Portrait Poses and Props - Sepia Saturday

This  week's prompt photograph from Sepia Saturday shows a portrait of an earnest young man, finger on chin, sitting on a chair, but facing backwards.

I knew immediately  which image I would choose from my  family collection.  

My Great Uncle George (the youngest of my grandfather's seven brothers), is looking very studious, here, hand on chin, seated sideways  on a large solid oak chair - so a good match in many ways to the prompt.

George, born 1894,  son of James Danson and Maria Rawclliffe of Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire,  worked on W. H. Smith bookstalls at local railway stations.  He was killed  whilst serving as a stretcher bearer on the Somme  in 1916, a week after his 22nd birthday.  I have written bout him a number of times on my blog - take a look at  A Stretch Bearer's Tale  

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An ornate scrolled back to this chair for  a portrait of my husband's uncle  - 
Matthew Iley White, looking determined   in his uniform of the Durham Light Infantry.  

Photograph taken by T. W. H. Liddle, Photographer, South Shields.  

 

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A heavily scrolled chair with an ornate back for seated Joseph Prince Oldham  (1855-1917) with his granddaughter Elsie Oldham  (1906-1989)  and grandson Joseph Butler who was born 1918.  

Elsie Oldham and my mother, Kathleen Danson, were second cousins, and I am grateful for Elsie's son, Stuart for the use of the photographs of his extended family. 

Joseph Price Oldham  became a carter and coal merchant in Blackpool, Lancashire, in a house with stables, opposite the North Station. His son John William Oldham carried on the business, until it fell to Elsie. 

In the 1920's, Elsie also  ran a hairdresser's from the family home,  giving her name a French twist as "Elise". 

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  A charming photograph of Joseph Prince Oldham (the grandfather above) 

born 1855,  as a small boy.  

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A large medieval style chair for Elsie Oldham here  - it makes another appearance below. 

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Sitting on a regal looking chair, an older Elsie Oldham with her cousin 

Joseph Butler standing behind her - presumably in clean boots!   

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 Is this the same chair?  A serious looking Sarah Alice Butler, nee Oldham  with her son  Joseph Butler, - the little boy above, born 1918 and named 

after his grandfather Joseph Prince Oldham.   

An ornate backed sofa is the setting for this portrait of Ellen Florence Coombs,.

nee Hooker, with baby Hilda Florence, born 1906.  

Take a closer look at the beautiful detail on Ellen's blouse.

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Sitting on a throne-like seat, is   Annie Jolly, a friend of  my Great Aunt Jennie Danson.  The Jolly and Danson families were at one time neighbours in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire and there were distant family connections too  through marriage. 

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This was also in  the large collection of photographs of my Great Aunt Jennie.  It seemed to be the fashion to stand young children on chairs to get their portraits taken.

Written on the back was "From Mary, Charlie & Nannie Hardisty, Villa Farm, Bispham, Blackpool.  The photograph was taken at W .J. Gregson & Co, W, P. Beck, proprietor, Photographers, 92 Talbot Road, Blackpool.  

I did some quick detective work and found the family in the 1911 census, with Mary,  26 years old, husband Charles Alfred 24 and Nannie Ada 1 year old.  She does not look too happy here  in her best knitted coat and bonnet, plus little boots.   c. 1912.  

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I could not let this prompt pass by,  without showing this photograph which has appeared before on my blog and is crucial to my family history. 

"Who was that stern, rather Spanish looking woman sitting in the  imposing medieval style chair?"  This was the question  that started me on the family history trail when I found this photograph in a shoebox collection at my grandfather's house.   The answer -  my great grandmother Maria Danson, nee Rawcliffe.   There was an apocryphal  story that her dark looks had come from sailors, who after the Armada were shipwrecked on the Fylde coast of Lancashire.

By her side, is her granddaughter Annie Maria (my mother's cousin)  who made her home with Maria after the early death of her own mother.  Annie was born 1905 and she looks to be around 11-12 years old in the picture, so I estimate it was was taken  c.1917.  Annie's father John Danson, died in 1917 in tragic circumstances at military camp,  a few months after the death of his brother George Danson in the first photogrpah. No wonder that their mother Maria looks  forbidding here.    

