Well, I had my well-earned bacon (splendid shortcut from Cole's) and eggs (the biggest yellowest very-free-range eggs ever, from the amazing Mr Gallagher of Kungala Rd), but you have to do something between mouthsful ...
And there was this on my screen :
Victorian Cabinet Card: Hargreaves: Dorchester: 1863: Very Unusual Brides?
I turned it over, and handwritten on the back in pencil is 'S H Hargreaves, Dorchester, August 1863'. Wait. That's not a 3. Its a lazy five.
Easy, this one. It wasn't taken at Dorchester. And Mr Hargreaves was't the photographer. He was just one of the subscribers to the photograph, taken by the local Mr Stringfellow, of this bridal beanfast at Beaminster, Dorset, 24k from Dorchester, in August 1865. And, probably, a wedding guest. Of course, there was only one bride: that's her, Sarah Hine (b Beaminster 18 May 1837; d Ross-on-Wye 1906), seated at the front. The rest are her bevy of bridesmaids, as listed in the local press ...
Mr Hargreaves doesn't get a mention, but see! Mr Stringfellow's photo does. Fancy a copy having survived 150 years ...
Until nowadays, when we can easily find that all these 'Esq's were nothing of the sort. Sarah's papa, the widowed Phillip Hine was a wine merchant, of Beaminster East Street. Obviously they drank a lot down Dorset way for him to be able to splash out on such a showy wedding. Especially when he had weddings for Susan, Clara and Emily yet to come.
Bridegroom, George Heywood Hadfield followed his father into the chemical manure business in Cheshire, the couple had three sons and a daughter, Sarah died in 1906 and George in 1910. Ancestry.com hosts a family tree of the Himes and Hadfields. So there's someone out there who I think would love this photo ... if they knew, as I do, that that's what it is!
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