In 1907 my great grandmother Kathleen Mary Cudmore nee Cavenagh (1874-1951) posed for a group portrait with her five sisters, my great grand aunts.
My great great grandmother, Ellen Cavenagh-Mainwaring (1845-1920), Kate Cudmore’s mother, lived in Southsea near Portsmouth from the 1890s, so it seems likely that the portrait was taken there. One of my cousins has a copy printed with the photographer’s name, F. A. Swaine. This was Frank Arthur Swaine (1871-1952), a fashionable photographer, who had studios in Southsea and later in London.
In 1901 Kathleen Cavenagh-Mainwaring had married an Australian surgeon, Arthur Cudmore. They lived in Adelaide with their two daughters: Rosemary, born in 1904, and Kathleen, born June in 1908. In January 1907 the Adelaide newspapers reported Mrs. Arthur Cudmore and her baby had left by the North German Lloyd liner SS Barbarossa for a trip to the old country. In September 1907 she returned to Adelaide by the SS Scharnhorst, a another Norddeutscher Lloyd passenger liner.
I am not sure what the occasion was for the portrait, and the sisters, as adults, were probably not often together. They are posed around Eva, who is holding flowers. She seems to be the focus of attention. I do not know what this signifies.
Eva was born in 1867 and was aged 40 at the time of this photograph. She had married a naval officer, Herbert Gedge, in 1892. She was the mother of two children born 1894 and 1895. By 1907 her husband had retired from the navy and was working for the Khedive of Egypt. In July 1907 Mrs H Gedge and her daughter travelled from Port Said to London.
May was born in 1868 and in 1907 was aged 39 She had married a naval officer, Owen Gillett, in Malta in 1906. In July 1907 she gave birth in Woking, Surrey, to the oldest of her two children.
Kathleen, my great grandmother, was born in 1874, and in 1907 was 33. She had married 1901 and had one daughter in 1904 and a second daughter in June 1908. She was in England on a visit from late December 1906 to August 1907.
Nellie was born in 1877 and was 30 in 1907. She had married a naval officer, Thompson Horatio Millett, in 1902. They had three children including a son born in June 1907 in Southsea.
Queenie was born in 1879 and aged 28 in 1907 and unmarried. She married in 1939.
Kiddie was born in 1882 and aged 25 and unmarried in 1907. She married in 1919.
In the photo May can be seen wearing a bracelet. Her granddaughter wrote to me: “My mother had a story that when they all came to England for the first time an ‘Uncle’ Jo (who owned a gold mine) gave Mabel as much gold as she could hold in her hand (sadly she had small hands) and this gold she had made into 3 bracelets in Hong Kong. For herself she had a bracelet in the form of a snake – Sammy – which you can see in the photo.” The three bracelets are still with members of the family.
I do not know who ‘Uncle Jo’ was.
The MyHeritage photograph app dates this photo to 1905. My guess of 1907 is based on my great grandmother’s visit to England in that year. None of the sisters look as though they are expecting children. Perhaps it was taken in August 1907, after the births of Michael Gillett in July and Guy Millett in June.
The photograph is evocative of the Edwardian era, with the voluminous hairstyles and the elaborate dresses abundant with lace. The dresses fit the period 1906 to 1908, at least as illustrated in a blog post by fashion historian Debbie Sessions, at:
Related posts
Wikitree:
- Eva Mainwaring (Cavenagh) Gedge (1867 – 1941)
- Mabel Alice (Cavenagh) Gillett (1868 – 1944)
- Kathleen Mary (Cavenagh) Cudmore (1874 – 1951)
- Helen (Cavenagh) Millett (1877 – 1918)
- Alice Mainwaring (Cavenagh) Magee (1879 – 1952)
- Gertrude Lucy (Cavenagh) Bennett (1882 – 1968)
This post was created as part of Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. This week’s theme is “Favourite photo.”