisting of saucy seaside cards, more than a few of holiday destinations and some which are of a family but have no names and no dates.

Many were sent to addresses in north Manchester from resorts on the Welsh coast and that is about it.

Over the last few months quite a few of them have featured on the blog but until now I have not used those which have no means of identifying the place or the people.

And that brings me to this one.  We are clearly on a beach with a pier and judging by other cards in the collection I think the date will be sometime in the 1930s.

Someone may well recognise the pier in the distance, although I am not counting on it.

For me the story is just that the picture perfectly offers up a day at the seaside.

That mix of sand, sandwiches, warm beer, tepid tea and very cold sea water.

Location; unknown






Picture; somewhere on a beach, date unknown, from the collection of Ron Stubley

Images of our industrial past ...... nu 2 working the metal 80 years ago

I am back with two more “lost images” from the family collection.

I have no idea who this man was and can only guess that it was either my grandfather or one of his work mates.

Moreover I cannot date the pictures or offer up a location, other than that they will be over 80 years old.
If it is my grandfather then it will be Derby and a rare moment when he was in full time work.

According to my mother like many men during the period he faced long bouts of unemployment which only really came to an end with the outbreak of the Second World War.

Sadly there is no one left I can ask who could tell me about the pictures, and I of course never bothered to ask what he did during the interwar years.

So we are left with just one man at work, sometime in the 1930s in all probability somewhere in Derby.

But that said I am drawn to them, not least because both carry fingerprints which were left on these two negatives.

Not that I will ever be able to discover who they belonged or why the prints have long since vanished but the these negatives survived.

But then that is often the case.

The prints get handed around or put into a book while the negatives are stored away just in case they are needed.

Of course that is seldom the case, but that simple decision means they will survive long after the cherished print has gone.
Pictures, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Who do I ask? .............. Lost family stories

I will never know who this man is, or when he posed for this picture on a building site in Derby or for that matter any of the other men in the remaining two pictures.

They were found in a collection of old photographs that we inherited long after my grandparents and parents had all died.

None of them were very promising, for all three were negatives and have rested in an old torn envelope for eighty years.  The original prints have long since been lost and at first glance these did not offer up much.

For a start they were not the usual small size negatives so would not fit into one of those commercial machines you can buy to reproduce a print and they seemed pretty faded.

But ever the optimist I put them through the home scanner and this is what we got.  Despite their age they have a quality and detail which is remarkable.

That said I did manage to reverse one image, so that on close inspection the lettering on the shop front is back to back.  Given time I shall correct the mistake but for now this is what you have got.

Now I think we must be dealing with my grandfather who pretty much lived his entire life in Derby.

He had been born in Birmingham in 1899, lived in Kent around the turn of the last century and was in Derby from 1902, when his mother gave birth to his sister in the Derby Workhouse.

The next thirteen years of his life were spent in various care homes including a year in a naval boot camp before like so many young men he was swept up by the Great War.

He enlisted in 1916 and stayed in the army until 1922.  By which time he had met and married my grandmother who was German and they had two young children.

So much of his early life and their married lives in Derby remains a mystery.  Indeed I doubt that he had much of an idea about the first five or so years of his life.  For whatever reason my great grandparents parted company in 1902 and I doubt he had much more than a vague memory of his father.

This may account for why on his marriage certificate he gave his place of birth as the Transvaal in South Africa which was where my great grandfather had served in the early 1890s or just possibly was motivated by a desire to seem a little more romantic to his young German bride and the assembled family and civic authorities.

And that air of mystery continued through the next twenty years in Derby.  I can only guess at how difficult grandmother found the journey alone with two small children from Germany to Derby for her husband had been transported separately to the UK and demobbed in Belfast.

The early years of their marriage were difficult, she encountered some anti German hostility and he found it difficult to find regular work.

Which brings me back to the pictures.

I think I can indentify one of the men as grandfather standing at the back of the group in the last picture, but of the man on the building site, and sitting alone on the upturned barrel I am less sure.

