1892

Note the beautifully crafted steel 'cruiser' sterns on the ships behind, never again will ships look so pretty.

What a wonderfull old picture TWAM, I'll bet THAT visitor was'nt comfortable in that rig he was wearing. No one can say that the Japanese did'nt learn how to use the ships and expertise that they took away from Jolly Old England.

Here's a lovely Japanese Christmas card (also from Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums), sent from Lieutenant Akemoto to James Donnelly, who was a foreman at Armstrong's Elswick shipyard. When Lieutenant Akemoto came to Newcastle to inspect naval guns being built by Armstrong, he stayed with James Donnelly and his family. After his return to Japan, he kept in touch with his hosts and sent them postcards and gifts from time to time. www.imagine.org.uk/details/index.php?id=TWCMS:1994.194.1&...

That's a propeller mount.

Cramer's, 3-4 Westmoreland Street - www.archiseek.com/1870-nos-3-4-westmoreland-street-dublin/
Probably associated with the London firm since 1824 - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cramer_&_Co.

beachcomber australia Thank you.

They flogged tickets for the Abbey Theatre too -

Cramer's Warehouse visible in the Eason pic:

Clearer in this Lawrence Imperial, you can read Cramer, Wood & Co.

Wonderful moment

Wow. But the apparent poverty is only staggering. Stark contrast to the often dapper ladies and gents in other photos in related sets. Certainly a world away from the relative affluence suggested by the clothes worn by this young fella. (Who was only a short distance and few decades removed). And the mode of dress gives our (light-hearted) "boys wear dresses to avoid kidnap" conversation a few weeks back some extra perspective. (These lads aren't eschewing trousers to avoid kidnap. They simply don't have any. They have rags. Sin é). These kids parents (if they have any) would likely be appalled by our weak bleating at the IMF, NAMA, et al.

guliolopez One great thing is that poor they may have been, but they were at school!

Great children portrait

Suffering a kind of poor we can't even imagine... yet they seem (at least for now) very happy.
I've seen group photos of poor kids where the attitude was totally different.
And although poor and going trough hardships beyond our wildest imagination, these kids also experienced a freedom we and future generations may never know.
They could run wild, they owned the streets, no mobile phones to call home with, they were trusted to walk to school, look after themselves.
I once interviewed a man who grew up in extreme poverty in the 1930s and he said; "It was only afterwards that we realised we were supposed to have been unhappy."