By law, the parish churches of the Church of England could impose an annual levy on the inhabitants of the parish for the recovery of their annual repair costs. Those having to pay would be householders with the house over a certain rateable value. St Martin’s was, and still is, the Parish Church of Birmingham and the levy was determined at the St Martin’s Annual Vestry Meeting.
This meeting was usually held on Easter Tuesday and any inhabitant of the Town could attend. Continue reading
A group of prints featuring angels, reproduced from Victorian lantern slides.
Lantern slides are a very good source for the depiction of angels. This is not surprising given that Church halls were frequently used for lantern shows.
So here is a selection, mainly rather beautiful, but in one case gruesome and beautiful at the same time.
Two of our slides, “Angels are near” and “the Spirits’ Flight” were used by Margaret Barker in her book “An extraordinary gathering of angels”.
Mostly lantern slides collected at random. The exposure times were a bit too long to get a sharp image of Princess Christian as she left New Street Station en route to open the General Hospital.
Personalities of the period, from lantern slides, engravings, cartes-de-visites and woodburytypes.
The first group are cartes-de-visites of the Royal family taken by Mayall including some dated 1st March 1861. The second group shows the Prince of Wales and the Princess of Denmark, to become Princess Alexandra, and her family. The next group includes the official photograph released for the Diamond Jubilee. The last two photographs are from stereocards of the funeral procession of the Queen and show the German Emperor, the Kaiser, walking on the right of King Edward, and the veiled ladies of the court walking behind.
Images taken from French glass stereo-positives. One looks as though it is taken from half way up Notre Dame and has an estimated date of 1855. Image 6 is included for the figure of a man on the roof of the hut!
Probably Birmingham’s first female professional photographer. She had a studio in Edgbaston. Her name is written on a number of these lantern slides and they may have been exhibited at Birmingham Photographic Society.
A selection from a stack of lantern slides by AGB found in a junk shop in Erdington. Those selected look to be from holidays in this country, and the Alps.
We know the photographer’s initials, WLFW, and we know the date, 1910, but that is all. An obvious ‘eye’ for a good photograph.
A miscellaneous collection picked to show some of the contrasts of the day. The ‘Promenade’ might well be the Sunday afternoon parade at Scarborough.
