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Photos from a family album
Q These photographs all came from the same old family photograph album. I hope you can help me to identify the ancestors by dating their appearance. Firstly, I wondered if the unknown man and lady pictured in 3 & 4 could be the same as the couple in 1 & 2, at different ages? 1 & 2 are cabinet portraits by F. Cole of Euston Rd, London NW. I know that they represent Jane Kingsnorth, née Spier (1815-1907) and Thomas Kingsnorth (1806-1879). They married in 1851. Thomas won a prize for an essay that he wrote and he is leaning on said book in the photograph (I can read the edge of the binding!). The final photograph is a sailor always known as ‘Uncle Jack’: I haven’t been able to find Jack but on Findmypast I found a John Dearle Brooker (b.1855), who married at Portsea on 3 August 1879. Does his marriage year match the date of the photograph?
Name withheld
Photos 1 & 2
Although first launched in 1866, cabinet prints/portraits measuring around 16.5 x 11.5cms did not become fashionable until at least the mid-1870s. Assuming these are indeed cabinet-sized photographs (not clear from your copies), they are very early examples, suggesting that your ancestors could afford these expensive photographic prints and also kept abreast of new trends. Since you provided studio details, I checked the usual website for early London photographers and this states that your photographer, Frederick Cole, operated from Euston Road for many years, 1870-1908: https://www.photolondon.org.uk/#/details?id=1651
These impressive photographs appear to have been conceived as a pair of ‘companion’ portraits: the studio setting and furniture is the same, and we may assume that they were taken together on the same day, with the intention of displaying them later at home together, facing inward towards one another. In her portrait, Jane Kingsnorth wears a fine, formal daytime costume, handsomely embroidered and edged with lace trimmings. Her ornate front-buttoning fitted bodice displays an elongated front, apparently following the extended cuirass line fashionable by the mid-1870s, while her matching skirt shows signs of raised drapery, a residual bustle, behind the waist. Along with her decorative V-neckline, profuse jewellery and smooth hairstyle, her ensemble suggests a date range of c.1875-77.
Thomas Kingsnorth is equally well-dressed in a stately knee-length frock coat, matching waistcoat and trousers, his wide curved lapels and double-breasted, shawl-collared waistcoat also typical of the 1870s. His
