Causewayhead (?) mystery portraits

[Rachael89]

Hi all,

I posted scans from a mystery album here a few days ago and people were very helpful to the point of being able to ID the family pictured. I have another mysterious album I picked up from a junk shop, and thought I'd share it here in case any of the other posters to the site could help me figure out its origin.

The album is scanned in its entirety here:

https://imgur.com/gallery/76PKzA0

Not pictured but on some of the photos are strips with text at the top - several of the photos have 'Causewayhead' (followed by a number) at the top. At least one of the photos has a similar label at the top but reading '69 Union St'.

With this one, there is very little go on beyond the photos themselves (i.e. there are no labels). I don't expect to discover the identities of any of the people pictured, but I would be very interested if anyone here could help with the following questions:

1. What purpose were these photos taken for? They're clearly not ordinary family photos, and I'm curious about whether they might have been passport photos/taken for some other ID purposes.
2. To when can these photos be dated? I'd guess somewhere between 1900 and 1918, but would welcome others' thoughts on narrowing this range.
3. Most of the photos are of women but several of the women are wearing decidedly unconventional/unusual clothing - for example, one woman is wearing what appears to be a suit and tie. Does anyone else see significance in this? I don't know if this is illuminating at all, but I find it quite intriguing...

[japeflakes]

Just for interest   Try Plymouth
http://www.stickybacks.uk/regionsSW.asp

[Treetotal]

They all look to be be Edwardian. It struck me that they all appear to be like locket, sweetheart or mourning brooch photos which made me wonder if they could be samples for jewellery. I have a double sided Victorian picture locket that holds two photos back to back, sandwiched between two round pieces of glass like the round photos shown.
Just a thought.
Carol

[Rachael89]

Thanks so much both! Those are really helpful and informative responses, especially the stickybacks link - I'll be reaching out to them for sure.

[Handypandy]

Not much help but shopping areas in Penzance? Causewayhead and Union Street are almost side by side.

[Rachael89]

Not much help but shopping areas in Penzance? Causewayhead and Union Street are almost side by side.

Yes! That's it - I contacted the webmaster of the first webpage I was linked to and he confirmed it. He's going to do some research to try and find out more about the photos, so I'll report back if any interesting info is unearthed.

I've done high-res scans of the portraits that have turned up a lot of new details. I'm very interested in these women:

https://twitter.com/Rachael1918/status/1347259091580841987?s=20

Can anyone figure out what's going on with their clothing? The woman on the right is wearing a suit with a tie, and has some kind of flower pinned to the tie. Could it be some sort of suffragette signalling, or is that a reach?

[Ruskie]

The girl with the tie looks like she is wearing a girl’s blouse with her bow untied (similar to the bow the other girl is wearing in the image above). The jacket has lapels and may be a man’s jacket - Difficult to know when just seeing the shoulders. It may be her intention to look like a male, but maybe not. If she had her tie in a bow as the image above, I don’t think she would look “manly”. 

A lot of the images look like they have been cut down from larger photos to be displayed in those mounts. Or are they a standard size and have they moved around inside the mounts? Have you taken any of them out to see if there is much more to the photos?

Fascinating album.

[Treetotal]

Ladies fashion took on a more masculine look in the Edwardian era:

https://flashbak.com/edwardian-street-style-photos-edward-linley-sambourne-392934/

I have many photos where women dressed like this but they are packed ready to move house. The suffragette movement did adopt a masculine look but changed style as people were labelling them as lesbians so they adopted a more feminine look.
The photos do look to be slotted in but others look stuck on. Many are cut to fit lockets or for passport/ID type photos.
Maybe created as a catalogue for a photographic style for that purpose.
They date from Early Edwardian possibly up to the war years.
Carol