The postman of Cheddleton 1886 ...

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Sometimes an old photograph is so irresistible that it just has to be investigated. ..

No, he's not off to fight in the American Civil war. Its been over for twenty years. This is an Englishman, a Staffordshireman ... and I'm off in an improbable search for his tale

At first glance, it looks like N S Johnston, postman 1886 ... but peering closer ... hmmmm.

So I shall attack the photographer first. Moss Lee Mill ...

Here it is. Did one actually live in the mill? Ot is/was it an appendage of Moss Lee Farm? Well, I hied me to the 1881 and 1891 censi ...

There are plenty of Cordens in the four small divions of Cheddleton. But Moss Lee Farm is staunchly the home of the Fernyhough family ..

The Cordens are all at the other end of 'town'. There are Josephs, but none of them seem to have a camera ... 'labourer in a dye factory' 'agricultural labourer' ...

Try another angle... ah! CORDEN, Uriah b 27 June 1796 at Cheddleton, died 23 February 1869 at Moss Leigh Mill, Cheddleton ... sigh. No luck. In 1861 Moss Lee Mill is inhabited by one Smith Braddock, miller and farmer, wife Mary Ann, and their eight current children. And Moss Lee Farm, which evidently is not the same thing, by Ralph Alcock, farmer of 197 acres, his wife, and fourteen children! Not much to do in Cheddleton in the evening, it seems. 

So where is Uriah?

Well, there was a Uriah ('shoemaker') who did have a son named Joseph ... who worked as a child in a paper mill .. then an ag lab .. but that Uriah had died in 1856 ..  However, there is another one, with occupation of house, mill and land, at Brookhouse Mill in 1856? ... Wait a mo ...

And that Uriah had children Eliza, George, Martha, Alice, Josiah, Caroline, Mary, Esther, Ellen ... Oh, this is no good, I'm getting nowhere. I have a feeling, anyhow, that Joseph was not a very professional photographer, and not for very long. Oh! wait another mo!  Josiah had a son Joseph. 1861-1894. I think I've found my man ... father is milling in Milton in 1871 and 1881, and son Joseph is 'invalid for thirteen years'. And -- gottim! -- 1891: Joseph Corden, 29, photographer and picture-framer, Cinderhill, Norton in the Moors. Poor chap. Invalid from the age of six ... died at 32 or 3 ...

And I think his stamp might have been a wee bit out of date. In 1887 the Mill was occupied by Mr W Tansley 'painter, can write, gild and do carriage lining'.

So! I've got to look beyong Cheddleton for Mr Johns(t)on the postman. Mind you, if that really is a letter 'N' that narrows the search hugely. Noah? Nehemiah? Nathaniel?

No good. I'll put him away and look at him afresh tomorrow ...