Author Topic: Lulworth Cove, Mervyn O'GORMAN photos?  (Read 46956 times)

Offline Aziliz22

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Re: Lulworth Cove, O'GORMAN photos?
« Reply #9 on: Wednesday 29 April 15 21:19 BST (UK) »
I too have been looking at this.
As already mentioned the 1911 and 1901 census for Mervyn and his wife show no children, more importantly the 1911 which obliged couples to record children born alive and still living, shows zero for both.
I feel that their connections to Ireland would be loose as the family originally arrived in the mid 1700s.
I have discovered that Mervyn had an older full brother and at least 3 half brothers, one of his half brothers Francis Edmund OGorman had 2 daughters, Winifred born 1892 and Gillian born 1897, the girls are home educated with a governess - the beach picnic certainly looks like a governess with 2 girls although they seem a little young for the birthdates of Winifred and Gillian. Plus of course they are not called Christina!
I'm currently tracing Mervyn's other siblings and then of course there will be his wife's siblings.
Regards
Aziliz

Offline whiteout7

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Re: Lulworth Cove, O'GORMAN photos?
« Reply #10 on: Wednesday 29 April 15 22:15 BST (UK) »
The photographs in question are glorious, they have gone viral too. Here they are on mashable:
http://mashable.com/2015/04/23/autochrome-photos-ogorman/#:eyJzIjoiZiIsImkiOiJfZWkzN2RuMnNsYWhubWgzMiJ9

"Mervyn O'Gorman was 42 when he took these pictures of his daughter, Christina O'Gorman at Lulworth Cove, in the English county of Dorset. He photographed Christina wearing a red swimming costume and red cloak, a colour particularly suited to the early color Autochrome process.

Autochrome was one of the first colour photo technologies, which used glass plates coated in potato starches to filter pictures with dye.

To his friends, Mervyn O'Gorman was "O.G." He had qualified as an electrical engineer and worked for cabling companies, and in 1909 he became superintendent of the Royal Balloon Factory, later the Royal Aircraft Factory. He was an enthusiastic early motorist, and published O'Gorman's Motoring Pocket Book in 1904. 

Yet O'Gorman's hobby was photography. He took these images in 1913.

Mervyn died in March 1958 as a widower; his wife Florence had died 27 years earlier in 1931.  As to Christina's life, there are no recorded details.

 In 1897 O’Gorman had married Florence Rasch, who is sitting between their two daughters. O’Gorman’s camera case can be seen close by"

Perhaps they are his neices?

Maybe the name 'Christina' is a fake one used on the photographs when showing them in an exhibition (which his wikipedia page said he took part in). Perhaps showing the swim suits were controversial back then. You would have to check all his brothers photograph albums.
Also if the nieces were supposed to be in their 20's in 1913 (perhaps he took them earlier than he has been given credit for) and the woman is not Florence but a governess. Like Aliz suggests.

#art is subjective after all ;)
Wemyss/Crombie/Laing/Blyth (West Wemyss)
Givens/Normand (Dysart)
Clark/Lister (Dysart)
Wilkinson/Simson (Kettle or Kettlehill)

Offline hugatree

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Re: Lulworth Cove, O'GORMAN photos?
« Reply #11 on: Thursday 30 April 15 09:30 BST (UK) »
I've been following this with interest.  I note there's a Christina Mary O'Gorman on the 1939 electoral register in the South Western Hospital, Lambeth, London

Offline hugatree

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Re: Lulworth Cove, O'GORMAN photos?
« Reply #12 on: Thursday 30 April 15 10:36 BST (UK) »
He was also a partner in the firm of O'Gorman & Cozens-Hardy Consulting Engineers

after 12 Feb 1900 Address - 82, Victoria-street, Westminster.


