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Hi all, I have two photographs that have been passed down to me and I was wondering if anyone could suggest a possible year? On the back of one someone has written 'Oxford Road Rambling Club' - this would have been in Manchester.
They are stuck onto some thick card and from other photo's I have I believe my great 2x great grandma is on them.
Thanks for any help you can offer.
Helen
https://www.british-genealogy.com/ex...063f4629b3.jpg
https://www.british-genealogy.com/ex...82241c5d4c.jpg
I'm no expert and stand to be corrected. My guesstimate is the mid to late 1890s.
I agree that both photos were taken in the 1890s, but I would veer towards the beginning of the decade. In the 1880s ladies' hair styles were fairly severe, with hair parted in the middle and pulled into a bun at the back of the head. In the 1890s the front hair was beginning to be curled with tongs. In this photo there are a few of each style. Also, the leg-o-muttton sleeve ballooned out to a wide sleeve in the mid 1890s, and the sleeves here are not overly wide.
One of the problems of identifying photos by style is that not everyone's circumstances are the same. This is a large, presumably family group with a mixture of clothing styles. If the photo was taken in Warrington then this is a posh lot whose females could have been up to date, but not necessarily the same styles current in London at that time or even in Melbourne! The men have a mishmash of different hats and suits. You may have more success with the date by identifying family members ages.
It's a different class, my GGfather was a forester in Scotland, but the men's clothing with the watch chains across dark waistcoats and the collars & ties reminds me strongly of a photo of the family taken just before GUncle George left for the Anglo-Boer war. They would have been in their best outfits, and styles took a while to travel north of the Border, but it suggests the early 1990s for yours...
One of the least expensive methods of updating your style would be changing your hairstyle, which cost virtually nothing - so any woman can wear a new hairstyle. The main difference between Melbourne and London would be the three months to get here by ship, and the different season. If we are trying to narrow down a time frame, then "early 1890s" would cover it nicely without a stretch, I would have thought, notwithstanding the different hemisphere from where I comment. This looks like a reasonably comfortable group of people who could afford to bow to fashion. I merely concentrated on the most obvious pointers to a date.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ed McKie