Unknown but lovely

These two photos are of a couple of unknown people – one of them with an unknown dog. Here’s the lad.

The lad has been lifted off his background by shading out the edge. We have no idea who he is.

And now the lady and dog.

Here we have a fabulously sharp image although the dog may have a human thumb print across its face. Both images are carte de visite (CDV) size and both have the mark of Alf Burgess on the back.

We think Alf used this style in his early days as a professional photographer – or maybe he ran out of his pre-printed cards.

So not only are we unable to name the people, we are also unsure of the date.

Any suggestions would be well received.

These photos are in a Victorian album of photos of the Durnford family.

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Royal mug shot

Many people have collected royal memorabilia in the past and many continue to do so. Not all, or even much of it can come to the museum for reasons of space or, more usually, because people hope to pass it down through their family. But they will often let us record a photo and today we look at a photo of one ‘royal’ mug. It belonged (and still does) to the Merritt family who lived at Vicarage Farm in Easterton. It is a coronation mug.

Mug (only a photo) for the coronation that never was in 1937

People who know about royal history will realise that this is a mug for a coronation which never took place – the coronation of King Edward VIII.

King Edward VIII abdicated before his coronation could take place.

This coronation was scheduled for May 1937 but of course, the King chose to marry the woman he loved and abdicated the kingship.

The country got its coronation for the plans made were transferred to the new king – George VI.

No doubt souvenir makers were a bit cheesed off at having to scrap the original memorabilia and producing new.

A Daguerreotype

Sometimes on this blog we look at artefacts and sometime we study a photograph. Today we’ll do both, showing you what is probably the oldest photograph in our collection. It has been classed as a Daguerreotype and dates from 1861.

Here’s the photo.

An 1861 photo – believed to be a Daguerreotype found in Market Lavington

The man in the photo is identified on the back.

Information on the back of the photo

He is Sergeant Tarrant and the photo was taken on February 12^th 1861. It would seem Sergeant Tarrant was from Devizes but we can’t identify just who he was.

This photo was found under the floorboards in an upstairs room at 9 High Street, Market Lavington in the 1950s. This was the building which, at that time, housed Lloyds Bank on the ground floor.

Of course, we’d like to know more about any connection between Sergeant Tarrant and Market Lavington.

 

A Burgess Photo

This is one of those photos where we’d love to identify the person photographed.

A CDV by Burgess of Market Lavington – but who is the subject?

This is CDV sizes (carte de visite) and we think it is late 19^th century. A rather dapper young man has had his likeness taken. He is smartly dressed with an elegant watch chain displaying a cross motif. His hand rests alongside his bowler hat. We just don’t know who he is.

The back of the card is of interest and helps with dating the photo.

The back of the Carte de Visite

The person clearly visited Alf Burgess’s High Street Studio but of course he may have come from anywhere in the area – not just Market Lavington or Easterton.

Has anybody out there any ideas?