Family photos post 24 Jun 1901

Six weeks after the death of former Papal Zouave, Alexander John Wilson Jnr, his son (also Alexander John) married Martha Bayldon on 5 August 1901 at St Anne’s Church in Leeds.  There is a beautiful photo of the occasion which looks to have been taken in the garden of the Wilsons’ house in Camp Road.

In addition to the bride and groom, it is possible to identify one or two of the guests with certainty as they appear in other photos.  The youth ‘with attitude’ to the left of the bride is the groom’s brother John Blakeley Wilson.  His other brother, Arthur Taylor, is standing third from the right.  Their sister Agnes Mary Alice is the bridesmaid, sitting on the ground, on the right-hand side.

Understandably Caroline Wilson, mother of the groom, does not appear following the recent death of her husband but I think the lady in dark clothing, sitting on the right-hand side of the picture is likely to be her niece Clare Emily Walker.  She was the daughter of Martha Walker (nee Blakeley, Caroline’s elder sister) and both Clare and her mother, appear in another photo below.

 

The bride Martha Bayldon had four surviving brothers when she married.  The eldest, Joseph, was 27 and did not marry until 1902 although his fiancée Jane might have attended – perhaps they are the couple on the right-hand side.  The next brother, William, was 25ish and married to Hannah.  She might be the woman seated to the right of the groom with William being one of the two men behind her (although the chap next to the groom looks more like a relative from the Wilson side of the family).  Another brother, Richard was about 18 and the youngest George was 16.  I would guess that they are the lads standing on the left-hand side of the photo.  Martha’s only surviving sister, Frances (nearly 6) is likely to be the bridesmaid on the left, looking very sad.

Martha’s father John Bayldon was 54 and her mother (also Martha) was 51 at the time of the wedding.  None of the men in the photo look to be as old as 50 although Martha Snr could be the lady on the left as the bridesmaid seems to be leaning against her suggesting a close relationship.  She looks younger than 50 though?  Perhaps she is an aunt or other Bayldon relative.

The next two photos are of the wedding, some six years later on 5 August 1907, of 26-year-old John Blakeley Wilson (the youth with attitude above) and 17-year-old Gertrude May Johnson.   Here are the bride and groom:

  

Sadly, the group photo has faded so that it is difficult to make out the detail in the dresses of the women in the picture.  I have tried to bring out the detail a bit more in the second version below.

Again, it is possible to identify the Wilson side of the family with reasonable certainty.  John Blakeley Wilson is centre back, standing behind his bride Gertie.  On his right are his mother Caroline and his two brothers Alexander (aged 27) and Arthur (21).  Sister Agnes (19) is sitting in front of their mother, to the right of the bride.  Alexander was the only one of the three brothers to have already married and I think his wife Martha is the woman seated on the left of the photo.

Moving to the Johnson side of the family, Gertie’s mother Mary Johnson (aged 54) must be the woman in black to the left of the groom.  Mary Johnson was around 13 years younger than her husband John William Johnson and was his second wife (the first, Ellen, died in 1876).  So John William, Gertie’s father, must surely be the man with the long white beard.  Gertie’s elder sister Martha Elizabeth (aged 25), one of the witnesses to the marriage, is presumably the woman sitting on her left and their brother, Thomas Wilfred (19), the young man on the left of the photo next to his father.  Another brother died in childhood.  There were also two half-brothers from John Johnson’s first marriage, Arthur Vincent and Sidney Hearn, but they were both in the forties and do not appear in the photo.

That leaves the girl seated on the right.  I’m wondering if she is Martha Wilson’s young sister, Frances Bayldon (the bridesmaid looking sad in her sister’s wedding photo) who would have been nearly 12 when John and Gertie married – I am not sure though.

Assuming Gertie’s mother, Mary Graham, is the woman in black above, I think the following photo taken in Scarborough in 1874 shows Mary around the age of 20. 

