The Old Photograph Album - The Long and Short of It

The Long & Short of It

Some weeks ago I purchased an old photograph album from a dealer on Ebay.  For once, rather than being split up with photos being sold individually, the whole album was for sale.  My interest was drawn to the lot because many of the photos were taken whilst the family was working in China.  The album also included photos of their homeward voyage to the UK aboard P&Os Ranpura in 1935.   This was an album that I desperately wanted.

Adrenalin pumped through my body as the minutes ticked down to auction end.  One bid had been placed by an unknown bidder days before.  How much did this person want this album?  Was it just a hopeful bid to get some photos from the Far East or was it a serious collector?  Of course there was no way knowing.  If I placed my bid too early that would give others the chance to raise their bids.  Holding my nerve I waited until 10 seconds were left – then pressed “Submit Bid”.  The bid price immediately (and rather alarmingly) rose and rose and rose but then the auction was over.  I peered through my fingers and found that somehow or another I had managed to WIN the lot.  I was overjoyed!  Of course, until the album arrived, I had no idea whether I would be able to identify the family shown in the photos – but I was ever hopeful.

When the album arrived it was every bit as wonderful as I had hoped it would be although there was no obvious indication as to the owners name.  A label inside the front cover stated “All Good Wishes for a Happy Birthday, from Nancy & John 31^st. March 1935”.  But who was the recipient?   It did not say.

A young boy of about 7 or 8 years of age appeared throughout the album and some of the photos showed his name as Norman.  A lady who could be his mother was named as Helen.  One photograph taken in Penang on the homeward trip was titled “Helen, Marshall and Mrs Starkie”.  Everyone else who was named was shown with the title of Mr. or Mrs. indicating that they were friends or acquaintances rather than family.  Knowing that the family traveled home on P&Os Ranpura in 1935 was the only clue left to follow.  Fortunately Passenger Lists turned up trumps.

The Ranpura arrived in London 25 October 1935 and there on the pages were:

Marshall Beard a mariner aged 33

Helen L. Beard aged 35

Norman M Beard aged 7

They had boarded the Ranpura in Shanghai and given their UK address as 139 Mt. Annan Drive, Cathcart, Glasgow.  Eureka!  The photos were no longer of nameless people but of a family.   

Now the really hard part.  Who was Marshall Beard?  What was his family background?  How did this wonderful album end up on Ebay?  Well, here is the background as pieced together so far.

During the 1880s George Beard, an Iron Master, moved his family from Worcestershire up to Scotland.  The Beard family had been connected with the manufacture of iron in Gloucestershire, Durham, Yorkshire and South Staffordshire for 100 years. George was now to  manage the sheet rolling mills of Smith & McLean in Gartcosh, Lanarkshire. 

By the time of his death in 1913 he was a director of Smith & McLean, the Clyde Galvanising Works, Gartcosh Steel & Ironworks, and Milnwood Iron & Steel Works. 

George left six sons and two daughters: 

Ambrose was connected with The Penn Iron & Steel Co, in Pennsylvania, USA;

Thomas was also connected with the sheet trade in the US;

Herbert was General Manager of Messrs Smith & McLean, Gartcosh;

Roland Beard was Manager of the Milnwood Works in Mossend;

Harry G. was Chief Engineer at the same Works;

Rev. Charles B. was Rector of Scottish Episcopal Church, Helensburgh.

George and his wife, Tabitha were buried in Cathcart Cemetery, Glasgow.  Also remembered on the imposing memorial are two of his sons, Harry Grinsell Beard & Charles Bernard Beard.

The family line that I needed to follow in order to find Marshall and his son, Norman, was that of Roland Beard.

Roland, Manager of the Milnwood Works in Mossend had been born in Bilston, Staffordshire in 1865 and arrived in Scotland with his father in the 1880s.  Roland was very popular both within and outside the Steel Works.  For many years he was an enthusiastic member (& President) of the Bellshill & Mossend Bowling Club.  Roland married Annie Allan and the couple went on to have a large family:  George, James, Sydney, Edgar, John, Ambrose and Marshall.

