by Andrew Gill | Sep 15, 2021 | Gallery, I didn’t expect that!, The Man on the Clapham Omnibus
This is a public park in the early 1900s. The kids are having fun on a rather unusual type of play equipment, presumably provided by the local authority. At today’s prices, there’s several thousand pounds worth of rocking horses here and they would need to... 
by Andrew Gill | Sep 14, 2021 | Gallery, The Man on the Clapham Omnibus
Boys will be boys and dipping a net into a stream to see what you can find has always been part of childhood. They seem to be delighted with their catch! Enjoy this original photograph from our archive. It is low resolution and has a ‘keasbury-gordon.com’... 
by Andrew Gill | Sep 13, 2021 | Gallery, Places, The Man on the Clapham Omnibus
Stick and hoop must be one of the oldest known children’s games. There is evidence that it was played in Greece two and a half thousand years ago. This photograph taken in Glasgow Docks in the 1890s, shows children having fun with the simplest of toys. Perhaps I... 
by Andrew Gill | Sep 12, 2021 | Gallery, Sport, The Man on the Clapham Omnibus
Pigeon fanciers (keepers) are growing in number in the UK and the USA. There are over 50,000 of them in Britain, most of whom also race their birds. The Queen is a pigeon fancier with over two hundred birds on the Sandringham Estate which regularly race other... 
by Andrew Gill | Sep 11, 2021 | Gallery, The Man on the Clapham Omnibus
Ah, a Summer picnic …. what a delightful, Edwardian scene of family harmony. What we can’t see, hear and smell are the flies and wasps, the arguments about who forgot to bring the salt and the football, the screaming baby and the sweat from wearing those... 
by Andrew Gill | Sep 10, 2021 | Gallery, I didn’t expect that!, Places, The Man on the Clapham Omnibus
Photography was invented in the 1830s and by the early 1900s, when this photograph was taken, thousands of camera clubs were established throughout Britain. Taking a photograph required physical strength (to carry all the heavy equipment), skill, technical know-how... 
by Andrew Gill | Sep 9, 2021 | Gallery, Places, Sport, The Man on the Clapham Omnibus
Royal Norwich Golf Club was founded in 1893 and, unlike many other clubs, from the start, lady members were allowed to play. Even after fifty years of viewing Victorian photographs, I am still amazed by the clothes ladies wore to comply with society’s... 
by Andrew Gill | Sep 8, 2021 | Gallery, I didn’t expect that!, The Man on the Clapham Omnibus
Douglas motorcycles were made in Bristol from 1907 to 1956. The company produced thousands of them during the First World War and in its latter period made Italian Vespa scooters under licence for the UK market. We really like this eco-friendly wicker sidecar (well,... 
by Andrew Gill | Sep 7, 2021 | Gallery, The Man on the Clapham Omnibus, Transport
This photograph from the early 1900s is interesting in a couple of ways. Firstly, the car was made by the Star Cycle Company of Wolverhampton. This might seem strange but in the early days of motoring there were hundreds of car manufacturers, most of which failed or... 
by Andrew Gill | Sep 6, 2021 | Gallery, Places, Sport, The Man on the Clapham Omnibus
In our archive we have many photographs of sports teams, some still active and famous, others less so. This one, taken in 1895, is from a large collection of rugby teams and demonstrates that the game was well organised by that time, with local and national leagues,... 
by Andrew Gill | Sep 6, 2021 | Celebrities, Gallery
Albert Schweizter was often on the TV when I was young but has, it seems, been forgotten. Born in 1875, he was a polymath, musician, medical missionary, humanitarian, theologian, philosopher and much more. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952 and died in 1965. His... 
by Andrew Gill | Sep 5, 2021 | Gallery, The Man on the Clapham Omnibus
The caption on this photograph taken in the 1890s is ‘lovers’. I suspect that they weren’t, in today’s meaning of the word. It would be more appropriate to say that they were courting. Well, that’s what we did in the 1960s and 70s and now... 