‘Miss Graham

Presented to E Johnson

Oct 24^th 1874’ 

is written on the reverse.  I am guessing that E Johnson is Ellen Johnson, first wife of Mary’s husband John - in which case it looks like Mary was Ellen’s friend long before she became married John in 1881, five years after Ellen’s death.  Ellen was staying in Scarborough with her two sons at the time of the 1871 census so she certainly had connections with the place.  The Grahams lived in Swan Street, off Lands Lane in the middle of Leeds in 1871, whilst the Johnsons lived in North Street. 

The next photo is of a christening.  The Wilson boys, Alexander, John and Arthur are standing at the back on the left and their sister Agnes is to the right of Arthur.  Their mother Caroline is sitting in front of Alexander and I think his wife Martha is to the right of her mother-in-law with a baby on her knee.  The dresses worn by Agnes and Martha and the Wilson brothers’ suits bear a distinct resemblance to those in the photo of John and Gertie’s wedding which gives an indication of the likely date.

I think the very old lady in the centre of the photo is Caroline Wilson’s mother, Alice Blakeley.  She was born in around 1814 and died in 1909.   As Alice is in the centre of things, this would seem to be a Blakeley family christening. 

Looking at family events generally and the photo of John Blakeley Wilson’s wedding above, my guess is that this photo was taken, just over a month after that wedding, on 8 Sep 1907.  That was when two of Alice Blakeley’s great grandchildren were baptised on the same day.  The first, Stanley Freeman, was born on 16 January 1906 and hence would have been nearly 1 year and 9mths old at the time of the photo – I’m assuming he is the little lad in the sailor suit.  The second was Stanley’s brother Harry who was born on 28 Apr 1907 and so just over four months old.  Presumably he is the baby in the arms of his mother with the dark ribbon round her neck.  If I’m correct, the mother is Fanny Freeman. 

Fanny’s husband Edgar is presumably the man with the moustache directly behind her with his mother Maria Freeman (also with a ribbon round her neck) standing in front of him, to the right.  She was Alice Blakeley’s youngest daughter and Caroline Wilson’s younger sister.

In front of Edgar Freeman, to the left, could be his youngest brother Willie (who was 17/18 at the time of the photo) and that must be their father William Freeman, standing behind Willie and next to Edgar.

I think the older couple on the right are likely to be Martha Walker (nee Blakeley) and her husband David.  Martha was the elder sister of Caroline Wilson and Maria Freeman.  The woman sitting on the ground, leaning against Martha Walker, must surely be her daughter, Clare Emily.  Clare also appears in the wedding photo of Alexander John Wilson above.  The other woman sitting on the ground, on the left, is probably Florence Freeman, only daughter of William and Maria and sister of Edgar and Willie.

If the photo is of the christening in September 1907, the other baby in the photo, sitting on his mother’s lap on the left must be three-month-old Alexander John Wilson, born 2 June 1907, the son of Alexander and Martha Wilson whose marriage photo appears above.

Alice Blakeley also appears in the photo below which looks to have been taken in a photographer’s studio.  This is followed by a photo of her daughter Caroline Wilson, taken on her 63^rd birthday on 18 June 1908, which was sent to one of her children (probably John).  The identical vase appears in both photos (if not the same flowers) which suggest that they were taken by the same photographer.

Another photo of Caroline Wilson in this was taken much later in life (although it is not dated).

 This is a photo of Caroline’s middle son, John Blakeley Wilson, probably taken around 1940.

And here are two photos of his three sons. The first was taken in the early 1920s and shows John Graham (Jack) in the middle, Frederick James (Jim) on the left and George on the right. 

The second photo is probably from around 1930 with Jack on the left, Jim in the middle and George on the right.  Jack was the only one of the three to live to old age.  Jim died in a car crash in Armley Road, Leeds, on 2 December 1939.  He had just turned 26 and left wife Joan and one year old son John.   George died suddenly on 22 December 1948, aged 37, after extraction of a tooth. 

The eldest brother Jack married Mabel Hines in 1936.  Mabel died in 1973 and Jack in 1987.  

Finally, here is a photo of Gertie and John Wilson in the early 1950s with their only grandchild who was named John Blakeley Wilson after his grandfather.  John Blakeley Wilson Snr died in Leeds on 19 May 1954 and Gertie on 21 January 1964.