Face to Face With The Past

There is something poignant about looking at a photo of an unknown person. Especially when the photo was taken over 150 years ago. Who was this person? What was their life like? What were they thinking as they stared at the camera and tried to keep still for the sixty seconds it took to fix their image?

On Tuesday 22nd January, members of the Norfolk Community History Club were shown a small sample from Picture Norfolk’s collection of thousands of old photographs, albums and scrapbooks. Clare Everitt, the administrator from Picture Norfolk, had selected some photos taken starting from around 1842, when an enterprising fellow named Thomas Damant Eaton started applying the new technology to scenes around Norwich, as well as his family members. Slightly misty ladies in bonnets and serious gentlemen in stovepipe hats along with views of Norwich, which brought home how many of the old city’s fine Elizabethan and Stuart buildings were still standing in the 19^th century. We tried to work out where the camera was placed and what had changed: the Cathedral front not at all, unsurprisingly, but in some shots of Theatre Street from St Stephens, only the church tower was recognisable.

Then there was the Acle whitesmith called William Henry Finch (who “claimed to be Eugenia Fynch” – a mystery which Clare did not go into further) who took photos around Norfolk between 1860 and 1880. He was able to persuade tradesmen and labourers to stop what they were doing and pose for the photos – quite unusual, Clare explained, to find so many photographs of working people from that date.

As photography became more widespread, it was the fashion to collect ‘Cartes des visites’ – small prints of royalty, celebrities, famous preachers and relatives. The collectible snaps of Queen Victoria, Albert, Princes and Princesses at the front of the heavy mid-Victorian album Clare passed around were not labeled, while later pages had pictures marked in copperplate hand ‘Grandfather’ (splendid fellow with white muttonchop whiskers), ‘Mother’, ‘Aunt Jane’ and so on. I suppose that’s because everyone would recognise the royals without having to be told. Clare explained that the photographic fixing process used albumen from egg whites, and the cards grew so popular that there was a massive boom in poultry farming.

Finally a beautiful scrapbook went the rounds, full of elaborate greetings cards, rebuses and colourful scraps, daintily cut out and looking brand new and very Laura Ashley. They were collected by a Gladys Robinson, who must have had a steady hand, in the first years of the 20^th century.

Most of the 200,000 images in Picture Norfolk archives have been donated by members of the public, Clare explained. Unfortunately, much more is offered than they can house, but anything of real local interest which is not already duplicated in the archives would certainly be considered, and it’s possible to digitize the image and return the original to the owners.

Many thanks to Clare and Colin for such an interesting meeting. 

~ Sarah Walker ~

Please note: 17,000 photograph from the archive are available via the Picture Norfolk website