Offline gweilo8888

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Re: Lulworth Cove, O'GORMAN photos?
« Reply #13 on: Thursday 30 April 15 21:10 BST (UK) »
I replied to this a little before you all yesterday on an older thread here:

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=478075.9

...but I figure that since this thread is active, I should copy the reply here too. Forum member aghadowey pointed out in that thread that:

Quote
There's a Christina O'Gorman in 1911 Irish census age 13-
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Waterford/Dungarvan_No__1_Urban/St__Mary_Street/663177/
parents are James and Mary O'Gorman and they have 11 children so it's possible that some of the children would have gone to stay with relatives
In 1901 the family are here with lots of other relatives-
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Waterford/Dungarvan_No__1/St__Mary_s_Street/1770907/

To which I replied:

Quote
I'm no genealogist -- not even a hobbyist -- but I spotted something that appeared to my uneducated eyes to fit your story well, so I'm sharing it.

aghadowey pointed out that there was a Christina O'Gorman in the 1911 Irish census, aged 13. That would put her date of birth around 1898.

Googling "Christina O'Gorman" and "1898" turns up the following page:

http://www.jeffseeley.org/familytrees/radmore/pafg04.htm

From which I'm pulling the excerpt below, in case the page goes offline:

Quote
44.   Robert Cecil Radmore (Samuel Ernest , Samuel , John ) was born on Sep 13 1895 in Hackney, County London, England. He died on Jan 08 1969 in New York, USA.

Robert married Mary Christina O'Gorman in 1925 in Elham District, County Kent, England. Mary was born about 1898 in Ireland. She died on Aug 04 1962 in New York, USA.

They had the following children:

+   65   M   i   Peter Michael Radmore
    66   F   ii   Living
                Living married John D. Foster. John was born on Oct 02 1914 in Tarboro, Edgecombe County, North Carolina, USA. He died on Jul 12 2002 in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, USA.

Could it be that Christina was actually her middle name, and that her given name was Mary?

...to which I'll add that libertyellisfoundation.org has a Robert C. Radmore arriving from England in 1932 at the age of 36 on the Aquitania. That age is what you'd expect from his date of birth if he arrived pre-September 1932. An Ireland-born Mary Christina Radmore, meanwhile, arrives on the Olympic the same year, aged 34 (which again fits with an 1898 DOB).

And finally a Peter Michael Radmore, aged 4 (matching the age of their son at the time) also arrives in 1932, but on the Laconia. There are no other Radmores on the ship, but there are a Richard and Catherine O'Gorman, both Irish-born and aged 30 and 32 respectively. Peter Radmore was born in the USA (New York, specifically, matching the Liberty Ellis info), and died five years ago in Maine according to the info at jeffseeley.org.

There are a fair few strands there which would seem reasonable to fit together. There's a close match for the name that's apparently attached to these images; she's born in Ireland the same year as aghadowey suggested; her age would seem to fit with the tentative date of the photos; she married in Kent, only a few hours away from where the photos were taken; she then moved to the USA where a family was started (which we know at least some family members did at some point, as that matches original poster and relative Katie's current country).

Could the mysterious Christina have been a relative of Mervyn's born in Ireland, married in the UK, and then traveling back and forth between the UK and the US for a few years (including the trip on which her son was born), then the family finally moved there -- first the father, then the mother, and then finally the son perhaps traveling with relatives of his mother who also emigrated?

Of course, this could all be coincidence -- I'm the first to admit I'm a rank amateur who's out of my depth here -- but I'd love to see somebody with more experience chase these threads down.

Offline gweilo8888

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Re: Lulworth Cove, O'GORMAN photos?
« Reply #14 on: Thursday 30 April 15 21:56 BST (UK) »
I made several additions to the above post, but then hit its length limit, so here they are separately:

EDIT: And one more update from me: familysearch.org has several records suggesting a Robert Cecil Radmore, born 13 September 1895 in Dalston, Hackney, London, and still living there at the age of 16 in 1911. During World War I, it has him serving in the Honourable Artillery Company, 4085 Regiment, 1st Reserve, 2nd Battalion in 1915, and registering for the draft in 1942, now in New York City.

Separately, there are records for a Robert Radmore (born England), married to Mary (born Ireland) and with son Peter (born New York), listing Robert and Mary as emigrated to the US in 1926, and the whole family as resident in Manhattan (Districts 0501-0750) in 1930, then with a six year old daughter Mary (also born New York) and living in Assembly District 14, Manhattan in 1940.

EDIT 2: Aha -- and going back to libertyellisfoundation.org, there's record of a Robert C P and Mary C Radmore arriving in the USA on the Ascania in 1926...

