Mrs Ralston's Photograph

Over the years we have collected some really old family photographs - glass negatives and, possibly, some tintypes as well as the usual snapshots, and today we got out the framed pictures with the intention of photographing them.

One picture is particularly interesting as it is still in its frame but the frame is falling apart, allowing us to remove the picture. After a lot of internet research, I think that the picture must be a tintype which has been coloured. It fits most of the criteria - the image is on metal, it can only be viewed properly at the right angle, it has been tinted or coloured and, from the style of lady's costume, appears to have been taken around 1887-1888.

On the frame backing there is a postage label. "Don't Crush", it implores, and is addressed to my great grandmother, Mrs Ralston (nee Ellery) of 2, Sea View Buildings, Hoylake Road, Moreton. The sender was Howard Ford & Co., Ltd., Russell Buildings, School Lane, Liverpool. I immediately hot-moused it to my favourite site, Liverpool Photographers, but there was no mention of Howard Ford. Then reality took over. This lady is wearing a bustle, Mrs Ralston had the shop at Sea View Villas around about 1930, the two don't match. A quick look at Kelly's 1938 Directory for Liverpool and suburbs revealed the answer: The afore-mentioned Howard Ford & Co., Ltd., were hosiery manufacturers (they later became famous for the Bear Brand range of quality lady's stockings and tights); Mrs Ralston's shop was a gentleman's and lady's outfitters, selling, amongst other things, socks and stockings. During the 1920's or 30's the frame had been in need of repair and the cardboard packaging from a recent delivery of hosiery had been recycled for the purpose. That also explains why the postage label demanded "Don't Crush" instead of "glass - fragile - handle with care".

And who is this lady, so smartly dressed? The postage label does help, because we now know where that picture was between the wars. With the help of other photographs and glass plates, we believe the lady to be Mrs Ralston, herself, when she was about 20 years old and known as Miss Amelia Ellery of 24 Grampian Road, Liverpool.

Alexander Ralston

One of my grandmothers was a Ralston - Gertrude Maud Ralston. This is one of those families where you find the earliest recorded person first and then gradually prove the connection as more and more information becomes available on the internet. That first person was Alexander Ralston who was listed in the Liverpool Poll Book of 1832 as a Block Maker of Upper Frederick Street, Toxteth.

Yesterday I revisited the excellent Toxteth Park Cemetery Site, a free site, generously given, and now graced with a site search engine. A quick search for "Ralston" provided a lot of new information. Alexander's wife, Sarah [Coleman] died in 1876, his daughter-in-law, Catherine, died in 1862 and one of her children died in 1863 - along with another of Alexander's grandchildren; the two babies, who would have been first cousins, were buried together in one ceremony. There were other, previously unknown, children, too. Sites like this are excellent for finding those children who were born and who died between the census years and who can't be identified from the bmd records (usually because the surnames are too common). My next task is to find out why there were so many deaths at this time - was it the Lancashire Cotton Famine or the cholera epidemics or some other reason?