Some of the photographs in our archives demonstrate particularly strong connections between family history and local history: in many ways the two are inextricably linked. If ancestors lived, worked and played in a particular hamlet or village, town or city for decades, even generations, then over the years the development of their district will have significantly influenced their lives, while they in turn may well have made a major impact in the locality, perhaps a lasting contribution to their physical environment or active involvement in the social, economic and cultural life of their community. Therefore, using local resources can be invaluable when researching a family’s past and, equally, private family records can add an important dimension to the wider history of a particular geographical location.
School Photographs
A number of families have kept old school photographs, evocative images that portray youthful family members and other children from the neighbourhood among whom they spent their early years. Prestigious schools and academies like Harrow and Eton College employed professional photographers to photograph their pupils as early as the mid-nineteenth century, but official school photography for the wider population only developed after the passing of the 1870 Elementary Education Act, which led to larger numbers of children from ordinary backgrounds attending local schools. Regular photographer visits to local day schools were also encouraged by the technical advances of the 1880s which facilitated work away from the studio. These developments mean that the vast majority of school photographs passed down through families date from the 1880s onwards.
School children were usually photographed in their class groups or perhaps two classes combined, carefully positioned so that each small face was visible (Figs 69 and 140). Typically, in early photographs the children are lined up in rows outside in the playground, the group sometimes flanked by the head teacher and their class teacher, although views taken inside the schoolroom began to appear during the early twentieth century. In many school photographs a child in the centre holds a slate stating the school, class and sometimes the year, as seen in both Figs 69 and 140: these details were intended to help the photographer later on when developing and sorting the prints, but are very useful for family historians, for confirmation of the school’s name and a date can aid identification of an unknown family member. However, if a school photograph is not labelled in this way, the image needs to be dated and further research undertaken, to find out more. It should be possible to establish an approximate time frame from the appearance of the children and, especially, any adults in the picture, whose styles of dress may be easier to pinpoint than juvenile clothing. By the early twentieth century a recognisable uniform was developing for older pupils, although elementary school children often wore their ordinary clothes to school, simply being told to ‘come clean’ for the photographer’s visit. See Chapter 5 for tips on dating girls’ and boys’ dress.