by Andrew Gill | Sep 5, 2021 | Gallery, Sport, The Man on the Clapham Omnibus
The two young ladies in this photograph taken in the late Victorian period are, by today’s standards, somewhat over-dressed. Perhaps it would add to the excitement of Wimbledon if our star players were required to dress like this for the finals. Matches would be... 
by Andrew Gill | Sep 4, 2021 | Gallery, The Man on the Clapham Omnibus, Transport
We don’t know where this photograph was taken but it probably dates from the early 1900s and would have been typical of thousands of similar shops throughout the UK. The brand names on the window are unfamiliar but that’s not surprising, as many early... 
by Andrew Gill | Sep 4, 2021 | Gallery, The Man on the Clapham Omnibus
Blacksmiths tend to be associated with shoeing horses but in Victorian times, when this photograph was taken, their roles were much more varied. Virtually every village had one and they were commonplace in towns and cities as, before the days of mass-produced consumer... 
by Andrew Gill | Sep 3, 2021 | Gallery, I didn’t expect that!, Places, Sport, The Man on the Clapham Omnibus
This photograph of Deep Ghyll in the Lake District was taken in the late Victorian period. When we compare the specialist clothing and safety equipment used by climbers today, with this lady’s long, heavy dress and rope, we can only admire her courage and... 
by Andrew Gill | Sep 2, 2021 | Gallery, Sport, The Man on the Clapham Omnibus
I’m not sure that shooting birds can be classified as a sport but lots of people enjoy it and it’s probably in our hunter / gatherer DNA. What I like about this photograph from the early 1900s is their smug expressions. There is no caption, so we... 
by Andrew Gill | Sep 1, 2021 | Gallery, The Man on the Clapham Omnibus, Transport
How many men does it take to repair a puncture? Six, one to do it and five to give advice! We love this photograph from the early 1900s when tyre technology was still in its infancy and punctures were a routine part of any bike ride. How fortunate that they had a... 
by Andrew Gill | Aug 31, 2021 | Gallery, Sport, The Man on the Clapham Omnibus
This photograph was taken in the 1920s. There is a large crowd, so it might be at a carnival or fair but we don’t know where or whether it’s an amateur or professional match. What the photo does portray is the attraction for many of watching a contest of... 
by Andrew Gill | Aug 31, 2021 | Gallery, I didn’t expect that!, Places, The Man on the Clapham Omnibus
London Zoo is the oldest in the world and opened in 1828. Its purpose was to study animals from around the world but it very quickly became a huge hit with the public and it was inevitable that some animals, particularly elephants and camels, would be used to provide... 
by Andrew Gill | Aug 30, 2021 | Gallery, Places
This is Lochnagar in Scotland, made famous by Lord Byron and Prince Charles who wrote, respectively, a poem and children’s book of the same name. However, what’s more interesting is the process used to produce the picture. The chromolithographs in our... 
by Andrew Gill | Aug 30, 2021 | Gallery, I didn’t expect that!, Places, The Man on the Clapham Omnibus
The first recorded use of a bathing machine was in Margate in 1750 and by 1900 they were considered very old-fashioned and most had disappeared from Britain’s beaches. The concept was simple, you would enter via the rear steps whilst on the beach, change into... 
by Andrew Gill | Aug 29, 2021 | Gallery, Places, The Man on the Clapham Omnibus
Scraping a living from a small piece of land has always been hard and never more so than in rural Ireland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Ireland has had more than its fair share of life-threatening crises with chronic, grinding poverty; the potato famine;... 
by Andrew Gill | Aug 29, 2021 | Gallery, Places, Sport
Pheonix Park has been the home of Irish polo since 1873 and is still is. The sport originated some two thousand years ago in Iran and, in the UK, during the days of Empire, was a training game for Army Cavalry units. Known as the ‘Sport of Kings’, it has... 