Figure 1.--Here we see the Alexander family, sometime in the mid-1850s. Note the tunic suit the younger boy is wearing. Also notice the pantalettes the girl is wearing.

We note some large families in the 19th century. Not all families were large, but a number of children seemed the Victorian ideal. Younger boys throughout the 19th century wore dresses. Pattaletts were common. The age of breaching varied from family to family. Here social class was a factor. Boys in the early 19th century wore long pants skeleton suits. Tunics were also worn. Long pants contiued to be standard for boys until after mid-century. Gradually kneepants and knickers became more common. Wenote Eton collars becoming increasingly common by mid-century. Sailor suits became fashionable in the late 19th century, both boys and girls wore them. Girls wore dresses throughout the 19th century and the family photographs help to understand the changes over time.

The 1810s

Unidentified Family (1810s-20s)

Here we have a portrait by an unidentified English artist. There are four children, whom we believe are brothers and sisters. we believe two of the children are boys and two are girls. The boys are the younger children and not yet breached.

The 1820s

Bean Family (1829)

We do not know a great deal about the Bean family, other than they are part of the rising class of industrialists being made rich by the Industrial Revolution. Mrs. Bean's father owned a glass factory. A portrait made in 1829 gives us a tantalizing glimpse of family life in the Regency Period.

The 1830s

Unidentified Children (1830s)

The water color shown here is unidentified. We know nothing about it. Our assessment, however, is that it was painted in England during the 1830s. It was not paintained by a master artist, it is however a charming image and the dresses and hair styles are painted in some detail. We believe the child in the blue dress is a boy, although there is no way to be certain about this.

The 1840s

We have been unable to find many English family portraits from the 1840s. This is probably because the Daguerreotype was not as common as in America. This appears to be because the cppyright of the process was strongly enforced in Britain and thus there was not as many studios and the industry did not grow as rapidly as in America.

The 1850s

Photography was becoming more common in the 1850s. New photographic processes were developed. We note daguerreotype, anbrotype, and tintype portraits in America, For some reason we have been unable to find many of these portraits from Britain. We are not sure precisely why. Surely there must have been mny such portraits taken. Trade mark rules may have impeded the industry's development.

The Alexanders (1850s)

Here we see a substantial Victorian family in the 1850s. Unfortunately we do not know where in England they lived. This is the family of John B. and Anna Alexander. They had 10 children. Victorian families could be quite large. This print came from the photographer's personal album, which had a date range of 1853-1857 on the album itself. The photographer appears to be Richard Dykes. There appear to be seven girls and three boys, although I am not positive about the younger children. The younger boys wears a tunic and notice that it is not a suit in that the tunic and trousers do not match. He also wears what looks like an Eton collar.

The 1860s

We begin to see really large numbers of portraits in the 1860s a a result of the CDV. This was a negative based process and proved enormously popular. The negative pricess permitted the prining of duplicates and prining on paper substantially reduced the cost of a photographic portrait. We see a rang of different fashions. Younger boys wore dresses. Tunics seem less popular than in the 1850s. Many boys wore suits with cut-away jackets with trousers of the same color and material. This was not very common in the 1850s. Younger boys mifgr wear bloomer knickers. Most boys wore long pants. Boys by their teen years wore mpre adult styles suits. All girls wore dresses. Large hoop shirts were popular, but younger girls tended to wear more moderately sized skirts.

The 1870s

Unidentified Leeds Family (1870s)

Here is a carte-de-visite (CDV) portrait by Hanson of Leeds. It shows an unidentified family group of children. We have rarely seen such a great and well-posed CDV. The portrait spaeks highly of the studio. The family is unidentified. Leeds is in Yorkshire which at the time was an important center of the textile industry. This was clearly arosperous family. There are six children. Four are clearly girls. The two younger girls at the sides are dresed identically. The older girls wear a different, but also identical dresses. The boy at the back wears a dark suit. We can't tell much about his outfit except that he has a small white collar. We are unsure about the youngest child. We suspect that he is a boy who has not yet been breeched. The child looks about 4-5 years old. His dress seems similar to that of his sisters, only a darker color. Unfortunately we can not tell what color the dresses are.

Pastor's Family (1870s-80s)

There is a long and amazing story which will result in you getting some SUPERB unique and very rare shots in a LONG series of late 1870s-1880s Middle Class family in South-East England next year. To cut it VERY short... I won an old album for $10 on eBay from the US and when it arrived I could not believe what I saw. HUNDREDS of EXCELLENT unique amateur photos of the family of a country pastor, with about 1/3 of the shots featuring his sons (aged about 9-13 and 13-17 respectively) and their friends, largely full-length with excellent detail on the clothing. Well, earlier this year I visited the village where they were taken and saw the house they were taken at, spent the day with the current pastor and saw the church window that was dedicated to the pastor himself. The album was taken to the Kent County Archives (as the photos and album are beginning to disintigrate and have a shelf life of about another decade before the primitive glue destroys them forever) who have digitally scanned and photographed every shot for their archives and in a few weeks I will have a CD of them all and will send to you one by one. I really am confident this will make up an excellent series of pages

The 1880s

Rigg Family (1885)

A HBC reader tells us, "I have been reading Ellen Shearer's writing about her childhood at Turton Tower Bolton Lancashire between 1895 and 1903. Here is a family portrait. The people in the photographare: back row father holding Ellen; middle row nurse Dean and Trissie, mother and Aunt Lizzie; and front row William with Nurse and Florrie. The photograph was taken at Llandudno, Wales in 1885. They were on vacation. The book is a fascinating account of childhood in turn of the century England."

The 1890s

Lawrence Family (about 1893)

Here we have the family of English literary giant D.H. Lawrence. His father was a hard-drinking coal miner and his mother was a former school teacher. This ultimately caused tension within the family. A family photograph shows the father and mother along with David and his brothers and sisters.

Created: 11:28 PM 10/5/2005
Last updated: 8:18 PM 8/16/2008