RootsChat.Com
Old Photographs, Recognition, Handwriting Deciphering => Free Photo Restoration & Date Old Photographs => Topic started by: Claire64 on Wednesday 08 July 20 21:52 BST (UK)
-
Someone has written "aunt Harriet Liles" on the back of this one, but who wrote it I don't know. I think she is my great, great grandfather's sister Harriet Crawshaw, born 1858. She married Jesse Liles in 1890 and I have always assumed it was her. I see the photographer got their Royal Warrant in 1886 so I was thinking this was maybe taken around the time of her wedding.
I've just discovered that Jesse Liles had a niece called Harriet Liles born 1868. Could it be her?
I am also intrigued as to what is hanging from her belt. Is it significant?
-
I would say this was 1880s. Lovely photo.
Carol
-
She looks quite young, would it be a key hanging? Sometimes women in charge of housekeeping carried keys to supplies etc
-
I thought it might be a key but it doesn't look like one. Someone has suggested the ket to a teachest. It seems very promominent and more than just decoration but I am drawing a blank as to what it can be.
-
Intriguing, could it be something to do with the brooch/clasp she is wearing or to open a locket.
Was she from a well off family? Perhaps it was to signify her status.
-
The key could be for anything, a clock, chest or jewellery box, there's no way of knowing for sure.
She is likely to be unmarried as she is hiding her left hand. I also dated it for you in my first reply so looking at their occupations in the censuses might give a clue.
Carol
-
She wasn't rich; common consensus over on the Findmypast forum seems to be that it was a decorative chain and that's a pocket watch key on the end. She was sent into service at 13 when her father died, but she worked in a pub in a slum area of Sheffield. She married quite late in life. Thank you for all the input.
-
This is a very nice outfit she's wearing & not cheap.
As Carol pointed out she's unmarried as she has her hand behind her
but also she's holding a fan which I've seen many times on unmarried
women signifying chastity.
How sure are you this is Aunt Harriet?
-
It is a beautiful photo and an incredible dress, certainly not a cheap one.
I agree it is a key perhaps for the tantalus ;D
-
How sure are you this is Aunt Harriet?
Well, I am beginning to wonder! Someone has helpfully written on the back "aunt Harriet Lyles"; now I know all about the dangers of making assumptions, but unfortunately I still do sometimes make them! As far as I know, it was my great grandma who wrote on the photos, and Harriet Lyles was her father's sister Harriet Crawshaw, who married when she was in her 30s, though she knocked a few years off her age when she did so.
But the family were certainly not well off, and her first in-service job afer her father died was in a pub in a slum in Sheffield; she was 13 years old.
So now I am questioning what I know about her. She married the son of a pub landlord and lived locally in an ordinary house in an ordinary street and her husband worked in the steelworks.
-
I know the last reply on here was the 10th July, but this photo has just appeared today on another site I am on. It is of a pocket watch key made by a local watchmaker who used to have premises in the area.
Pat
-
I could see there was something on the other end of the chain in the small pocket
& thought pince nez but now you've identified the key it's obvious what's in the pocket.
Well done.
-
Thanks for the great photo Trishanne