Sepia Saturday - Four Men or More in Line

This week's prompt photograph is entitled "Golfing Foursome".  No-one in my extended family has ever shown the slightest bit of interest in golf.   I do recollect  being bored stiff on holiday playing crazy golf and trying to negotiate this little ball through a hole. 

So my chosen theme this week is not golf related, but  "Four Men or More In Line". 

 

This photograph  strikes me as rather a good match. They are not  sporting golf clubs,  but  "men about town" canes.  Here  are my cousin's relations - brothers Bill and  Harry Fearnehough in the front with unknown friends behind, taken  c.1914.  

Bill and Henry were sons of William Fearnehough (1871-1941) and Amelia Jane Buckley Stuart (1872-1946) of Shaw in Lancashire.  Harry joined the army (Loyal North Lancashire Regiment)  a month after the outbreak of  World War One.  He was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal twice in 1916 for conspicuous gallantry in action.  After the war he became Secretary of the Oldham Mill Owners Association, and in World War Two served in the Home Guard.   

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Take away great Uncle George Danson  at the top right, and you have four friends,  same period, same county, similar hats to the first photograph.

                            

George was the youngest of many brothers and worked on W.H. Smith's station bookstalls.  His only sister Jennie had written on the back of this photograph "George's friends in Manchester".  George  was conscripted into the army in 1916 and a few months later was killed at the Battle fo the Somme, a week after his 22nd birthday.  One cannot help wondering how many of his friends survived the war. 

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The dog counts here to make the foursome - alongside my grandfather, William Danson, with his brother Bob on the left and an unknown friend. 

 

  
The flat cap brigade in line!  My grandfather William Danson is seated with a group  in line behind of fellow workers at the ICI factory at Thornton, near Fleetwood, Lancashire. With grandad given the place of honour, was this some special occasion?  He would have celebrated his 50th birthday in 1935.  

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Finally two photographs that are a puzzle!  Can anyone throw any light on them?

The only clue on this photograph of six smart young men is the name and address of the photographer W. G. Hamilton, 320 Ocean Road, South Shields. 

It came from the collection of my husband's aunt, whose grandparents Sarah and  George Hibbert, a miner of South Shields. They  had two sons who survived infancy, Robert William, born 1894 and young George, born 1902.  Could they be two of the men in this photograph?   

Also in the family collection was the this group of young sailors.  The postcard franked 15th December 1909 from Beverley (Yorkshire?) was addressed to Mrs S. A. Hibbert, 169 Maxwell Street, South Shields, with the message:

Dear Mother, I write these lines hoping you are keeping well, and to ask if you can pick me out  in this group?  

Frustratingly there was no space left for a signature to be written.  But it must surely be Robert who would be 15 in 1909?    To date I have not traced him in 1911 census - so more research called for here.  

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from Sepia Saturday bloggers.

Sepia Saturday offers  bloggers the chance to share their history through the medium of p[photographs. 

POSTSCRIPT - I am having so much trouble with blogger at the moment.  It is refusing to accept my choice of font size - it looks OK in draft but comes out minuscule when posted.  My template is set to Normal size.     This is the second time I have typed this post, and it is still not perfect.  Can anyone advise, bearing in mind I am not particularly IT savy!  THANK YOU.