Relatives

[Beowulf]

Thanks for showing the photo Chris, I hate to pour cold water on this but the the hat and coat design is typically Edwardian about 1900 -5. The curved brimmed big hat with ostrich feathers is characteristic of the period and the big embroidered lapel jacket.
Mary died in 1888 and women's fashion underwent considerable change in the twenty years following, the dress profile changed and hats changed completely.Also if she had at some point expensive clothes they would probably date from the early 80s, not twenty years later!
1880S dresses had tight narrow sleeves, buttoned jackets,small or no lapels and massive bustles placing all the emphasis on the behind,Small hats perched on top of head.
In the 1890s the leg of mutton sleeve came in gathered and very full at the top, shrinking of bustles, different corsets.
The picture hat in the photo was immensely fashionable in 1895-1905 often worn by actresses of the day in picture postcards.

Regards Miss Marple

Exactly right, think Toulouse Lautrek in 1891 he began producing paintings and poster designs connected with the famous nightclub, Moulin Rouge, a few years later and showing the new fashion with plumes coming in.

Bloomingdale's 1888 catalog http://footnotesfromhistory.blogspot...y-dresses.html

[The Good Michael]

The style of hat was worn in the 90s which means it could have been worn earlier as well. Fashion cannot be exactly pinpointed unless we're talking name brands. With that style of hat, I've seen plenty of photos from the 80s with similar things in them

Mike

[Chris Scott]

Hi all
Many thanks for all this detailed and specialist feedback - it is exactly the kind of info I need to make an informed judgement on these images.
Thanks
Chris

[curious4]

relatives

Hello again,

Wasn't it police officer Dew who said Mary never wore a hat?

C4

[Bridewell]

I'm way out of my depth talking about ladies' fashions in the LVP, but we don't (unless I've missed something) know where this photograph was taken. What were French women wearing in the 1880's? Were they wearing hats of this kind rather earlier than their London counterparts? I'm not clutching at straws, as I'm quite open-minded about whether or not this picture is genuine. I'm certainly not going to dismiss it out of hand as, quite apart from anything else, we don't know that MJK was a dedicated follower of fashion.

I bow to Miss Marple in the fashion stakes though, as she's probably more hip than Mrs Christie's pen picture suggests.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Bridewell]

Hi C4
Barnett's various accounts suggest that there were 6 or 7 brothers and one sister who worked in the markets selling material

That's my understanding too.

The following is an extract from his inquest deposition held in the Greater London Record Office:

" .....Deceased has often told me as to her parents, she said she was born in Limerick - that she was 25 years of age - and from there went to Wales when very young. She told me she came to London about 4 years ago. Her father's name was John Kelly, he was a Gauger at some ironworks in Carnarvonshire. She told me she had one sister who was a traveller with materials from marketplace to marketplace. She also said she had six brothers, one was Henry Kelly. I never spoke to any of them....."

Interesting choice of words in the last phrase quoted, I think:

"I never spoke to any of them".

Why does he not say they never met if that was the case?

On the subject of Mary's age: Did Barnett recalculate Mary's age from the first occasion when she spoke of it? If not, Mary would have had one birthday, probably two, in the year and eight months that they had been living together. Perhaps a Mary Kelly born in 1861, not 1863?

Regards, Bridewell.

[miss marple]

The picture is not from the 1880s.The hat and jacket are wrong. Everything about it is just wrong, I am talking years of experience here, you develop a feel for things, not just plucking pictures out of the internet. There is a lot of straw clutching going on here.

I would be happy to show this picture to a costume historian at the V&A. The picture is from the late 90s to 1900s,
I would bet on it.
Agree about the Ostrich feathers Ginger, I have sold several large ostrich fans which became fashionable in the 1900s,

Miss Marple
The picture in the police gazette shows a more typical 1880s hat

[Ginger]

I'm a long way from being an expert in Victorian clothing, but I do note that the hat has ostrich plumes. Those were immensely popular from around 1895 until the First World War.

