Photo of a postcard featuring three children and a snowman in a snowy scene with the inscription, 'A merry Christmas'. Folded cards as we know them now did not emerge until the 1920s-'30s. This card, carrying a King Edward VII green half-penny stamp…
A photo of a Christmas card. Staged scenes such as this were sold as Christmas cards in the early days. Christmas hampers dispatched by rail from London and other big town stores were unreturnable and often given to the children to play with. This…
A Victorian youngster proudly presents his home-made model of a Mount's Bay lugger (a Cornish fishing boat of the period), as some of the same rig can be seen in the background.
Children were often employed on refining stages, sometimes working in water with bare feet. Their ages ranged from about seven or eight to 12 or 13. Their pay would have been from 1d to 2d on starting,…
An ice cream vendor with hand barrow and children customers. Picture from 'Grandfathers London' (Putnam, 4 Great Russell Street, 1956/61), see page 34.
A typical hand-propelled ice cream wagon of the early decades of the 20th century. Pictured on the Penzance Promenade at the bottom of Morrab Road in the 1920s, it was owned by the Scoble family who were well-known ice cream makers of the era. The…