Are these little boys off on an outing?

QThis is a photograph that my mum found among my grandmother’s belongings – it’s of her family, but we don’t know anything more. It looks like a cheap family snapshot, as it’s on quite thin paper. Do you think that the two women are the mothers of the young children, or that one of them is the mother, and the other is another relative? We can’t work out how old the women might be, or when the photo was taken, so anything you could tell us about it would be appreciated. We assume both the children are boys, and it looks like they are dressed up for a special outing.

Molly Pennington

AThis photo is definitely an amateur snapshot, taken at precisely the time when home ownership of cameras was rising sharply. Early snapshots were usually set outside, where there was a natural source of light. The setting seems to be the garden of the family home and the subjects are wearing smart outdoor clothing, ready to go out.

The ladies are probably in their 30s or 40s; the left-hand lady sits more prominently in the foreground, so could be the boys’ mother, the other possibly a friend, sister, even a nanny or governess. Perhaps they were going somewhere special, but a century ago genteel families took care with their appearance even when going to the shops.

1 SNAPSHOT PHOTOGRAPHY

Snapshot photography grew common from the 1910s onwards, so look out for further photographs of these ancestors/relatives among family collections. Someone else descended from your grandmother may even recognise them.

2 A STYLISH DATE

The style of dress indicates this group was photographed c1910–1917. The ladies’ stylish tailormade ‘costumes’ (suits) are typical of the late Edwardian or First World War era, their shoe- or ankle-length hemlines confirming a date of at least 1910.

3 CHILDREN’S AGES

Young children’s ages are easily estimated, and their approximate birth years calculated. Considering the c1910–1917 date, these boys’ birth years should fall roughly two years apart between about 1906 and 1912. They have matching tailored coats and picturesque hats – these, and their strong facial resemblance, suggest that they are brothers.

4 CHANGING HEMLINES

The boys’ coat hemlines and knee-length shorts are firmly characteristic of the 1910s: clothes much earlier in date would be longer, but they became shorter, above the knee, by the 1920s.

5 FORMAL DRESS

The left-hand lady looks comparatively formal in her longer tailored coat, more ornate hat and fur boa. The right-hand woman is more plainly dressed in a relatively commonplace pin-striped suit and unpretentious woollen muffler, so could be of slightly lower social status.