And Finally:

Not a studio portrait, but here I am on my own little chair - a bit big for me  as   my feet don't touch  the ground.   The chair was passed down, with fresh covers,   to my daughter and granddaughter - but I never thought at the time to take a photograph of them in it. 

A pity! 

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epia Saturday gives bloggers an opportunity to share 
their family history and memories through photographs.

Click HERE  to see what other bloggers have spotted in this week's prompt. 

Horns on Show : Sepia Saturday

"Horns on Show" is my response to this week's prompt photograph,  showing a  guardsman  sitting on the grass beside a horned goat - the regimental mascot.

I have no images  of goats, but I have fond memories of holidays in the west of Scotland and seeing that icon of Scottish tourism  (along with tartan,  heather, bagpipes. and whisky)  -  "The "Hielan' Coo"   -  aka the Highland Cow.  So take a look at these photogenic friendly natives, with their long horns and flowing coats, designed to withstand the worst of the Scottish weather.

"I'm Trying to be Friendly"

My husband meets Hamish and Dougal  - 

the "pets" at the hotel where we were staying near Oban.

"I'm Showing off my  Horns!"

 

"I'm Hungry" 

We were staying in a cottage at Fionnphort on the far west  of the Isle of Mull, just across from Iona, and the highland cattle roamed free around the small village - one shop, one pub, one seafood cabin and the ferry office.  Here one hungry  cow decided to take a nibble from the garden of our self catering cottage.

"I've walked far enough, I'm taking a rest"

"I'm little and lonely"

This young cow  stood motionless at the side of the road, very happy to pose for the visitors walking down to the ferry across to Iona.  

If you don;t come across the  real thing, look out for a shop sign. 

 

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And finally:  

Not a highland cow, but this image fits my theme so well, I had to show it.  Here we are down in the South of Scotland with the Ram Statue  on the High Street of  Moffat in Dumfries and Galloway.   It was presented to the town in 1875  by local businessman  William Colvin,  as a symbol of  the town's links with  sheep farming. 

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Sepia Saturday gives bloggers an opportunity to share 
their family history and memories through photographs.

Click HERE to see what other bloggers have spotted in this week's prompt.

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My Personal Prompt: Focus Friday - With Updates

How do you remain focused  when researching and writing your family history?

I  have to confess - I am a flitter, jumping from one aspect of my family history to another, easily distracted by another blog, or Facebook feed, or news of an interesting website, plus  reading, replying and deleting e-mails, and other aspects of life getting in the way.

The result, I have three major topics on my "to do" list and they have been there far longer than I care to admit.

But as a former boss was fond of  pronouncing  - "It is not a question of 'no time' but how you manage your time".  

So I am setting myself a personal blog prompt - 

Friday will henceforth be Focus Friday,

when I will set out to work only on my three main targets.

• Finish the final part of my Danson narrative about my mother's family from Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire. I have written up to the end of the First World War, so surely it doesn't take much to write some chapters on my mother's siblings, especially as I have written profiles of them already on my blog?    So this is top of my list.
  
  
  
  My mother Kathleen Danson (right) with her sister Edith, c.1916
  
  
• Finish the final part of my husband's family history narrative - this section is on Donaldson Sidelines with the surnames Hawkyard,  Iley White, Hibbert and Moffet. They were mainly mariners or miners from South Shieds on Tyneside in the north east of England .  Again I have already drafted most of this on the computer, but need to focus on the final family name.
  
   
• Research in more depth and write up my father's Weston and Matthews family narrative. This is my " far more shadowy" ancestry, as I am finding it  difficult to get beyond the basic names and dates information to discover some interesting stories.  For reasons of geography,  I had far less to do with   this side of my family, have only a cousin as a contact and very few photographs to help me gain a picture of them. 

So there we have it in black and white!     Hopefully this will help me come to grips with my self imposed "brick wall" on action.  

Watch this space!  

UPDATE  Friday 28th July:  A good start to my new Focus Friday resolution. I looked back at my Danson narrative and I had more work to do on it  than I thought.  I updated the chapter on the search for my grandmother's background, recording the  detailed information received  after  i posted  queries on two  websites.   The brick wall however, remains standing!  

