Unidentified lady

This is a copy of a photograph which was in the possession of the late Gordon Trease. Unfortunately both the person and the date have yet to be positively identified.

The photograph is mounted on white cardboard. The name "T S Hicks" in mauve followed by the town name "SHEFFIELD" in black have been stamped on the foot of the card in a makeshift fashion. The top rear part of the card shows signs of tape where it is thought the card had been fixed to something, perhaps a page of an album.

Sheffield was the town where Eleanor Hardy was brought up by her father John Middleton Salisbury. Her father, like Henry Trease's wife's father, William Bartholomew Salisbury of Rugeley, became a prominent Sheffield citizen as a chemist and a Founder of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. This photograph is undoubtedly connected with him in some way.

It is felt unlikely that the photograph is of his wife as she would have looked older. Eleanor Hardy nee Salisbury was his only daughter and had been born about 1833 so could it be her? Eleanor had married William Hardy on 25th June 1862 and after that date lived in Kimberley, Notts. If this is her, when could it have been taken? The most likely date would be when she was living there prior to her marriage but the photographer is thought to be Thomas Spurzheim Hicks who appears to have lived from 1843 to 1913 and so far the earliest record found of him working as a photographer in Sheffield is 1881 (when he was 38). The makeshift way in which the photographer's name and location have been added to the card could indicate he was either newly starting up the business in the area or (less likely) temporarily out of pre-printed mounts. He would had to have been taking photos from around the age of 19 for this photo to be taken before Eleanor's marriage in June 1862.

As an only child and daughter, Eleanor and her dad are thought to have been very close. Her circumstances were such that she would have had plenty of opportunities to visit her father after she married. The photograph could thus have been taken any time after 1862 on a visit to Shefield to see her father.

The lady bears a resemblance to a later photograph known to be of Eleanor Hardy. The puzzle is that the lady in this photograph has a deformity of her left hand which is not so apparent in the later photograph. It is thought that the late Ivan Payne had said that he thought this photo was "Aunt Hardy" and said that she had a deformity of the hand but there is no absolute certainty about this.