Annie died in 1921 and Roland in 1923.  Both are buried in the Old Monkton Cemetery in Coatbridge.  The following brief details relate to some of the Beard siblings:

George Rowland Beard served with both the Royal Field Artillery and the Army Service Corps during the First World War.  However he suffered with his health and was discharged in 1917.   Private G.R. Beard died on 20 April 1919 and is buried in a Commonwealth War Grave at Old Monkland Cemetery, Coatbridge.

Sydney Albert Beard enlisted with the Scottish Horse in 1914 and embarked for Gallipoli in August 1915.   On 1^st. December Sydney was wounded in the right arm and invalided home on the Gloucester Castle in January 1916.  In July 1918 Sydney joined the Royal Air Force, transferring to the Lanarkshire Yeomanry in March 1919.  

Edgar Ross Beard was apprenticed to James Boyd & son in 1910.  On 5^th. September 1914 he received his Certificate of Competency as Second Mate for Foreign-going steamships.  During the war he served with the RNVR and in January received his Certificate of Competency as First Mate for Foreign-going steamships.  In March 1922 he qualified as Master for Foreign going steamships.  During the Second World War Edgar served as Chief Officer on ss Baron Carnegie.  On 11^th. June 1941 the ship was torpedoed by German aircraft 15 miles off St Davids Head.  Edgar, husband of Amy Irene Beard, died at sea and was buried at Llanwnda Cemetery, Fishguard & Goodwick.

John Allan Beard also served with the Royal Air Force during the WWI.  In 1925 he left UK to work in South America where he married and had a daughter.  During WWII the family spent time in the UK with sources indicationing that John once again served with the RAF.  John took his family back to South America in 1945.  By 1950 something had gone desperately wrong in John’s life.   The Brazilian newspapers reported that John – an RAF hero – had killed his mother-in-law and shot & wounded his wife and 17 year old daughter before turning the gun on himself.  His daughter, Cecily Anne, did not survive the attack.

Ambrose Cecil Beard was yet another brother to join the Royal Air Force.  He was so enthusiastic about flying that he went on to gain the Royal Aero Club aviator certificate.  Ambrose spent much of his career working in the steel industry in Argentinia.  He died in Westminster in 1962.

Marshall Payne Beard was born on 23 September 1902 in Mossend, North Lanarkshire.  His merchant seaman’s registration details showed him to be 5ft 11 ½ ins with blue eyes, fair hair and a fair complexion.  In 1921 he was a certified Wireless Watcher and in January 1924 received his Certificate of Competency as Second Mate for Foreign-going steamships.  In 1926 he married Helen Lang Young as well as receiving his Certificate of Competency as First Mate of a Foreign-going ship.   A son, Norman Marshall Beard, was born on 26 April 1928. 

In 1931/32 Marshall travelled East to work for the China Navigation Co.  His first ship was the ss Changchow but when this was scrapped in 1933 he transferred to the ss Chengtu.  

By 1934 Helen and Norman were ready to join Marshall in China.  Their voyage was taken aboard P&Os Carthage leaving London on 16^th. February 1934.  Also travelling on the ship were Nancy and John Dunlop.  As several of the photos within the album show a Mrs Dunlop it does not take much to work out that it was this Nancy & John who gifted the album to the Beard’s on 31^st. March 1935.  As that date was not the birthday of either Marshall or Norman perhaps it was Helen’s. And so the family were re-united.  Here they are on Daddy's ship - the ss Chengtu.

I shall post more photos from the album in due course.  In the meantime, I hope this goes to prove how keeping a set of photos together might provide enough clues to aid full identification.

If any readers should be descended from Marshall's siblings and can add (or amend) the stories shown here then I would love to hear from you.

Please contact Christine

Auntie's Album 1934 - 1949

Auntie Dorothy was born in Banbury after the Great War - one of the post WWI "baby boom".   Granddad was a butler and Gran a ladies maid for the Grazebrook family at Overthorpe House.  A year later a brother, Arthur, was born.  My mother was the eldest of the children having been born a few weeks before the start of WWI.

