Thank you for the welcome - I am new here!
I do so want this photograph to be Catherine and it has always seemed the most likely to me and from limited research I have been able to do myself. I just could never quite convince myself she visited the north of England and found no 'evidence' of it.
Catherine married in June 1878. Her new husband was a soldier in an Irish Regiment and although he had joined up in India (where he was born) he was eventually posted 'home' to Ireland. I have always thought it unlikely Catherine visited England (and Manchester for this photo) but digging a bit deeper into her husband's military career I can see that in February 1878 he was posted to Fleetwood. I always had two possibilities for Fleetwood: one near Dublin and another on the west coast of Lancashire. I had assumed the Irish Fleetwood but I now wonder if it was in Lancashire and whether Catherine went with her husband and this photo was taken around the time of their marriage. Three months after their marriage her husband was posted overseas - Zululand and the birth certificate for their first child actually says Zululand as the address of the father!
Can I press you, please, to explain how you arrive at 1870s. Is it the dress? Hair? Style of card, background etc.?
Thank you, again!