Friday's Faces From the Past - The Unknown Bride

A beautiful bride in a beautiful dress but unfortunately I have no idea who she is.

I found the photos - which, I guess are from the 1930s - amongst my cousin Michael's belongings, so the couple may be relations of either of his parents.

Michael's mother was Lillian Thompson (1913-1989) whose parents were John William Thompson and Annie Newnham.  Michael's father was Ernest "Billy" Barton (1900-1980).

Both the Thompson and Barton families were living in the North Yorkshire / County Durham area during the 1930s.  However, Annie Newnham's family came originally from Woolwich, London and the Barton family had Liverpool connections.

Friday Funny - Well Something's Obviously Funny!

Something has obviously amused my great-grandmother - Annie Newnham Thompson - in this photograph, but quite what she's laughing at and who she is with is a bit of a mystery.

I don't think it's my great-grandfather, (John William Thompson), it looks too old.  So it's possible it's her father, William Essex Newnham, or her father in law, another John Thompson.

As to what the mystery man is wearing and what he's got in his arms, I haven't a clue!

Any suggestions?

Mystery Monday - There but not there!

Lillian Newnham, the daughter of William Essex Newnham and Margaret Gill, was born in Guisborough, Yorkshire in 1879.  Her parents had only moved to Yorkshire from Woolwich, London a few years before her birth and  the rest of the Newnham and Gill families - apart from her mother's brother Edward who came north with them - remained in London.

Census records show Lillian living in the Guisborough area with her family in 1881 and 1891 but after that no trace can be found of her in census, marriage or death records and she effectively disappears.

Except she doesn't.  For in the belongings inherited from her nieces - my great aunts - she is ever present.

There are photos of a slightly austere but stylish woman in the 1920s, gorgeous Raphael Tuck Oilette post cards sent to her nieces in  the 1930s and beautifully inscribed books given to her nieces and nephews as birthday and Christmas presents.

Treasure Trove Thursday - Light in a Dark World

The great depression of 1929-1933 was a dark time in the village of Esh Winning as it was across the industrial world.  The mining village, in County Durham in north east England, had never been affluent but in 1930 the depression closed the mine and hard lives got that much harder.

John William Thompson and his wife Annie Newnham, (my great grandparents), had established a small, single room drapers shop in the village and for a few years they had prospered moving to a bigger shop at the centre of the village only just before the recession hit and the mine closed.  Forced to sell out to their largest creditor, John had to resort to selling door to door from a suitcase.  They were better off than many in the village but it must still have been a harsh come down for them in their early fifties.

Talented Tuesday - A "Brown Dog" Nurse

Marjorie Thompson (1910-1945) was born in Hartlepool in County Durham in the north of England. Her father's family had lived in County Durham and the neighbouring county of North Yorkshire for at least 500 years, but her mother's family - the Newnhams - had only moved north from London in the 1870s.

In the late 1920s, Marjorie left Durham for London to train as a nurse.  Marjorie's motivations for choosing to train in London are not clear.  The impact of the great depression on the north east of England was severe and Marjorie's father lost the small shop he kept in the mining village of Esh Winning as a result of it, but Marjorie actually left for London at least 6 months before the stock market crash of October 1929, which is generally seen as the start of the depression and so, it may have been the still strong family ties of the Newnham family that drew her south.