WS, Miss Harrison, Nell, Wallis (?), ERS, Rev FM Etherington.
Two photos glued back-to-back, found in a flea market in Brighton. All we had to go on was the handwritten names you see above.
Archive research on Rev Etherington enabled us to locate this photo in Kent, probably when Etherington was vicar of Chevening, and was the clue we needed to identify the church in the photo glued to the back of this one.
Etherington later moved to Minehead in Somerset and became associated with the folklore revival movement. He was good friends with neighbouring vicar, folklorist and Christian Socialist Rev Charles Marson who collaborated with Cecil Sharp and Maud Karpeles, the founders of the English Folk Song and Dance Society.
In later years Etherington intended to write a biography of Charles Marson but never completed this project. Author David Sutcliffe has recently completed his own biography of Marson, for which he drew on Etherington's notes.
I recognise some of the people in the picnic photo. They are mainly the Smithers family who lived in Knockholt.
ReplyDeleteAWS is Alfred Waldron Smithers (1850 - 1924).
ERS is Emma Roberta Smithers nee Theobald (1859 - 1934), Alfred's wife. They married in 1880 and had four sons and two daughters.
Weenie (not Wallis) was the family nickname for Alfred and Emma's eldest daughter, Florence Smithers (1882 - 1962). I assume that Weenie is the girl looking over ERS's shoulder.
The Smithers youngest son was Norman (1887 - 1976) and although I can't quite make it out, it looks like that is the name for the boy to the right of ERS.
If Norman is, say 10 years old, making Weenie 15 (?) that makes the date of the photo about 1897.