Was this a wrestler? Can you help.

Karen sent this photograph, by W. Harold Cox, of Luton & St Albans. She wrote: I have attached a photograph that has alternately intrigued and amused me ever since I found it amongst piles of junk left in the loft of the first house I bought back in the early 80's. I have just come across it again. The back of the photo which read : PHOTOGRAPH W. HAROLD COX 29 Wellington St., LUTON  .  The Wellington Street address would indicate that the photo dates from circa 1914 when Mr Cox would have been 39-40 years old. It's such a strange photo - who is this chap, is it a self portrait? Why has he adopted such an odd pose? What's he telling us? Why wrinkly underpants and socks!? We'll perhaps never know but maybe somebody in Hertfordshire will recognise him as relative, or was he known as a local wrestler? Can anyone add anything about the picture or the photographer?

Post Cards

Better Pictures of Napsbury Military Hospital

Military

Peter has kindly provided larger images of a number of the pictures by Ricardo of patients and wards in Napsbury Military Hospital. This could help anyone trying to identify an ancestor who was in the hospital between 1916 and 1919.

Photographs of Patients at Napsbury Military Hospital 1916-1918

Military

Post Cards

For a period of about two years Ricardo Studios of St Albans regularly visited the wartime Military Hospital at Napsbury Asylum at London Colney and took posed photographs of groups of patients in the wards, or in the grounds. These would have been purchased by patients to send off to family and friends. Virtually all the pictures were numbered and I have now collected together a large number of images, many of which can be enlarged to allow easy identification of the faces. Sufficient of the cards are dated and this allows approximate dates to be given to the other cards. If you can identify any of the many hundreds of faces - or have other examples of Ricardo cards (especially if they are dated) let me know and help make the dating more accurate.

Click Here to see the collection of photographs. 

Tracking Down a WW1 Photographer in St Albans

Advert from Herts Advertiser, April 1907

Post Cards

WW1

In my search for information about how the First World War affected Hertfordshire I have come across several post cards showing wounded soldiers - apparently all taken at Napsbury Military Hospital - and embossed with the words "Ricardo Studios, London Road, St Albans." At last I have found some clues as to who the photographer might have been - as the result of finding a 1907 advert for the studios. It would seem that in about 1907 William Harold Cox moved from Luton and set up the Ricardo Studio in St Albans. However he returned to Luton and a Richard Catcheside seems to have been operating as a photographer from the same address, and apparently continuing to use the name "The Ricardo Studios."  Click on the pictures for full details of what has been discovered.

Wounded Soldiers at Napsbury Hospital - Picture from City of Vancouver Archives

We Will Remember Them

Next year we will all be remembering those who fought, and in some cases died, during the First World War. If you have any post cards with a definite link to the war in Hertfordshire why not let me know - so the people in the pictures can be remembered when we come to the anniversary of the outbreak of the war in August 1914.