E-BAY: I stumble on an amazing family ...

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Morning cuppa. Not very energetic today. Bit damped by failures of last night. So instead of leaping into Carteland or Leicestershire gravyards (Johnny is 'doing' Bardon churchyard on his bike today, notepad at the ready), I went for a wander in ebay. Disappointing. The 'new items' are nearly all old items, recycled. A great failing of ebay. Whenever I get to that naff sketch of Peter Paul Rubens, listed under 'actor', I switch off. Today's 'new' items were pretty naff too. Though I spotted one rather cute picture .. the little girl (age 5) looks as though she has personality and a backbone, the little boy (age 8) looks as if he may be condemned to a future as a rather feeble lad-about-town or a Bunthorny poet. What do you think?

Well, since someone had been kind enough to inscribe 'Eleanor and Ernest' on the back, I thought I'd spend an hour or two looking for them. In Hanley, where the photo was taken. Maybe there would be a wee story ... 

A WEE story. These are the two youngest of a family of nine, who, yes, lived for some time in Hanley. Eight boys and, at the last, this little girl. A bundle of those children made their way -- on their own merits -- into the DNB (I don't have a copy to hand, they never sent me one), knighthoods proliferated in the generation, and one of the two here pictured became a memorable history scholar and a CBE, the subject of a biography ... And -- I was right -- it was little Eleanor Constance Lodge (b Hanley 16 September 1869; d Wolvercote 19 March 1936). 

Brother Ernest Octavius (b Wolstanton 24 January 1866; d Shrewsbury 3 December 1941) ran away to Australia and became ... an actor! Ernest found himself a job, in later life, as librarian at the Shakespeare Memorial Library, Stratford-on-Avon.

Oliver J

The lives of Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge, scientist; Alfred Lodge, mathemetician; Sir Richard Lodge, historian and many of the other Lodges have been recorded largely, so I sha'n't go into them here ...

Maybe the next book on them will include this little photo ... which, I should tell folks, is currently available for a fiver from ebay vendor 1990-russel ...

Oh! I see papa Oliver there too, amongst this gent's stock! Photographed the same day (4 November 1874). Who is selling off the Lodge family history?

And brother Frank (Francis Heawood Lodge) ...