in the Gardner family album. My father was always prompted his mother in law to write the names in the albums whenever she got books out. Happily she did, under duress, write on some of the photographs but even she did not know all the faces. I have chosen this photograph because it is the only one in the book which is from Burnley, a place which I have no knowledge of any of the family coming from. I would guess this is a Grandmother with her granddaughters, a memento perhaps because they do not live nearby. Apart from Grandmother's fine Victorian posture they look a relaxed group and I think there is affection in the portrait, one girl resting are arm on her Grannie's shoulder.
The photographer's details are on the back "all negatives are kept", wouldn't that be a thing to find, all neatly catalogued. Dream on. I had a look to see what Healey Wood Road looked like and it turned out to be a typical Lancashire terraced house street but I also found someone who was doing some research on David Brooks and discovered, through them, that the Brooks families lived at 11, 14 and 18 Healey Wood Road for a number of censuses, David Brooks appearing on the 1891 census as a photographer. This ties in nicely with the back of this card because as can be seen bottom left it is a Marion & Co* design. These designs for the back of carte de visite and cabinet cards from 1870 onwards were sold to photographers all over England. This particular design and the number on the bottom right dates the card to between 1892-4 so although I still don't know who the family is I do know the dates the photograph was taken. If we go back to the Brooks family their daughters in 1881 were cotton weavers which as Burnley was at the heart of cotton mills country (at one time having 99,000 power looms) would have been very common but by 1891 the daughter of the family were dressmakers. I wonder what the girls in the photo went on to do.
Source:-
*Marion & Co - Victorian Photograph Card Printers by Roger Vaughan
