When was this mourning photograph taken?

Q This postcard of a very sad-looking woman was one of the very few photographs in the possession of my late Scottish grandmother. Her outfit looks to me like mourning wear.

I feel she must have been a close relative of Granny: either her mother (born 1880 and widowed 1912), or her own grandmother (born 1850 and widowed 1883). Susan Cross A Divided-back postcards were first authorised for postal communication in 1902, and proved a convenient format for photographic portraits. Well-established by 1906–1907, ‘real photo postcards’ (as they are sometimes called) enjoyed their heyday between the 1910s and 1930s, declining after the Second World War. Often purchased in multiples, copies might be sent to friends and relatives, and one or more also kept at home.

Postcards occur in most of today’s family photograph collections, and, although frequently unidentified, can generally be firmly dated from the appearance of their subjects.

In this picture, for example, the lady’s skirt and blouse represent fashions typical of the late Edwardian period. Given her sombre appearance and black glass or jet jewellery, she is most likely to be your great grandmother following her husband’s death in 1912.

Although the tradition for special mourning photographs was in decline by the early 1900s, the bereaved might still adopt mourning dress and commission a portrait, as shown here. Jayne Shrimpton