EDIT 3: And going back to jeffseeley.org, I note that he has Robert Radmore and Mary Gorman as having two children, Peter and an unnamed female child who married a John D. Foster, deceased 2002 in Chicago. The Chicago Tribune has a John D. Foster, married around 1966 to Adrian Radmore Foster:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2002-07-15/news/0207150017_1_mr-foster-montgomery-ward-longtime-wards

Slightly curious, but there are several other records of a Mrs. Adrian Radmore Foster in Chicago, so it's most likely correct. Adrian can, it seems, also be a girl's name (not just Adrienne, Adrianne, or Adriana); perhaps she was Mary Adrian Radmore, and goes by her middle name as it seems her mother did? There are several records on Google of a Mary Adrian Foster.

EDIT 4: And returning to familysearch.org, there's a Mary Adrian Radmore arriving in New York in 1953, on the Sadena.

EDIT 5: I'm familiar with the other ship names above, but had never heard of the Sadena, so I went back to the Liberty Ellis Foundation and looked at the manifest. There was indeed a Mary Adrian Radmore listed on board, but it wasn't a ship -- it was a plane. Specifically, it was TWA Flight 953 from Shannon, Ireland to New York, arriving 10:13AM on September 2nd, 1953 in New York.

That flight, incidentally, was on N6020C, a Lockheed Constellation L-749A that was just 2.5 years old at the time, and a little under 14 years later would serve TWA's very last passenger-carrying Constellation flight in April or May 1967. Why they have her listed as Sadena I don't know; her name was actually Star of Kentucky. That exact plane can be seen in the French-language film Escale a Orly (http://www.impdb.org/index.php?title=Escale_%C3%A0_Orly), and there are lots of photos of her on the web.

Offline Mako23

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Re: Lulworth Cove, O'GORMAN photos?
« Reply #15 on: Friday 01 May 15 04:19 BST (UK) »
I too have been wondering about this girl in the photo

She is the spitting image of my ex wife when she was about 18

Anyway I'm sadly coming to the conclusion that we may never know the true identity. I doubt that Melvyn O'Gorman never had any children. I base this conclusion on the following points.

1 His wife was in her 40's when they married and was considerably older than him.

2 He was also considered to be a dandy which I think was slang in its day for saying he was gay.

3 His wife in her will left the entire state to her husband which was not a trivial sum of money if they had children surely she would of left something for them

4 There is no mention of any children in a consensus in 1901 and 1911

6 No mention of any children in either obituaries in the Times news paper for either Melvyn  or Florence his wife

The text accompanying the pictures  don't seem to fit with know facts. On picture shows three individuals sitting on a beach titled as O'Gormans wife Florence and his two kids.  Yet at the time 1913 Florence would be over 50 years old and there no way that any of the individuals would be 50 years old.

Last but not least these pictures are not any random holiday pictures and are highly staged. A considerable amount of work went into the pictures and the fact that Christina is wearing red is no accident. I wouldn't be totally shocked that Christina could be a model who was hand picked for a important series of shots with the full knowledge that he would exhibit these pictures.

There is also a possibility that Christina is a family member.  Melvyn had a full sister Edith Seibe Gorman maybe she had a daughter

Also there another problem arises with the name O'Gorman because Melvyn was born Gorman and changed his name to O'gorman latter on on life. I have no idea as of when this happened. In the unlikely event he did have a child, it could be Christina Gorman.









Online ShaunJ

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Re: Lulworth Cove, O'GORMAN photos?
« Reply #16 on: Friday 01 May 15 09:07 BST (UK) »
Quote
His wife in her will left the entire state to her husband

Has anyone checked Mervyn O'Gorman's will?
UK Census info. Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Offline Mako23

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Re: Lulworth Cove, O'GORMAN photos?
« Reply #17 on: Friday 01 May 15 10:46 BST (UK) »
The best cause of action is to contact the www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk which holds the prints or contact the press officer phil.oates@nationalmediamuseum.org.uk and ask what proof or evidence they have that indicates that Christina is his daughter. Have they just assumed its his daughter or is there some evidence such his handwriting stating its his daughter. Is there anything written on the back or notes or attached documentation

Regards Mako