UPDATE:   Friday 4th August 2017:   Slower progress this week, largely because I failed to check through my draft on what I had actually done months ago and repeated some sections - a lesson here!  I  copied  and developed from my blog the post on my grandfather's house  purchased in 1926, and then did likewise for  the blog post on my Feisty Aunt Edith.  However despite the stumbles, I feel I am making progress. 

UPDATE:  Friday August 11th:   Spent a long time o.n a section on Aunt Edith's life in teaching, copying tributes to her form the school Facebook page (once I found it).  Seqrched Lancashire Archives for informative but do not appear to hold school records for Burn Naze School, Thornton nor Sheaf Street School. Poulton.  Posted a query on Genealogy Addicts re pupil-teacher training.

Bridges over Rivers and Centuries

A  multi-arched bridge is this week's photographic prompt from Sepia Saturday, so here I am taking you on  a journey over  bridges that span two centuries and cross  rivers and moorland.  Hear about the Marriage House at Coldstream used by runaway couples from England, the riots at Kelso Tollhouse, the heavy loss of life in building bridges,  and the place where poet Robert Burns first set eyes on England. I  finish by looking at  bridges with links to my family history.

What  struck me in writing this post  is the length of time - i.e. 200 years - that many of these old bridges served their  community, before replacement structures were built  - progress sometimes seems very slow! 

The Three Leaderfoot Bridges, near Melrose in the Scottish Borders 
Built 1776, 1865, and 1974

 

 A charming tinted postcard c.1900  of the rail viaduct.

An unusual view of the lower old Dryburgh road bridge built 1776-80.  It replaced a ferry crossing over the River Tweed,  on the route that is now the main A68 north to Edinburgh.  Its narrow structure, more used to horses and carts, remained in use for 200 years (conroleld by traffic lights) until  a new road bridge spanned the river in 1974. 

In the background is the famous Leaderfoot Viaduct built in 1865 and the major engineering feat of the Berwickshire Railway Line from the east.   The statistics are impressive -  the viaduct stands 126 feet (38 m) from the floor of the river valley, and  its 19 arches, each has a 43 feet span.  It was named after the meeting of the Leader Water with the River Tweed, though Interestingly it was referred to in a newspaper article of December 1864 as the Drygrange Viaduct. 

A local paper of 3rd September 1863 gives a graphic account of an accident to a work on the viaduct.  

The Berwickshire Railway was badly affected by severe flooding in 1948 and services to the east of the county were particularly affected.   The last train ran over the viaduct in 1965.  It  is  now  under the care of Historic Environment Scotland.  

 

A steam train crossing the Leaderfoot Viaduct, c. 1959

 

One of the last trains to  travel over the Leaderfoot viaduct in 1965. 
Copyright ©  Bruce McCartney All  Rights Reserved.     
at http://www.geoffspages.co.uk/monorail/bmcc01.htm  

The Viaduct  remains a  popular spot for  photographers today  - here a view taken from the old road bridge which is now only open to walkers and cyclists.  

A view of the three bridges, spanning two hundred years of history. 

Craigsford Bridge, Earlston, built  c. 1737.

 

Craigsford Bridge over the Leader Water at Earlston   was built around 1737.  Until the building of the new toll road (the later A68) at the end of the century, it was the main route to Edinburgh.  It was sometimes referred to as the Mill Brig,   being close to the Simpson & Fairbairn Mill that produced textiles until its closure in 1969.

A modern view taken from my daughter's cottage. 

The Leader road bridge at Earlston  carrying traffic on the main A68 route to Edinburgh.  You can make out in the background the arches of the old Craigsford Bridge,  and the tall chimney of Simpson & Fairbairn Mill.

Carolside Bridge,  late 18th century. 

  

The graceful late 18th century bridge spanning the Leader Water  links the neighbouring estates of Carolside and Leadervale.

"The Statistical Account of Scotland" of 1834  gives us a beautiful description of Carolside  

"Poised on a green plateau beside the River Leader and sheltered by surrounding slopes of its own extensive woodlands, as a sweet and secure asylum from the toils and troubles of the world'."

Two views of the bridge in more recent times:

A view of the Leader valley, looking down on the little Carolside Bridge. 

With thanks to the Auld Earlston Group for the use of photographs in their collection 

Coldstream Bridge, built 1767

The bridge over the River Tweed  marks the boundary between Scotland and England  and opened in 1767, built at a cost of £6000  - £725,000 in current values. (www.measuringworth.com).  It was paid for  by a government grant, local subscriptions and loans from Edinburgh Banks, to be paid back from the bridge tolls.  
 

