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They Were Caught In Our Old Street Pics...

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oldMohawk said:
As this street photo was taken, two women walked along the pavement one with a toddler and the other carrying a baby in a long white robe. My imagination suggests they are going to a christening but I could be wrong because I can't see a Dad and it might not be a baby. Nice small trees have been planted but they grow to be large trees.
Perry_Barr_Earlsbury_Gardens.jpg

The photo was originally here and there are other visible different photos in that thread, but no people in them.
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Am I reading the date correctly in this as 1834? Is this right, its seems too early to me?
 
quite agree mort..impossible for that photo to be 1834 and looking at the dress too early to be 1934...unless of course i need to go to spec savers again lol

lyn
 
I think Paul is about right with 1904. 1834 is probably a serial number. The earliest Fox Talbot photograph was in 1835.
 
I think it is just an index number on the photo. Looking at the post where the picture was lost from during the 2011 'hack attack', a date possibly 1910 was mentioned see quote below ... click the blue arrows ...
Ian FOFB said:
The 'then' pictures are taken from old postcards, the 'now' pictures taken from Google Streetview.
The older of the pictures is thought to date from the 1910's. Ian.
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I've got my Dad's christening robe from 1920 made by Great Grandmother and it is really long and full like the Royal one but in fine cotton and lace. In the family christening pictures it looks like that!! It would be crushed in a pram.
rosie.
 
Looking at the unusual position of the trees in Church Lane Handsworth c1920, I noticed what looks like a kilt-wearing man, the first I've seen in a forum pic ! With regard to the trees, I suppose they were there first and they just left them when they widened the lane, but eventually with more cars in use someone wisely decided those trees had to go.
Handsworth_Church_Lane_1920.jpg
 
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Not a Birmingham street scene, unfortunately, but of Berlin. But it DOES show a couple of Brummie businessmen photographed by the side of their Birmingham car, a long way from its normal surroundings. It is the summer of 1932 and the man on the right is my father.

Look at the chap sitting in a taxi, on a side street to the right. What is he looking at and thinking, one wonders? When I researched this image and wrote it up a few years ago, this is what I thought.

.....Note the taxi, waiting on the far side of the street, in the Kronenstrasse to the right. The cabbie is looking across at us, his expression one of idle curiosity as he awaits his next fare; or is it one of unfriendly suspicion as he looks at this group of foreigners and their unfamiliar vehicle? And who knows, perhaps only fifteen or so years previously he and my father, as mere boys filled with fear and hatred, had peered out at one another from each side of an expanse of tangled barbed wire and French mud....

Perhaps a timely thought for August 4th 2014.

Chris
 

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What a unique and interesting photo from a "Rich Brummie", my dad was in the army in Singapore at this time, putting the famous 15" guns in for the Singapore defence. Paul
 
Fascinating photos Chris - a motoring trip to Berlin in the year before Hitler came to power as Chancellor! As you mentioned on your website about your father and his colleague representing ICI Kynochs munitions manufacturers I would think that the German authorities would be quite interested in them. Suspicious thoughts about that cabbie across the street are probably justified.

I often wonder about people in the old photos and looking at a large parade of Birmingham tram drivers (motormen) in post #529 and a comment in post #545 led me to think about a WW1 situation concerning Germans living in Birmingham during the war. Not having access to reports in the Birmingham Mail Archives I found myself reading an article in a Singapore newspaper about a Birmingham businessman who was Consul of the German empire and was charged under the 'Trading with the Enemy Act'.
 
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Absolutely agree with Paul and Phil - really fascinating photo. I'd say it was a certainty that Germany would have been interested in their activities. Did your father and his colleague ever have suspicions that they were being monitored? You do wonder about the briefing they'd have had before travelling there. And I wonder how much info they'd have gained about the competition from visiting German businesses. Expect the knowledge they'd gained would have been of real interest back home too. Viv.


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A Riley Monaco, of late 1930/early 1931 manufacture, Paul. Only established this when researching the image - it wasn't my father's car. It must have belonged to one of his two colleagues on the trip (one in the picture and one behind the camera; there is another, similar image showing rather more of the street but this time with my father clicking the shutter).

Hadn't ever considered the sinister aspect which has been raised, but you never know, of course. My father was on the metal-bashing side of the Kynoch business, rather than the munitions. Bang-bang as opposed to whizz-bang! And Germany was a different place in the summer of 1932 compared with what it was to become only six months later.

Chris
 
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Maybe mum on the right has just met her teenage daughter coming back from a forbidden meeting with her boy friend as they stand facing each other in Church Lane Handsworth in 1915 ... or they are just standing still for the photographer .... or a duel ....:D
Handsworth_Church_Ln_4_1915.jpg
 
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I reckon she was meeting her off the school bus (the cart that can be seen driving away).
What a lovely photograph this is though and what a change from the Church Lane of today.
 
