shoulders

"Albert Sands Southworth (1811–94) was half of the important and influential Southworth & Hawes daguerreotype studio, which he operated with Josiah Johnson Hawes (1808–1901) from 1843 to 1863." From Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Southworth

This has been a favourite photograph of mine for many years.

Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Handsome Hair Models on Parade (VINTAGE), and we'd love to have this added to the group!

I had no idea men posed shirtless in the 1840's.

I agree. Shirtless is quite a modern concept for that time.

It's staggering that not so long ago clothes were stolen in such numbers. I guess it was the only thing which traded well?

I guess that time of year (late Feb/early March) in North Shields people would have been more than happy to pay for boots and warm winter clothes "on the cheap" ... some people couldn't even afford to buy boots at all in 1906. There was no social security then ... you lived on your wits.

That's very true! I'd forgotten about how lucky we are now..

Now that's a crankshaft!!!

There is an excellent set of colour photos here.

I was just going to link to those. ^^

Good aren't they. Rather begs the question of why such a huge investment in capital equipment and human capital folded?

The images are fantastic. Photos tell a thousand words and to me they say they were done to promote the company - for a brochure perhaps? Almost every one of them has someone measuring or checking quality - again it would look good to prospective buyers. Our industries in the north were destroyed. Literally torn up and thrown away. There were many reasons but probably the same as how nowadays the likes of Siemens shut units at Newcastle and moved production to Eastern Europe. It's went on for several decades now and has left this area with nothing. Yes we have a few small engineering businesses going but still - it's not enough.. I was devastated when my son left school - there's nothing of real value left for those of his age (19 now) but still they struggle on. If only the skills that the folk had in these old photos had been passed down to the younger ones..