But Coldstream Bridge Tollhouse at the north end of the bridge,  was more than just the location for collecting taxes.  For it was akin to Gretna Green towards the west as  the location for a Scottish  "Irregular Marriage".  This was in the form of a verbal declaration by the couple  giving their consent  before witnesses and did not require a clergyman, but anyone who took on the role for a fee.  No notice, such as banns,  was required, no parental consent  and no residency requirement.  Such marriages were valid in Scotland but were increasingly frowned upon and became less  and less acceptable. 

In the meantime, however, many English couples in particular,   eloped to places just across the Border,  to escape the stricter English marriage laws and obtain a quick, easy  and cheaper marriage.     

 It was on the bridge that Scottish bard  Robert Burns had his first glimpse of England, as marked  by a plaque.  (Wikipedia)   

                                    

The Rennie Bridge at Kelso - 1803. 

 

Another crossing of the River Tweed with the Rennie Bridge at Kelso. It was built in 1800-3 to replace one washed away in floods of 1797. Designed by John Rennie, it was an earlier and smaller scale version of the Waterloo Bridge, which he designed for London. 

The Toll House, where the payment had to be made, was the scene of a riot in 1854, when  local people   objected to continuing to pay the tolls when the building costs had been long cleared. It still took three years for tolls to be withdrawn. For nearly 200 years, this narrow bridge  remained the only bridge across the Tweed at Kelso until the building of a new one in 1998 to the east of the town.  


Ribblehead Viaduct, North Yorkshire,  built 1870-1874. 

Image from Picabay

A striking view of the Ribblehead Viaduct in North Yorkshire on the  scenic Carlisle to Settle railway line.  It took over a thousand  navvies over four years (1870-1874) to build it.  On the wild windswept moors of the Ribble valley,   they established shanty towns for themselves and their families. Around 100 men were killed during the construction, and illnesses were rife in the harsh living conditions.  The graveyard at nearby Chapel-le-Dale has around 200 burials of men, women and children who died  during the time of the viaduct's construction. 

Bridges with Family History Links

 

 My parents, John Weston and Kathleen Danson - taken in 1937  at Kirby Lonsdale, where they got engaged.  This remained one of their favourite spots to visit.

Kirby Lonsdale in Cumbria on the edge of the Lake District is a fascinating small town  with   a mix of  18th-century buildings and stone cottages huddled around quaint cobbled courtyards and narrow alleyways with names such as Salt Pie Lane and Jingling Lane.  The town is noted for the its three span Devil's Bridge, first built across the River Lune c.1370. You catch a glimpse of it here.

 

These photographs comes from my father's album.    During the war, Dad  served in the RAF Codes & Ciphers Branch and was seconded to General Bradley’s US 12th Army Group HQ.  He was stationed in Luxembourg in winter 1944 prior to  the Battle of the Bulge. Dad  had fond memories of the city and the people he met there. The Bridge, built between 1900 and 1903,  became an unofficial national symbol, representing Luxembourg's independence  and  was named after Grand Duke Adolphe who reigned Luxembourg from 1890 until 1905.   

My  brother standing in front of the cast iron arched Ironbridge over the River Severn   in Shropshire,  where our father spent his childhood.  It was the first ironbridge built In 1781  and often described as "the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution".  It is now a World Heritage  Site.  

Although Dad was born in Bilston, Wolverhampton, he moved to Broseley, across the river from  Ironbridge, when he was five years old  and he regarded it as his happy chidlhood home.  He went to school there, sang in the choir from the age of seven and began his working life at a grocer's shop, delivering goods by pony and cart.  Dad's father had a 35 minutes walk across the bridge  each way every day to get to his work at the Coalbrookdale Power House in the Severn valley.

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Sepia Saturday gives bloggers an opportunity to share 
their family history and memories through photographs.

Click HERE  to see what  bridges other bloggers have come across. 

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Flying the Flags: Sepia Saturday

This week's prompt photograph  is an early one (1909) of a spectators watching an event with flags flying in the background.   I have  a great match for  the crowds,  the bunting, the hats - and even the date  in images from  Auld Earlston - my local heritage group in the Scottish Borders. 

