Wakefield Sisters By Horace Warner
Wakefield Sisters
In his Spitalfields albums, Horace Warner collected together all the portraits that he made of the people who lived in Quaker St around 1900 and, because he captioned some of them with their names, we have been able to trace the biographies of his subjects in the public records.
When you see this tender portrait of Jessica Wakefield in her clean apron and her younger sister Rosalie in her check dress, poised upon the threshold of life, it is impossible not to wonder what happened to these two and thus it imbues the photograph with an even greater resonance to discover that they lived to the ages of ninety-four and eighty-four respectively.
Observe how Jessica places her arm protectively around her little sister who was four years and half years younger than she. Jessica had been born in Camden on January 16th 1891 and Rosalie at 47 Hamilton Buildings, Great Eastern St, Shoreditch on July 4th 1895. They were the second and last of four children born to William, a printer’s assistant, and Alice, a housewife.It seems likely they were living in Great Eastern St at the time Horace Warner photographed them, when Jessica was ten or eleven and Rosalie was five or six.
Jessica married Stanley Taylor in 1915 and they lived in Wandsworth, where she died in 1985, aged ninety-four. On July 31st 1918 at the age of twenty-three, Rosalie married Ewart Osborne, a typewriter dealer, who was also twenty-three years old, at St Mary, Balham. After five years of marriage, they had a son named Robert, in 1923, but Ewart left her and she was reported as being deaf. Eventually the couple divorced in 1927 and both married again. Rosalie died aged eighty-four in 1979, six years before her elder sister Jessica, in Waltham Forest.
These bare facts deliver a poignant dramatic irony to Horace Warner’s photograph, once we know what life had in store for the Wakefield Sisters. We hope they remained close and were able to support each other through the travails and joys of life. Once Jessica & Rosalie come alive to us as individuals, we are left to contemplate the moment of stillness in 1900 that was captured for eternity by this picture.
Vicky Stewart worked with Helen Green, Lesley Law and Jacqueline T Ward for months this summer researching the biographies of the Spitalfields Nippers and, although Horace Warner only named a few of his subjects and we were not able to trace all of these, we hope those published in the book comprise a representative selection which may suggest a broader picture of the lives of the children in the photographs.
You can see more of Horace Warner’s SPITALFIELDS NIPPERS and read their biographies in today’s edition of The Guardian Magazine
All Publication Rights in these Photographs Reserved
Click here to order a copy of SPITALFIELDS NIPPERS by Horace Warner
My SPITALFIELDS NIPPERS lecture at the Bishopsgate Institute on 4th November is sold out, but I shall also be showing the photographs and telling the stories at WATERSTONES PICCADILLY on WEDNESDAY 19th NOVEMBER at 7pm. Admission is free to this event and tickets are available but must be reserved piccadilly@waterstones.com
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An Astonishing Photographic Discovery
Faber Factory Plus part of Faber & Faber are distributing SPITALFIELDS NIPPERS nationwide – so if you are a retailer and would like to sell copies in your shop, please contact bridgetlj@faber.co.uk who deals with trade orders.
Lovely writing GA, it’s wonderful that people are interested in these stories from the past. Good luck with this newest bbok.
Another wonderful book from Spitalfields Life Books.
An eye-opening set of images and this http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/25/spitalfields-nippers-photography-horace-warner-gentle-author is the link over on Guardian. An interesting dialogue happening in the “comments” 🙂
I’m awaiting this phantastic book!
Love & Peace
ACHIM
It will be in the mail to you on Monday!
What an incredible venture. Looking forward to many hours perusing these pictures.
Thank you so much for providing the background on the children in the photos. The Guardian link provided by Rupert Bumfrey also has another link to photos and further descriptions of some of the children. It’s so poignant to see what happened to them; one little boy, when he grew up, ended up being killed in WWI. The level of poverty (and struggle) is appalling – although, sadly, it’s still prevalent in many countries of the world.
Wonderful. A beautiful picture.
Jessica Frances, was born 16th Jan 1891, and baptised 2nd Mar 1891. In 1898, at the age of 7, she was enrolled at the Curtain Road School. She appears in the 1891 census, living at 138 High Street Camden, along with 4 other families. By 1901 the family had moved to 47 Hamilton Buildings, Gt. Eastern Street. In 1902, age 11, she attended the Halley Street (later Martin Frobisher Secondary) School. By the time of the 1911 census, the family had moved again, to 129 Cowick Rd, Upper Tooting, where she was working (with her father?) on a printer sticking machine. She married, as we’ve seen in 1915. By the time of the 1939 register, she and her husband (who was a compositor at a printers shop) were living at 69 Rowfant Road, Wandsworth, she had become a housewife doing “unpaid domestic duties”. They seem to have lived at this address (later changed to 69 Rowant Mansions), up until 1965, by which time they were living at 24 Killieser Avenue, Lambeth. Their fortunes seem to have taken a downward turn by this time, as they are again sharing with two other families. The records then go very quiet about her, until her death, at the age of 95.