Baby photo album: Cool Baby Boy Photo images

Who were they?
baby boy photo
Image by Auntie P
With a few clues from an old postcard, photograph or letter, it is sometimes possible to piece together a profile of the lives of the people who owned them. Tantalisingly, these exercises often open up even more questions that may never be answered.

Who were they?

Harry Kenneth Price Simpkins

Harry (or sometimes Kenneth) was born on 14 April 1883 in Marlborough, Wiltshire, England. Unfortunately he does not seem to appear on the 1891 or the 1901 censuses so I do not know who his parents were.

He travelled to the USA and returned in 1914 aboard the Lusitania just over a year before the ship was torpedoed and sunk in May 1915. He is listed as a Clerk.

In 1923 I found his return from Argentina, along with his wife Carola who I can't locate in the English records so might assume was born in South America. By now he is a Bank Manager.

In 1926 the couple return to these shores again, and Harry is a Clerk for the Bank of London and SA (South America), which is also given as his destination address.

In 1935 the couple are here again and are heading for an address in Gloucestershire. Harry is listed as a Railway Employee this time.

In 1954 he returns to England form Buenos Aires alone at the age of 71 and it is possible that his wife has now died. I have no idea if there were any children, but certainly none travelled with them on the few journeys I have found (I would guess that they were more frequent than these records suggest). Despite his age, he is listed as a Railway Clerk.

Two years later and Harry is back in England again (from Buenos Aires) and is now listed as having no occupation. Presumably he finally retired. His address this time is The Canning Club - a gentlemen's club in London for those with connections to Argentina.

Harry Simpkins died in Islington, London in 1981 at the age of 98.

There isn't a lot of detail but we can piece together a picture of a man who travelled a great deal, who worked and married in Argentina, and who returned frequently to England. We don't know if he had any children and know nothing of his parents (though this could be discovered by purchasing his birth certificate). Why does he not appear on the two available censuses after his birth? Maybe his connection to Argentina began early in life. It is possible that his father also had connections there and moved the family abroad. Maybe, like so many families, they just didn't fill out their census returns.

The other puzzle is Harry's change of occupation from clerk to Bank Manager then back to clerk seems fairly straightforward, but then he leaves banking to be employed in the railway industry. By his apparent final return to England he was a member of a 'gentlemen's club' and this might suggest either some affluence, social standing or at least good connections. So was he the manager of a small bank and then a very important clerk after that? Did the railway industry headhunt him? Or did he lose his 'mojo' after marriage and slide down the ladder over the years.

I am sure that some of the answers are out there and maybe one day I will extend this project beyond these initial musings.

William Walker Gregory

The photographer whose card appears above (the reverse of the portrait) was William Walker Gregory who, at the time this portrait was taken, lived and worked at 30 High Street, Marlborough, Wiltshire, England, with his wife Louisa and two of his three children - Helen and Florence. There was a son between these two girls but no trace of him after the 1871 census when the family lived in Jersey and the boy was about five years old.

William Walker Gregory was the son of William Gregory (born about 1797 in Derbyshire) and Dorcas (I can't find her maiden name unfortunately but she was born about 1795 in Worcestershire). W W Gregory was born in 1833 in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England and was the middle child of three, having two sisters - Mary and Anne. His father was a Master Draper in Huddersfield and died in 1869.

By the age of 18 William Walker Gregory was his father's apprentice and he eventually became a Linen Draper (until at least 1961 and at that time resident at Belmont Terrace, Brunswick Place, Huddersfield). He married Louisa Dyson, daughter of a Cloth Finisher, in 1959. The couple's first child, Helen Louisa Gregory was born in 1863, then Frederick William Gregory in 1866. At some point between Frederick's birth and the arrival of their third child, Florence, in 1969, they moved to Jersey in the Channel Islands. On the 1871 census, William Walker Gregory is listed as a Photographer.

I have found no record of the death of young Frederick and only know that by 1881 the family were back in England (this time Marlborough, where the above photograph was taken). Frederick would have been about 15 or 16 by this time and it is possible that he remained in the Channel Islands, but we can only speculate.

Three years after the 1881 census, this photograph was taken. William and Louisa were still at the same address in 1891, but William died in 1895 at the age of 62.

In 1901 his widow Louisa was living with their married younger daughter Florence in Lewisham. I can't find a record of her death.