23 November 2008

Unknown Wedding Group #4

Another one with no details on the back. The mat is in bad shape with very odd shaped fading and has been cut with scissors around the edge making it very uneven. The photograph is on a smaller mat which is about 75% lifted off the larger mat. I don't know the uniform the men are wearing but I would presume it's the NZ Army. On the best man's collar the badge has a large X or IX in the middle of it. The groom's collar badges I can't make out.

unknown-wedgrp-4x600

  • Subject: Unknown
  • Year: Unknown
  • Photographer: J C Morton, Glenmore Art Studios, Auckland, New Zealand
  • Found: Helensville, NZ

I would appreciate it if anyone could date to an approximation either this or the previous photograph please. I did find a photo of a military man online here wearing a similar uniform but with slight differences, taken in 1911 so this one might be later than that. Taken by the same photographer but in 1911 he was just J C Morton of Auckland. He probably operated within the years 1870s to 1930s.

Amongst the D W Layland Collection there are various photos credited to J C Morton, Glenmore Art Studios, they are available in the Print File Room at the Auckland Museum.

jcmorton-glenmore-art-studi

groomscollarbadge bestmancollarbadge bestmanotherbadge

The best I could do of the three lots of badges, the last one I've just noticed on the bestman's chest.

2 comments:

Free Spirit said...

Wow dawn these are priceless. Look very very old. Nice job !

Brett Payne said...

Hi Dawn. Great photographs indeed. I believe that this portrait must have been taken during the Great War, since the bandolier is of a type used at that time. My grandfather Leslie Payne (1892-1975) who fought with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in the First World War was wearing a similar bandolier when photographed by Treble of Derby, probably in the summer of 1915, as shown in this portrait:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/payne/cllp_bandolier.jpg

I'm not very familiar with badges but the collar dogs worn by the man with a bandolier are of the "flaming grenade" type. A good source which has a lot of images, but takes a long time to wade through, is the Digger History web site:
http://diggerhistory.info/pages-badges/00-badges-index.htm

The New Zealand units that I can find which had a "flaming grenade" badge included the Royal New Zealand Artillery and the New Zealand Engineers (Tunnelers), although there may be others that I didn't spot. Actually, I think the early version of the Tunnelers collar dogs displayed on this page:http://diggerhistory.info/pages-badges/nz-corps2.htm
look most like the ones in your photo.

The seated soldier's collar dogs are less familiar to me, although I think I can make out a "IX," as did you. If I'm right, then it looks very much like the collar dog of the 9th (Wellington East Coast Rifles) Regiment (later the 9th (Hawkes Bay) Regiment), which is displayed here:
http://diggerhistory.info/pages-badges/nz-inf.htm

The uniforms are standard First World War tunics - I'm sure someone more familiar can give you the chapter and verse.

Regards, Brett