Hi Seonaid and welcome to Rootschat,
Would just like to say that you have a fantastic photograph here which records a part of social history (far better than the studio posed ones that I have). Because of the freedom which the photographer has allowed the group to have in the way that they are "posing" I would say that this may well have been an itinerate photographer going from town to town, village to village in the hope to drum up business, and when you think of how many people there are in this photograph it could have been a few bob or two that he picked up from this one photograph. As for a date, well it is very hard to try and attempt to place an accurate one to this study but going by the lad leaning up against the wall of the building (4th figure on the right) and the eldest girl in the picture, I would hazard a guess and say that this was taken from about 1902 to about 1910ish. The soft felt hat with the wide brim that the lad is wearing has the style and form to it that resembles those that were worn by the local yeomanry and it is simular in type and style of that worn during the Boer War period and shortly after. The style of dress of the eldest girl also indicates to me that this picture was taken within the time frame that I have given for it , the top that she has on has really nothing that jumps out at me straight away in the way of dating but as children where dressed as young adults at the time this date line would fit as women would have been dressed in a simular fashion for this period (albeit that they would have had either a hat or shawl on). One other bit that I have picked up on, if this was taken in Scotland (although it could have been taken at any coastal village harbour in the UK) then it was not taken on a Sunday as the central figure is baiting his line by the looks of it and there would have been no work carried out on the sabbath at all (doesn't help with the dating but I thought that I would throw it in anyway).
old rowley
