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Alfred Willingale - One of the 'Loppers'.
There is some confusion over who is in this picture
Repository: Essex Record Office
Level: Category Illustrations
Level: Fonds MINT PORTRAITS
Level: Item Photograph of Tom Willingale, "The Last of The Loppers"
Level:
Item Reference Code I/Pb 23/28
Graham Richards confirmed on 02/09/2009 the following:
Handwritten on the back, in pencil, is 'Tom Willingale The last of the Loppers'. Then in blue Biro someone else has written 'Jnr'. The only other mark is an 'Essex Record Office Stamp' , apparently an old version indicating that the photo has been in the ERO's possession for some years. The photo is in a large box type album along with other photo's in alphabetical order, each in a plastic wallet. The numbers in the 'Item Reference Code' are 'Alphabet Letter/Photo Number. So our photo is Letter number 23 (W)/28th photo of that letter. The Album I had was for letters S-Z. All these albums are of photo's collected by the Record Office over time and are of 'unknown sources'. So no provenance I'm afraid.
I took with me prints of Alfred (2) and Thomas, with the names blanked out and discussed them with a couple of archivists and both tended to agree that two (Alfred) were of the same person, with the one shown with a branch over his shoulder being earlier than the other, one suggested maybe late 19th/early 20th century. One archivist then spotted that in the photo is a Barbed Wire fence (it's clearer on the ERO copy) so we Googled 'Barbed Wire - History of' and found that it was invented around 1870's in the USA. At this point another archivist joined in and he said that he actually visited the Barbed Wire Museum in the USA last year and remembers that Barbed Wire was invented around the Civil War but the history says that it was patented in 1873/4 which would make it too late to be around when Thomas was alive.
Steven Willingale has a page from an unidentified book with this photo captioned Thomas Willingale Jnr.
EFDC Museum uses this picture next to an article for Thomas Willingale Snr, but from the caption of the photo (Thomas Willingale Aged 77 in 1920) its obvious its Thomas Jnr.
The WFS have had this photo dated, report as follows:
The first paragraph relating to the Thomas photograph also applies here to some extent. This picture again looks to me much like a late 19th or early 20th century photograph, though it appears well-composed and of decent quality, so it may well be a professional portrait, taken outdoors, rather than an amateur ‘snapshot’. This is perhaps also suggested by the greyish, wide-framed mount, which in colour and style is typical of early-20th century card-mounted professional photographs.
This elderly man is also clearly at home in the woodland setting, though I cannot tell whether he is carrying that large branch on his shoulder, or simply resting underneath it. His attire differs to that of ‘Thomas’ above, this outfit being more formal, if a little shabby and shapeless. Essentially he is wearing a dark lounge suit of uncertain date: basic ‘lounging’ jackets similar to this were first worn c.1860 and lounge jackets still form part of the standard male suit today. He also sports a black neck cloth or cravat, an accessory which was fashionable daywear around the mid-19th century, though a dark or coloured knotted scarf or cravat continued to be worn casually by many manual workers until the early 20th century. His hat is less easy to identify and date precisely than the cloth cap in the previous photograph, but various types of hard felt hat similar to this, lower in the crown than a top hat, were developing by the 1860s.
The evidence of the man’s dress, then, offers an unhelpfully broad date – conceivably anywhere from the 1860s to the early-20th century. It is best described as a ‘timeless’ and rather eccentric style, not seen in formal studio photographs and not really suitable for fashionable wear about town, but no doubt completely acceptable for country wear, especially amongst poorer folk and/or an older generation. Nothing seen here absolutely rules out the possibility that this man could be Thomas Willingale himself. However, as mentioned above, this does not have the ‘look’ of a 1860s photograph, and may be considerably later, again perhaps early 1900s, in which case the man could well be, as you suggest, one of Thomas’s sons or nephews.
Because the date here is a little less conclusive, I wonder whether there are any other visual clues in the picture? For example perhaps some kind of fencing specialist could have a stab at roughly identifying/dating the wire fence with its wooden posts?
The WFS note that the fence is made of barbed wire, this was invented in the USA around 1867, although further patents were made in 1874 it was 1876 before mass production took off. Therefore this is very unlikely to be Thomas Snr
Ken Hoy, FOEF has not seen this photo before in his research.
Yet the image we have is called Alfred Willingale - unfortunately how the we came to have this photo is not recorded
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