Elegant Deirdre

A girl on the threshold of womanhood, Deirdre exudes an elegance and sophistication way beyond her years.

The innocence of childhood

And here is Chloe, wearing one of the ‘popular’ hats … a hat which would be fasionable today.

Chloe is innocence personified.

Many of these photos were hand-coloured, or perhaps coloured in Photoshop in more recent times. Some were very badly done. Where this was the case, I converted them back to black and white, then to sepia, and lastly added very delicate colour in Photoshop.

So Chloe may not have been blue-eyed at all!

The very coy Candice

If you’ve ever tried to photograph children, you’ll know how difficult it is to capture a natural expression, especially in a posed shot. Photographers of this period had no option but to pose their shots, yet, with primitive equipment by today’s standards, they were able to capture fleeting expressions in their young models.

Here the photographer catches Candice looking somewhat coy … or perhaps just a tiny bit sullen?

Beth: another Little Woman

Beth is wearing one of the hats which features in a number of the photographs.

Amy … she could have come from ‘Little Women’

I’m thoroughly enjoying the challenge of finding names for the girls … I may need some help after the first couple of hundred! ‘Amy’ has been one of my favourite names since I read Louisa May Alcott’s ‘Little Women’.

Joanna, a child in a splendid vintage hat

Joanna’s faraway expression is intriguing. Don’t you wonder what she’s thinking?

You might have noticed that, so far, all the girls in these photos are wearing hats. Children of all eras just love dressing up, and there is something particularly charming about these little girls wearing hats that could have come from their mother’s wardrobe. However, it is more likely the hats were props in the photographer’s studio, for a number of the girls are wearing the same hats. Joanna’s hat is distinctive though, and could be a clue to her identity.

Jennifer

Wouldn’t it be amazing if I chanced to get some of the names right! Today’s lost child is the lovely Jennifer.

Emily

Banner-girl Emily is today’s lost child. She appears to have been one of the photographer’s favourite models as she appears in a number of the photos.

Lily

Today’s lost child is Lily. She looks as though she’s just danced through a field of flowers.

Have you seen this child?

The first in our Lost Child series

She could be hiding in a family photograph album, perhaps one of your family’s albums, or the album of a family you know. Let’s call her Sophie.

I found her amongst a collection of thousands of photographs now in the public domain. There were many other little girls in the collection, all of them beautiful like Sophie. They were probably born in the late 19th or early 20th century in the UK or America.  I found myself wondering who these children were and what happened to them.  What did they do with their lives? Were they happy or tragic?

It makes me sad when people’s stories die with them, so I’ve embarked on a quest to discover the identity of these children, and hopefully learn something of their stories. This is an exacting test for the  ‘Six Degrees of Separation’  theory because even the descendants of the children may not know what they looked like as children. But someone, somewhere, knows the children of these children, and I want you to help me find them.

I’d love you to join in the quest. If you can provide any clues, please contact me. And don’t forget to tell everyone you know about this blog.

It may all come to nothing, but I’m hopeful that at least a few of the children’s stories will come to light.

If not, I have an alternative plan … to give these beautiful children renewed life by creating ‘new’ stories for them. So if you can’t find any ‘true’ stories, you are invited to write an imaginary episode in the lives of one or more of the children.

In a year’s time I shall put together a collection of the stories – fact and fiction – in a beautiful book.

In the meantime, I’ll post a photo a day.