Meetings Are Held

in the

 United Reform Church

(Opposite The Police Station)

18

Social History From Old Photographs

2/19/2002

Nigel Hammond

Nigel Hammond entertained us with an illustrated talk about the information to be discovered or, at least, deduced from old photographs.

Using a selection of pictures mainly from the old Morland Brewery archives, Henry Taunt and other acquired sets he pointed out various areas of interest to the social historian.

Where people were depicted the various types of clothing showed both the period and the social class and possible age group: ordinary workers with rough clothes and caps, supervisors in suits and bowler hats among Morland groups; similar styles separating Gentlemen and Tenant farmers, with farm labourers also clearly defined at Faringdon Market. Country people in their Smocks and women in the Berkshire Cowl, middle class ladies in Sunday finery with parasols or umbrellas to keep of the summer sun. In one picture of haymaking he pointed out the younger girls with "skirts up and hair down" while those who were no longer girls and might be eligible for marriage had "skirts down and hair up", in other words shorter (mid-calf) or longer (below the ankle) skirts.

Transport of differing eras and purposes were illustrated. The long distance stage carrier's wagon, a 19th Century "school minibus" in the shape of an open vehicle carrying Abingdon Grammar School boys on some type of school outing (possibly a sporting fixture), the wealthy family coach waiting to carry off its owners to the town house perhaps. More modern was the motor coach with a party on a trip to the seaside. The vehicle could be dated to the late 1920's or early '30's by the ventilation shutters at the top of the windows.

Working practices, tools etc. could be seen or guessed at in some of the illustrations. The brewery workers were shown with various tools; in, the rather rare, picture showing both clerical and shop-floor workers there were only males, in the hay making pictures there were probably as many females of all ages as men. With no provision for retirement many people worked into old age illustrated by an old couple and the mid-century picture of an estate gate keeper who Nigel had concluded might have been an old soldier wounded in some campaign, possibly even in the Napoleonic Wars.