Of course there will be those who question does it matter?

Well to me it does, but even if that is put aside there is that more general point that so many family pictures are lost to us because no one bothered to provide a name of a date.

Those long lost relatives and friends of family stare back at us with no means of knowing who they were or their significance in the story of who we are.

That said these are a little snapshot of how we worked eighty or so years ago and are also a reminder of just how much chance plays in the survival of family memorabilia.   The original prints have long since vanished but the negatives not much cared for at the time were just put to one side and lasted the course.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

From the other side ............ messages to Berlin from the Western Front 1916

There is something compelling about this picture postcard.

On the simplest of levels it is that here we have a group of German soldiers staring back at us and that of course makes it different from the usual collection of photographs and picture postcards from the Great War.

And the more I look at them the more I am drawn to those unfamiliar uniforms which look so different from the standard British ones that I know so well.

I have no idea where they are or where they were from and only know that the card was sent in May 1916 to an address in Berlin.

In time I might be able to make something of the message, but I am operating with both hands tied behind my back for not only is it in German but the handwriting  is difficult to decipher, all of which just leaves me with the name Herman Waller.

But despite these problems the card fascinates me not least because some of my great uncles would have fought in those uniforms.

And that makes that conflict a civil war for our family.

Alongside my German relatives we can count six who fought in the armies of the King ranging from two uncles, two great uncles, to my grandfather and great grandfather.

Sadly little of their records, possessions or even their memories have survived the last century and at present there is even less from Germany.

In fact all we have is a sturdy metal note pad case with a name engraved on the back and a raised black iron crossed on the front.

All of which takes me back to the photograph and that less than original observation that once you ignore those uniforms the faces that stare back  could quite easily have been the faces of men from Manchester, London, Rome or Vienna.

Their expressions are a mix of smiles and studied seriousness and just like their opposite numbers they pose with cigarettes in their hands.

And no doubt think of the next meal, the time till their next leave and those back at home.

Picture; unknown group of German soldiers, circa 1916 from the collection of David Harrop

In search of Worsley mysteries …….. two halls….. five old pictures and …. an enigmatic clue

I am not a fan of those stories of mysterious and dark goings on in old halls, which at best leave the ghost of some tragic figure wandering the corridors or at worse stamp the place with a curse which rings down the centuries.

The Hall circa 1896-8

And on our visits to Worsley Old Hall nothing untoward has befallen us, other than the singing man in the lavatory whose mastery of the 1-minute aria from La bohème was astonishing.

The food and the service has been excellent, and Rosa from Milan always asks to go back.

Now, I must confess I only vaguely knew of the Hall’s existence until our Ben and Lindsey took us there a few years ago and since then we often drop in for a leisurely midday meal. *

My Wikipedia tells me that it is "a public house and restaurant in Worsley, Greater Manchester, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building," dates from the 16th or 17th centuries and has undergone several additions before becoming a pub in 1930.

The Hall "in the show", circa 1896-98

Added to which “the hall is of particular historical importance because it was here that Francis Egerton, the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, James Brindley and John Gilbert planned the Bridgewater Canal and supervised its building”.

And it serves up an excellent Cheshire cheese, onion and potato pie, served up with buttered greens, and redcurrant gravy.

But as far as I know there are no restless spirits or dark stories of treachery, unfilled promises and strange sudden deaths.

That said my friend Phil Portus has presented with a mystery, which comes in the form of five old images of Worsley and Wardley Hall, which he tells me .  “A while ago friends who lives in the old house opposite the Moor Allerton prep school found these somewhere in the house and gave me 5 old half plate glass negs to me as I'm a photographer. 

I'd forgotten about them and found them when clearing out stuff.  Here is a quick inverted phone shot on my light table”.

Wardley Hall, circa 1896-98

They are undated, of mixed quality but are a fascinating record of the two halls sometime in the late 19th century.

