Here, from the Archer family album, is my father, FGBA, or Fred, with his first two nieces, Eileen (to the left) and Pam, the first two children of his (two years) elder brother Arthur (AWA), who married much earlier than Fred. Eileen was born in September 1926 and died recently. Pam is a litte younger. So, if Eileen looks about age 6 or 7, then this photo dates from about 1932-34 and my dad is aged about 27 or 28, and is not due to marry until 1936, when he met Gwen Penfold in Kingston on Thames. The venue is Somerville House, where there were many apple trees and lots of 'windfalls' of the kind seen in this photo. Dad looks happy. He was still living with his parents, William and Lizzie Archer at Somerville, 130 Banbury Road, Oxford.
(Cont'd next day: 18.5.18): So here is Dad, FGBA, in the bosom of the Archer clan, as it then was. This is about 30 years after the 1901 census shown in the adjoinging pages in this album. In those intervening 30-ish years, William Archer married Lizzie Gilder his boss George Blake's daughter, in 1902. Fred was born in 1905, two years after Arthur in 1903. And their three sisters in 1908 and 1914 (twins). And William worked for George Blake for about 18 years from 1901 to 1919, when he joined his father's brother James in his 'Archer Cowley' transport business. Not to meniton The Great War (1914-1918) which did not claim a single Archer life (though it did claim Percy Gilder, Lizzie's half-brother, killed on The Somme in 1916).
And in 1925 Uncle James Archer died and his nephew William ("WGRA") became a relatively rich man and before long moved with his family into Somerville at 130 Banbury Road, Oxford, formerly the home of James Grubb. And WGRA and his family lived in a relatively affluent way, with two maids, and a full-time gardener to maintain the two acres of garden. And Fred lived in that (relatively) affluent world for about ten years until he married, and then lived with Gwen his wife (my mother) at 64 Kingston Road (two roads 'west' of Banbury Road), reached from Somerville via St Margaret's Road, almost directly. And 64 Kingston Road was the house of Dad's birth, and where he grew up from 1905 the mid-1920s, when they moved to Somerville and (in 1926) Dad joined his father at Archer Cowley & Co, where he was to work for the rest of his (working) life. And he did so happily, I believe.
But in his Somerville days, Fred had time for hobbies such as riding on Port Meadow, from the stables at Wolvercote. His cousin Pam (RHS above) told me in about the mid-2000s, that she well-remembered his cheerful ways when she visited her grandpa William and Grandma Lizzie in those days, not to mention helping him out of his riding boots when he returned home. And that 'home' was home also to Fred's younger sisters Nora (born 1908) and Olive and Gladys Elizabeth (twins, born 1914), where each sibling had her own bedroom, though (at that relativley recent date of about 2005) Pam could not for the life of her remember whcih bedroom could have been 'Uncle Fred's'.
Suffice it to say that Fred was happy in his family days, with satisfying work to do, hobbies for leisure time, family times when nieces (who subsequently had three younger brothers and another, much younger, sister) came to visit, and his younger sisters also in the family group, not much, if any, in the way of household duties to perform (in view of the servants), and church services on Sundays to attend.
Fred's 'Grandpa Alfred' or 'Grandpa George' (I don't know which name they used because Dad never referred to him in this way) had died in 1913 when Dad was only 7 or 8, so his recollection of grandparents woud have been severely limited compared with mine (of my grandparents). His 'Gilder' grandpa died in xxxxx (not recollected) but had moved to Hinckley in about 1886 with Lizzie's brother(s) and sister(s), and his new wife (maiden name Collins) after the (probably perceived as) scandal of the court case about being 'taken short' in the University Parks in 1884, so the Gilder family may not have been familiar to Dad.
And Archer Cowley prospered. 1934 was their apogee, with the Bodlian Library removal.