Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Inderwick Road mother and daughter, c1909
The rear of this cabinet card is marked"
"Mummie & Mother Jones, 1908-10. Inderwyck (sic) Rd Crouch End".
I'm assuming that the photo shows a mother and daughter, or perhaps a girl and her grandmother. I'm guessing that the younger subject was in her teens.
There is a row of houses in the background of the photo, running perpendicular to the garden in which it was shot. If the road where the photo was shot has been correctly identified, it can only have been taken in the garden of one of two houses - either Number 2 Inderwick Road, at the south east end of the road, looking up at the houses on Ridge road, or at number 199 Inderwick Road, the very last house on the south side, just before the junction with Tottenham Lane.
If it is number 199, then, the houses in the background would have been those in a row of late Victorian houses numbered 103 to 119 Tottenham Lane. Those were demolished and replaced with the existing buildings towards the end of the last century. So I can't compare their roofline with the one in the background of the photo. Despite Number 2 having been destroyed in the war, the old Ridge Road houses have survived. There are sufficient mismatches between their roofline and the one in the photo for me to discount Number 2 as a possible location. Given this and the fact that the view up to the houses suggests a shallower rather than a steeper gradient, in my opinion it seems probable that the photo was shot in the garden of number 199.
The 1910 Kelly's Directory shows that 199 Inderwick Road was occupied by Arthur Syer. The electoral register of the same year reveals an Arthur Robert Syer at the address. According to the notes on the rear of the photo, the family had moved on before the 1911 census and sure enough that record shows the house in the occupation of a pair of widowed middle aged sisters or friends (judging by their place of birth) living with a single servant. Sadly, beyond the two mentions in 1910, Arthur and his family prove elusive elsewhere in the records. So, I'm unable to cast much light on the characters in the photo.
Going on looks alone, 'Mummie' looks sweet, but I wouldn't want to cross swords with 'Mother Jones'!
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Comment by John Shulver on November 29, 2023 at 17:20
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More interesting detections Hugh and I tend to agree with your closing line !
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This might actually be 195 Inderwick Road. There is a "Jones" family living there in the 1901 and 1911 census.
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Comment by Hugh 12 hours ago
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Thanks. That's a very good suggestion. A "Mrs Jones" also shows at 195 in Kelly's. Even though this was a cursory bit of research, I can't think how I missed that! I suppose I was convinced that the photo was taken in the garden directly behind the Tottenham Lane houses and somehow didn't happen to spot the entry for 195.
If the photo had been shot in the garden of 195, that would be three houses away from the Tottenham Lane houses. Notwithstanding the foreshortening effect of early lenses, I still tend to think it much more likely that the photo was shot in the garden of 199.
It could of course be a photo of Mrs Jones from 195 in the garden of her neighbour at 199 who was perhaps one of those keen middle class Edwardian Photographers. Or, perhaps the Syers, or their successors at 199, the widowed sisters, had a photographer in an Mrs J took advantage of the opportunity to get a snap or two for herself.
A quick internet search for any other photos by "Arthur Syer" brings up images by a namesake in Australia. Arthur K Syer, brother of the artist Walter Syer was a well-known late 19th century street photographer in Sydney. I've tried to establish if our Arthur Robert Syer (ARS) was related to Arthur K Syer (AKS), but ARS seems to have managed to avoid inclusion in all UK censuses (He'd moved on from Inderwick by the time of the 1911 census). In UK records, I can only find him in address directories and electoral records - no help there in establishing family connections. There seems to be no birth, baptism or marriage records for him. This lack of records might suggest birth overseas.
Apparently AKS crossed into the publishing industry through brother Walter, who introduced him to internationally renowned English cartoonist, Phil May. May often used Syer’s images to add authenticity to the backgrounds for his illustrations. It's not beyond the bounds of possibility that through this connection, a son of AKS could have travelled to England for a while. ARS may just have been that son. Who knows. (I'm sure patient research could throw up an answer, but I'm not minded to invest the time).
If "Mother Jones" was the lady at 195, below is an extract from the 1911 census for 195 Inderwick revealing a little more about her.
In 1881 her Welsh husband Evan had been listed as a draper. She described herself as a milliner. Ten years later, living in Hampstead, he was a draper and dressmaker, she a dressmaker. By 1901 Mrs Jones was widowed.
Attached is the census page for 1911
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