In the mid-1920s the family moved to Kingsmead in Windsor with Granddad being employed by Algernon Cox, a banker.  The photo on the right shows Auntie in her school uniform.  Throughout her life she cringed when she looked at this photo because one side of her collar was caught beneath the neckband of her gymslip - she always reproached herself for not having noticed it before the photo was taken.

With only a year between them Dorothy and Arthur were inseparable

But then came the war and Arthur enlisted with the RAF

 Arthur was reported missing over the Lybian Desert 21st. November 1941

I have a feeling that my Mum never excepted the fact that her young brother had died.  I had never known my uncle but as a child I picked up on my mother's thoughts and whenever there was a knock on the door I think we both half expected it to be Arthur.

After the war Dorothy went on a cycling tour of France and this is where she was to meet her future husband, Dennis.  

They married in Streatham

The smallest child in the group photograph is ME!

One of my earliest memories is of the wedding and of eating ice-cream - 

a rare treat so soon after the war.

The Soldier's Album

I was a quiet child preferring to snuggle up in a chair with a good book rather than play with other children in the neighbourhood.   Perhaps it was just as well because my Dad was a night worker - travelling up to London every evening to deliver the Royal Mail telegrams.  Throughout my childhood it was definitely a matter of "being seen and NOT heard".

One day, whilst looking for something in a cupboard, I came across an old photo album.  Tattered and worn it showed its age but it called out to me - "turn my pages and travel to a land far away".  I carefully carried it to the kitchen table, opened it up and was mesmerised by the old photographs.

This is when I first learned that my Dad had once been in the army in India.  In the late 1920s my Mum, Phyllis, was employed as a Nanny and one summer the family she was working for took a holiday in Calshot, Hampshire.  It was on the train travelling back to London that she met a young soldier by the name of Stan.  Timing was far from great because he was about to leave England for a tour of duty in India.  But they kept in touch and every few months he would send his sweetheart photographs from that foreign land.  She carefully mounted them in the album.

When Stan returned to England they wanted to marry but Phyll's parents were very much against the match.  Phyll was only 20 years of age and they thought that she could do very much better for herself than marrying a soldier.  The couple waited until Phyll reached that magical age of 21 and then they married at Marylebone Registry Office.

For the first few years of their marriage they rented a couple of rooms in Peckham.  But this was the 1930s and there was a building boom in the suburbs of London.  Stan put a deposit on a "two up, two down" semi-detached in Orpington.  It was a tiny, tiny house but paying the mortgage was very much better than paying rent to landlords.  Later in life they would actually own the property.  Having settled into their new home Phyll fell pregnant and a daughter was born.  Again the timing was far from great because this was just a few weeks before Stan was called up to serve in the Second World War.  Stan regularly sent money home so that the mortgage could be paid.  But everything was so expensive during those years.  Phyll had a young daughter to look after and she had no experience with paying bills.  She fell behind with the mortgage payments.

When the war ended and Stan returned he was furious to find that he was in debt.  He had sent payments home - why had the mortgage not been paid?!  Things were never the same after that.  To make matters worse the little girl who had been born before the war hardly knew her father - who was this strange man who had suddenly appeared and was demanding her mother's attention.  And then came another baby - yes, I came into the world as part of the post-war baby boom.  

Finding that old photo album as a child ending up defining my life.  If ever I wanted to escape from reality I would turn its pages and get lost in the pictures.  When visiting my aunt I discovered that she had "family" photo albums - the albums belonging to my Mum's parents and grand-parents.  Throughout my life, whenever visiting Auntie and being asked what I would like to do the answer was always "Can we look at the photo albums, please"?  

When Phyll died at the very young age of 56 Stan had a grand clear out.  During one visit after my Mum's death I enquired about the soldier's photograph album.  I could not believe it when Dad told me that he had thrown it away.  He said that it was something which meant nothing to anyone else so he had chucked it in the dustbin.  I was devastated.

Is it any wonder that I now collect old photographs!!!! 

When time permits I shall post more stories from my albums.