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Our photo dating expert, Jayne Shrimpton, analyses your family photos.
Dorothy Dowgray sent us her photo and asked:
‘I am attaching a large photo that has no photographer’s details but I wondered perhaps if the cricket bat may provide a range of dates. I believe the young man to have been born in Eastwood, Nottingham in 1863 and that his name is William Cullen. I would appreciate any dating help you may be able to provide.’
Jayne says:
‘I believe that this is a card-mounted photograph called a cabinet print, measuring around 16.5 x 11.5 cm. This photographic format was first introduced in 1866 but is rarely seen until at least the mid-1870s and was only popular from the 1880s onwards. The rounded corners of the card confirm a date of at least the later 1870s, for before this time, card mounts had square corners. The narrow red line bordering the picture provides another dating clue: this was a feature used on some photographic cards between around 1870 and the early 1880s. The combined evidence gleaned from the card mount, therefore, gives us a base date range of late-1870s to early-1880s.
Looking at the visual image, the composition is a close-up three-quarter length pose with the subject’s lower legs and feet cut out of the picture. This style of photograph was most fashionable during the 1870s and 1880s. As we see, your ancestor is carrying a cricket bat and he also wears clothing considered suitable for playing cricket in the later Victorian period.
Jayne Shrimpton
We see the white flannel trousers that cricketers favoured, their narrow style echoing general men’s fashions of the final quarter of the 19th century. A white sports shirt is worn without the regular male waistcoat, jacket or tie, for comfort and easy movement, although a cricket jersey or blazer may have been adopted for full cricket team uniform. His round fitted cap with a small peak was a style of head wear that only sportsmen wore in the 1870s and 1880s, although a version entered fashionable dress during the 1890s, evolving into the working man’s cloth cap.
Nineteenth-century sports-related studio photographs are relatively rare in family picture collections, but they do occur from time to time and signify that the ancestor portrayed was indeed a person with sporting interests. In other words, the bat and garments seen here (or different sporting accoutrements cropping up in other photographs) were not generally studio ‘props’ but belonged to the client.
A late-1870s or early-1880s date seems to fit very well your suggestion that the young man is William Cullen, born in 1863. He looks to be aged in his mid-late ‘teens’ or very early 20s here, supporting the likelihood that the photograph was taken c.1878-1884.
Either this ancestor played cricket at school or college, or he belonged to a local cricket club close to where he lived. I wonder whether you have seen the original of this photograph and whether there is anything printed on the back? It would be interesting for you to try to discover whereabouts the photograph was taken, if possible. Then, with this close timeframe, you would be able to work out more precisely at what stage of his life William Cullen was playing cricket and perhaps make further inquiries about his sporting career, using relevant school or college archives or any existing local cricket club records.’
If you’d like to send your photo to Jayne, please register or opt to receive newsletters in ‘my account’. Jayne only has time to analyse two photos each month, but if yours wasn’t chosen this time, you could be lucky next month!
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Please note: This post has originated from a news feed from an external website.
Family Tree Forum neither endorses nor is responsible for the views of the author or any other content.
Dorothy Dowgray sent us her photo and asked:
‘I am attaching a large photo that has no photographer’s details but I wondered perhaps if the cricket bat may provide a range of dates. I believe the young man to have been born in Eastwood, Nottingham in 1863 and that his name is William Cullen. I would appreciate any dating help you may be able to provide.’
Jayne says:
‘I believe that this is a card-mounted photograph called a cabinet print, measuring around 16.5 x 11.5 cm. This photographic format was first introduced in 1866 but is rarely seen until at least the mid-1870s and was only popular from the 1880s onwards. The rounded corners of the card confirm a date of at least the later 1870s, for before this time, card mounts had square corners. The narrow red line bordering the picture provides another dating clue: this was a feature used on some photographic cards between around 1870 and the early 1880s. The combined evidence gleaned from the card mount, therefore, gives us a base date range of late-1870s to early-1880s.
Looking at the visual image, the composition is a close-up three-quarter length pose with the subject’s lower legs and feet cut out of the picture. This style of photograph was most fashionable during the 1870s and 1880s. As we see, your ancestor is carrying a cricket bat and he also wears clothing considered suitable for playing cricket in the later Victorian period.
Jayne ShrimptonWe see the white flannel trousers that cricketers favoured, their narrow style echoing general men’s fashions of the final quarter of the 19th century. A white sports shirt is worn without the regular male waistcoat, jacket or tie, for comfort and easy movement, although a cricket jersey or blazer may have been adopted for full cricket team uniform. His round fitted cap with a small peak was a style of head wear that only sportsmen wore in the 1870s and 1880s, although a version entered fashionable dress during the 1890s, evolving into the working man’s cloth cap.
Nineteenth-century sports-related studio photographs are relatively rare in family picture collections, but they do occur from time to time and signify that the ancestor portrayed was indeed a person with sporting interests. In other words, the bat and garments seen here (or different sporting accoutrements cropping up in other photographs) were not generally studio ‘props’ but belonged to the client.
A late-1870s or early-1880s date seems to fit very well your suggestion that the young man is William Cullen, born in 1863. He looks to be aged in his mid-late ‘teens’ or very early 20s here, supporting the likelihood that the photograph was taken c.1878-1884.
Either this ancestor played cricket at school or college, or he belonged to a local cricket club close to where he lived. I wonder whether you have seen the original of this photograph and whether there is anything printed on the back? It would be interesting for you to try to discover whereabouts the photograph was taken, if possible. Then, with this close timeframe, you would be able to work out more precisely at what stage of his life William Cullen was playing cricket and perhaps make further inquiries about his sporting career, using relevant school or college archives or any existing local cricket club records.’
If you’d like to send your photo to Jayne, please register or opt to receive newsletters in ‘my account’. Jayne only has time to analyse two photos each month, but if yours wasn’t chosen this time, you could be lucky next month!
More...
Please note: This post has originated from a news feed from an external website.
Family Tree Forum neither endorses nor is responsible for the views of the author or any other content.