Flags are flying on Earlston High Street in 1908 for a visit by Prime Minister Asquith.  

 

 Crowds gathering to hear P.M. Asquith.  with an elaborate decoration with flags in the foreground and you can just make out the marquee in the background.

Local newspapers give colourful accounts of the event. "The Jedburgh Advertiser"  described the plans  for the visit.  These included  the erection of a tent, measuring 220 feet by 60 feet  with seating accommodation for about 4000 people - this when the population  of Earlston in the 1911 census was only 1677!   How many political meetings attract that kind of number today?  

It proved to be a notable  occasion,  disrupted by the late arrival of reporters and M.Ps on a delayed Edinburgh train which took three hours totraqvel the 30 miles to Earlston; crowds spilling out of from the crowded hot  marquee, the intervention of a woman suffragette,  and noise from the "shunt, snort and whistles" of a railway engine threatening  to drown out the speakers.  

When Mr Asquith stood to speak, the newspaper reported "He got a warm greeting. Mary of the people rose to their feet and waved hats and handkerchiefs and cheered with great cordiality". 

However he had only said a few words when,  at the remark  "My primary purpose in coming here this afternoon is to...., a woman startled her neighbours by exclaiming 
"Give votes to women!".  The interrupter was a young woman of graceful figure and pleasant features.  Stewards made their way to the fair  suffragette  and quickly bore the woman out,  calm and unresisting but with her sailor hat somewhat awry".  

I love that  piece of  journalism!  The newspaper reporter was clearly very taken with the young woman, and found the incident far more  interesting than Mr Asquith's speech which he described as "Unimpassioned with no striking phrases."  

But what had prompted this political meeting to be held in a Berwickshire village in the rural Scottish Borders?   Mr Asquith had Border connections.  His second wife was socialite Margot  Tennant, daughter of the prominent Tennant family  of the Glen, Innerleithen, whilst his brother-in-law  Mr H. J. Tennant was the local Berwickshire Member of Parliament. .

No general election was looming.  For Mr Asquith had assumed office  only a few months before.    But a turbulent political situation faced him, with issues of House of Lords reform,  home rule for Ireland, industrial strife, an increasingly militant women suffragette movement and worsening international relations with Germany, culminating in the First World War.  

But on a brief Saturday afternoon in October 1908 , Earlston was on the national stage politically.

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One of the many World War One embroidered cards sent back by my grandfather  to his family at home.  They ranged from the floral to the sentimental and, as here, to the patriotic.

The Sottish Borders is known for its annual Common Riding events that take place in each town in June/July and are  the focal point of the local calendar.   They involve  both a symbolic riding of the town's boundaries, made in the past to safeguard burgh rights and also a commemoration of local history.  In Hawick where I used to live, the riding celebrates the "callants", young lads of Hawick, who in 1514, raided a body of English troops  and captured their flag - the "Banner Blue".  This skirmish followed the  the ill-fated Battle of Flodden in 1513,  when  King James IV and much of the "Flower of Scotland" were killed. 

Here is the Cornet - the principal figure of Hawick Common Riding, carrying the Banner Blue. With thanks to Lesley Fraser for allowing me to feature her photograph.

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Flags attract me!  So when I am on holiday,  I always make a point of trying to capture an image of the country's flag,  

 Looking down from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Statue in Washington  D.C. 

 

Hotel de Ville in Paris

 

The Austrian Flag on a boat on  Wolfgangasee, near Salzburg

 

A wall mural depicting the distinctive blue and white lozenges of the Bavarian flag - a reminder of when Bavaria, ruled by the Wittelsbach family,  was a separate country in  southern Germany.   

 The White Ensigns of the British Navy flying above Admiralty Arch in London

The blue and white bunting out for Earlston Civic Week, with the pipe band leading the fancy dress procession, July 2017  

And how up to date can you get with an image?   This  morning my daughter, on holiday in London,  e-mailed   me a photograph of the city preparing to welcome a state visit by the Spanish King and Queen  - with the  national  flags flying on the Mall leading to Buckingham Palace. 

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 Sepia Saturday gives bloggers an opportunity to share 
their family history and memories through photographs.


 


Click HERE to see what  other bloggers have picked out 
from this week's prompt photograph above