Hi oldmowhawk and Phil
Have you crossed check whether or not was there any private schools around in that lane as I recall from records around hands worth area
There was loads of
Private schools in and around in those days and a lot of roads and lanes looked like that in those early days
My mother was born June 1926 and from a very early age went to a
Private school up until she left and they wore some kind of uniform but what type of hat she wore or skirt
For some reason it was the road left of villa road where it forked from Soho red and facing st Michaels hill
But never or less going back to the thread question could have been a school down that lane
Best wishes astonian,,,,,
 
Perhaps the photographer had a sense of humour and was staging a scene, almost looks like a duel but maybe not in the Handsworth of those days!
 
Alan, my cousins Pam and Linda Manton, who lived in Vicarage Road, went to "Soho Collage", on The Soho Road, in the 50's.Pasul
 
Hi paul,
I can recall the college but the period I am looking for would around the 1930 31 years I tried many years ago researching the private sector on through vazriuos methods about ten years ago on this site and through old records and there was numerous ones around hands worth in those early years
It was impossible. To track down and as I have no relies from her back ground or period to asked so I expect I will never know the answer
Thanks paulfor co king through the name Manton rings a bell with me best wishes Alan astonian,,,,,
 
Hi Alan, my uncle Horace Manton was a tool maker and turner, but I believe that this Grandfather's family, was involved in the Gun making business "Manton Brothers".Paul
 
Hi paul
I will try and dig out my old records tomorrow regarding the Manton bothers gun bussines as I know that my ancesters. Was involved
With the gun trade way back in the 1800 s and right through to the mid fifties my an esters was gun barrellers and producers and sellers
When steel house lane was just little tiny huts all the way down as facing the central lock up
And years later they had a huge shop in old cards lane selling sports and shot guns
I recall there shop in cards lane and vividenly those little gun making work shops where they made them and sold them as a kid
But at that time strolling around I never took to much notice until later in life but I did take heed of cards lane shop
Which I used to look in quite often
Great grand fathers went into the gun trade along with another gun smith trades man is name was illesley the coal yard merchants
Of church lane Aston and he financed the business in fact it was one of the illesley daughter whom married one of the jelfs
And he approached illesly into making pistols this info, incidently is first hand info,from a older living person alive today
Whom is still in touch she is a grand daughter to ilserely and a relative to me through family generation
Apperently they made pistols and later I presume its when the shot gun business took off
But any way paul I will have to sign off now as I have got to get ready as we are off to Stratford country and western show
Where I will be doing habit of shooting myself today even thou the weather is habit murkie here in Worcestershire
As I said I will dig out my very old records on my ancesters. Business and mantons brothers I do recall from along time ago
Do you know paul some times I forget peoples names but no matter how long in years have lapted I can recall faces but its not very often
That I for get names still the weather is brightening up here now paul so I will go and round up my gear and come back to you at some point
Tomorrow best wishes Alan ,,, astonian,,,
 
Watching the camera in Trinity Road. They could safely stand in the road and be in a street pic and one chap sits on his wheelbarrow or cart, photography was slow in those days. I would think none of those in the pic ever saw it.
Aston_Trinity_Rd_1904.jpg
 
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A lot of gaberdine macs in this pic. In my late teens I saved up and bought one because all my mates had one ... we thought we were very fashionable, but looking at this pic I now wonder why. Could be 1950 and they are looking at the General Election results, and if so, then 20 months later in 1951 they would be looking again.
3706862-bp2760617_579_447.jpg
 
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Expect a lot of the crowd were on their lunch break - clock reads 12.10ish. Remember my dad wearing a beige/brown belted gaberdine mac with a beret and still using a canvas gas mask bag for work sandwiches many years after the war.

The newspaper office had certainly gone to some effort with the window display. Viv.


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i remember that photo from when it was orginally posted...lovely photo and brilliant clarity...

lyn
 
Lyn
Judging by the date and the likelihood that it was taken by a birmingham post photographer, it was possibly one of those enormous plate cameras, so the quality would be good
 
Vivienne14 said:
Expect a lot of the crowd were on their lunch break - clock reads 12.10ish. Remember my dad wearing a beige/brown belted gaberdine mac with a beret and still using a canvas gas mask bag for work sandwiches many years after the war.

The newspaper office had certainly gone to some effort with the window display. Viv.


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Click to expand...
I had the canvas gas mask bag when I first started work in 1960, felt quite proud as I was still 14. Most of the other men I worked with used the same type of bag for their sandwiches, better than a plastic Tesco bag :)
 
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