It is early summer sometime in the mid-1890s. The flowers are in bloom and the leaves are in their full glory on the trees. A young bride poses with her new husband on their wedding day. She is dressed in the fashion of the time – a dress with full leg-of-mutton sleeves with a long train at the back of the dress. She clutches her beautiful spray of fresh flowers, and poses with her wedding party for the camera-man, Stacey of Great Dunmow.

Stacey of Great Dunmow – late Victorian wedding party

One of the female guests lightly rests her hand on the seated older gentleman. Father and daughter? Sister of the bride or of the groom? Is the elderly gent the father of the bride or groom? The bride has two bridesmaids who are both wearing matching dresses and hats, and are holding sprays of flowers (the second bridesmaid’s bouquet is hidden behind the bride’s head). Who are they? Unmarried sisters of the bride and groom, or childhood friends? Who is the woman sitting next to the groom? Is she the mother of either the bride or groom – she’s not wearing a corsage. Or is a corsage for the mothers, a modern-day tradition?

So many questions. The main question being: whose wedding is this? It looked to have been a beautiful sumptuous wedding with all the wedding party in all their full splendor.

That well known internet auction site yielded up this picture but with no clue as to who these people were – apart from the signature of the photographer, Stacey of Great Dunmow. In the Victorian era, Stacey the photographer was also a nurseryman, so it is highly possible that it was his shop who made up the beautiful floral bouquets for the bride and her two bridesmaids, and made the beautiful buttonholes for the males of the wedding party. A beautiful summer’s event captured over a 100 years ago. Someone’s great-grandparents (or great-great?) consigned to the anonymity of the modern age’s internet. It always saddens me when I see these photos of families from long ago times. They had probably been kept by the bride and groom’s descendants for 100 years, but now thrown out with the rubbish in a house clearance. The picture is excellent condition so has been stored safely for over 100 years – but probably not put out on display because age has not marked the picture.

Here they are now out on display into the modern world of the 21st century. The Great Dunmow wedding party of summer sometime in the mid-1890s – captured forever by Stacey’s of Great Dunmow.

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You may also be interested in the following
– The Victorian ladies of Great Dunmow
– The Victorian Gentlemen of Great Dunmow
– The Victorian Wedding of Great Dunmow

You may also be interested in my post on the
WordWide Genealogy blog about my great-grandparents wedding
– Family history is like a box of chocolates… You never know what you’re going to get

© Essex Voices Past 2014

During the stress of the last few months with my recent legal action against Essex County Council, Victorian photos – particularly those known as carte de visite photographs – have haunted my waking moments.  This is perhaps a strange hobby for anyone to have – not least for it to manifest itself during a legal confrontation with an education authority and coping with their very modern-day shenanigans of denying a vulnerable child an education appropriate to his needs.  However, pondering the stories of long dead people and searching out interesting Victorian portraits in the flea markets of London and on-line from that well known auction site has given me some small comfort during the utter madness of the last few months.

Even as a small child, I have always loved looking at photographs of long dead people in their Sunday finery.  I can pinpoint my fascination back to early childhood when I first saw Victorian photos of my own ancestors.  I am pleased I can give names to the photos of my ancestors, but it always greatly saddens me when I see photograph upon photograph of long dead unknown people.  These people were someone’s much loved father, mother, child, granny, grandfather.  Now their names and families are lost forever – all that remains is a shadowy image that they once existed – a single moment in time captured forever.

Today’s image is a carte de viste of two Victorian children in their Sunday best, playing with a very well-dressed and expensive horse-haired doll, captured through the lens of Great Dunmow’s Victorian photographer, William Stacey.

“Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.”

Four Quartets by T.S Eliot, 1935

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This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.

Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in the following
– The Victorian ladies of Great Dunmow
– The Victorian Gentlemen of Great Dunmow

© Essex Voices Past 2013.

Who are these men in this picture?  Why did they have their photo taken?  Why are they wearing similar clothing? Where were they – in Great Dunmow or elsewhere?

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This photo was taken sometime between the 1860s and the 1880s by the Victorian photographer and nursery man of Great Dunmow, William Stacey.  It is intriguing and offers up so many unanswerable questions. Can you help? What are the clothes they are wearing? Is a uniform or sports clothes? Are they really in front of a tree or bush – or is it something else? I ask this strange question because it seems that there are supports and pegs to the right of the photo (similar to tent ropes and pegs) which appear to be leading directly to the ‘tree’ – or is it just a trick of the camera angle?

Please do leave me a comment below if you can help out with some of these quandaries I have for this Essex boys from Victorian Great Dunmow…

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This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.

Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in the following
– The Victorian ladies of Great Dunmow

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

Who are these nameless people of Great Dunmow who stare into the middle-distance of their 1860s photographs?  Only a few bare facts are known about them – their photos all purchased from that well-known internet auction-house.  The first five photos came from a single house-clearance in Sussex, so were all related to each other; whilst the sixth photo came from Ireland.

The ladies from Sussex are all wearing the same head-dress.  Are they grandmother, two daughters, and grand-daughter?  The small child (boy or girl?) has been photographed against the same background as the two younger women.  The lady from Ireland is sitting on the same chair with the same table as the two older ladies from Sussex.  Their clothing dates all of them to the first half of the 1860s.

Who are these ladies and child?  All frozen for a moment in time through the lens of the photographer and nurseryman, William Stacey* of Great Dunmow.  Nameless people to add to the local history of Great Dunmow.

*Even today, there is still a flower/plant shop in Great Dunmow’s High Street called ‘Stacey’s Flowers of Great Dunmow’.

You may also be interested in the following post
– The Cole family of Spitalfields Market