However, commercial ostrich farming during the early part of the period was restricted to South Africa (the United States joined in later once it was clear that there was money to be made), so that ostrich feathers, where ever in the world they ended up, generally travelled first through the port of London. It's plausible that London hatmakers would have been at the leading edge of that fashion, and there might have been ostrich feather hats worn earlier there than elsewhere.

I note too that the engraving of Kelly at http://www.casebook.org/victims/mary_jane_kelly.html (which I believe is probably from the "Illustrated Police News") shows her in a small-brimmed hat, but one which has some sort of decoration on the front that may or may not be feathers.

I think the photograph is unlikely to be from as early as 1888, but I wouldn't rule it out just from the presence of ostrich plumes.

-Ginger

[curious]

Thanks Chris.

Here's a link to a site with hats from the LVP and later. Scroll down.

http://gallery.villagehatshop.com/gallery/

There is a hat on Page 5 of the 1880 to 1890 images that appears to be to be very similar to this.

Anyone else?

[miss marple]

Thanks for showing the photo Chris, I hate to pour cold water on this but the the hat and coat design is typically Edwardian about 1900 -5. The curved brimmed big hat with ostrich feathers is characteristic of the period and the big embroidered lapel jacket.
Mary died in 1888 and women's fashion underwent considerable change in the twenty years following, the dress profile changed and hats changed completely.Also if she had at some point expensive clothes they would probably date from the early 80s, not twenty years later!
1880S dresses had tight narrow sleeves, buttoned jackets,small or no lapels and massive bustles placing all the emphasis on the behind,Small hats perched on top of head.
In the 1890s the leg of mutton sleeve came in gathered and very full at the top, shrinking of bustles, different corsets.
The picture hat in the photo was immensely fashionable in 1895-1905 often worn by actresses of the day in picture postcards.

Regards Miss Marple

[jason_c]

Thanks Chris.

Here's a link to a site with hats from the LVP and later. Scroll down.

http://gallery.villagehatshop.com/gallery/

[robhouse]

Very interesting! Well done Chris. I hope it is real, and that we get to see it at some point.

Rob H

[Chris Scott]

With rapidly gained permission to show the alleged MJK picture with the face obscured (I hate all this cloak and dagger stuff!) it is below for anyone who is conversant with 19th century fashion and can date it approximately from that.
This really is as far as I can go at present.
Chris

[jason_c]

Hi.
All the talk on fashion is worthless unless the Kelly photograph[ depicting just her] is analysed by a expert on period dress.and only Chris is in that position.
We can however speculate that as Kelly is not in the family shot,that photo was either initially with the family , or passed on to them after Mary's death , maybe via her brother.
We can't be certain why the family went to America, it certainly was not unusual of the period, and if the 'shame' was a factor, then why retain a memory, which would have been painful to have amongst their album .
It appears that I am the only one on this thread that asks relevant questions, and although Chris is not in a position to oblige further , he has placed it on Casebook, so it is free to voice opinions.
Regards Richard.

Richard,

There is no reason as to why a "shamed" relative would necessarily have photographs of them destroyed by the family. Her photograph may not have been wheeled out at family gatherings, but a record of her could easily have been kept.

Photographs were more treasured back then I assume. It was not a society of cheap polaroids or mobile phone cameras. And who's to say what the feelings of her family were. A mixture of regret, love, shame, guilt and sadness perhaps?

[richardnunweek]

Hi.
All the talk on fashion is worthless unless the Kelly photograph[ depicting just her] is analysed by a expert on period dress.and only Chris is in that position.
We can however speculate that as Kelly is not in the family shot,that photo was either initially with the family , or passed on to them after Mary's death , maybe via her brother.
We can't be certain why the family went to America, it certainly was not unusual of the period, and if the 'shame' was a factor, then why retain a memory, which would have been painful to have amongst their album .
It appears that I am the only one on this thread that asks relevant questions, and although Chris is not in a position to oblige further , he has placed it on Casebook, so it is free to voice opinions.
Regards Richard.