I was searching the web over the weekend in an effort to double-check some of the facts in my family tree and decided to see if I could find out anything more about the Old Bat's great great grandfather who was a fairly prominent Brighton citizen in the second half of the 19th century. What I came up with was a number of photographs taken by his son, the OB's great grandfather in the 1860s. The one above is of St Nicholas church, the old parish church of Brighton. This stands on a hill above the old town and before all the high-rise construction was prominent enough to be used as a landmark by fishermen. Great grandfather must have been one of the earliest photographers - Brighton was in the forefront of the development of photography - and he even experimented with stereoscopic pictures. The pair below were taken in the engine sheds at the Brighton engine works where 7000 children were treated to tea to celebrate the marriage of Edward, Prince of Wales and Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Stereoscopic views of the decorated railway shed could be purchased singly for one shilling (10 pence) or the customer could buy a complete set for 6 shillings.
All the pictures are owned by the Regency Society and are held at Brighton Museum. These and thousands of others can be seen on the Society's web site here.
Real treasure for a family historian.
2 comments:
It is so rewarding to find 'gold' when doing genealogical research. And my don't the hours pass away while your finding it? Have you found photographs of people as well? In case you don't already use it, I can highly recommend Ancestry.com or in your case, ancestry.co.uk.
Thanks - I do use ancestry, and also familysearch.org
No, I've found no photos of people, tho' I do already have some from about 1890 which have survived somehow.
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