That said what I thought at first was a shot of Worsley Hall may not be so.

The connfusion arose because of a reference to the Hall on a faded typed card which offers up details of the images, how to process them, and the name J.T. Sandell along with the word Halation which a source describes as “a photographic effect that can add a sense of nostalgia and warmth to a photograph or video. 

It is often associated with the look of film and can be used to give digital images a more analog feel. 

You can achieve this type of "bloom" or halation through diffusion filters for your camera lens”***

I hadn’t expected to track Mr. Sandell’s down assuming he was a local photographer in the Salford or Manchester area.

But not so, he was from South Norwood in London, pioneered a new photographic process, but died in near poverty in 1906.****

The clue, circa 1896-98

According to another source he established his own company in 1896, in Norwood Junction, South Norwood, which folded two years later, “the firm produced dry plates and later films, specialising in multi-coated plates and Cristoid films. Sandell Works Co. went into receivership in June 1898, its interests were taken over by Sandell Films & Plates Ltd (capital £10,000). J.T. Sandell (d. 1907) ended his links with the company in 1902. 

T.K. Grant worked for the company until 1901 as a sales representative.

References: Phot. Dealer Jun/1898, p. 148. Phot. Dealer Mar/1899 p. 69. Article in Phot. Dealer Jun/1902 p. 143 on Sandell. Phot. Dealer Nov/1902 p. 276. BJP 21/6/1901, p. 396.”*****

Between them the two “Sandell” sites include more information, along with a picture of our man and a poster.

So, I suppose that goes some way to explain the Worsley mystery, offering up a date range for our pictures and possible identity for the photographer, all of which means our next visit to the Worsley Old Hall will have the added bonus of knowing we are eating in a place with a bit of photographic history.

And my task will be to match the image s with the Hall thereby confirming or not that Mr. Sundell passed this way.

Another of Wardley Hall, circa 1896-98

Location, Worsley 

Pictures, Worsley Old Hall, and Wardley Hall, circa 1896-8, from the collection of Ron Marsden and Clare Debenham. courtesy of Phil Portus, http://www.philportus.co.uk/

*Worsley Old Hall, https://www.brunningandprice.co.uk/worsleyoldhall/

** Worsley Old Hall, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worsley_Old_Hall

***Fstoppers, https://fstoppers.com/guest/use-halation-624893#:~:text=Halation%20is%20a%20photographic%20effect,filters%20for%20your%20camera%20lens.

****J.T. Sandell, Historic Camera, http://historiccamera.com/cgi-bin/librarium2/pm.cgi?action=app_display&app=datasheet&app_id=2707

**** Sandell, Early Photography, http://www.earlyphotography.co.uk/site/companies4.html

When there are no clues left to the identities on a family snap

Now I will never know who any of these men are.

I am guessing they were friends and work mates of my grandfather and I think I can identify him but the others are lost in time.

And the images themselves could very well have also been lost.

I came across them in a collection of old photographs, letters and bills.

Of course on one level there is nothing special about them, most of us will have similar collections tucked away half forgotten and pretty much a mystery.

Most of us never take the time to write a name and add a date on the back and within a generation the identity of the people and the significance of the event are unknown.

More so as in this case these images were not even prints, instead they were negatives, which I scanned with little expectation that they would amount to much.

More so because they will date from the 1930s.

The best I can come up with is that they are Derby where my grandparents settled after the Great War.

There may be a clue in the shop name which I managed to reverse in scanning and in the large painted sign.
Four or five years ago someone suggested a link to a factory in Derby but I never followed it up.

So now these men stare back at me stubbornly providing no clues as to who they were, or when they posed for the camera.

All of which makes this I suppose one of those “non stories” but then it is family and that continues to exercise my interest.

And reminds me of that simple but most important point that you should always name and date a picture.

But then I am as guilty as my parents on that score.

So having done the public announcement I shall leave you with these images of men at work sometime over 80 years ago.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson