Photographs, vintage postcards and other ephemera


Saturday 23 February 2013

An unknown family

Sepia Saturday this week is about families - in particular, unknown families. My image is from a box of photographs (mainly cartes de visite plus a few cabinet cards) given to me about 25 years ago by Peggy, a friend of my mum - she'd found the photographs in the loft of a house in the Brixton Hill area of London when she moved there in the 1970s. None of the sitters are identified; two of the photographs are dated 1866.

More families, known and unknown, over at Sepia Saturday.

16 comments:

21 Wits said...

My most favorite things to do is search for old photos, especially in attics of folks that will let me keep them!

Alex Daw said...

Hmmm....frustrating...some of my mob are from Brixton Hill but they don't look familiar to me. Don't they all look anxious - except the girl on the left...she looks to be the one in charge. Are they all about to get on a boat do you think? They look as if they can't keep still judging by the blurred shoes....

Alex Daw said...

PS Also just wanted to say thank you for an earlier blog post which led me to a great site about a photographer in Hove for my post on today's theme.

viridian said...

I too have sitters who are not identified. How quickly this information can be lost.

Helen Killeen Bauch McHargue said...

The facial expressions all seem very sad. I wonder what the occasion for the photo was.

Helen Killeen Bauch McHargue said...

The expressions on the faces in the photo all seem sad. I wonder why they were having this photo taken?

Mike Brubaker said...

A business in hair oil was certainly a profitable trade in those days. A very Dickensian group that no doubt had some stories to tell.

Bob Scotney said...

Seaton is in Devon I believe, Could that help you to identify this fine group?

Alan Burnett said...

What a wonderful photograph - a museum of economic and social history in one simple old cabinet Card.

Postcardy said...

I wonder what their relationship is. The man in the center looks kind of scary to me.

Anonymous said...

I thought his wild beard made him look like a pioneer settler in the US, but I guess that style of beard knew no borders.

Boobook said...

You're so lucky having a whole box of photos to play with. Each one is so interesting even when they're not relatives.

Brett Payne said...

This is a rather nice portrait, I think taken in the mid- to late 1870s. I can tell you that Samuel Good operated a studio in Fore Street, Seaton probably from the early 1860s until 1890.

North County Film Club said...

I wish someone would give me a big bunch of old photographs.
Nancy

Unknown said...

As it has been said, Seaton is in Devon, and the card was found in Brixton. Could this mean that the bearded man, as he is seated in the centre, is leaving Devon and moving to London and these are his family and friends?

The man standing seems overly familiar with the woman on the right - I don't think he is trustworthy, looks too smarmy by half.

Tattered and Lost said...

My first thought is there is no mother in this shot. It's a stern father with his children. Then again, the woman on the right might be the mother, but then who is the fellow standing next to her? They call out through time.