Here are the Pickstones, including Betsy, married to Harry Garner, with their son Samuel, obviously, visibly, aged only a few months, so the photo is taken in 1910, as his birthday was 27th March 1910, and their (about 5 years older) daughter Annie. Harry’s grandson Andrew Garner (my brother-in-law) has done the name research and labelling for this helpful version of the studio portrait. How splendid these formal photos are from the Victorian/Edwardian/Georgian (in this case) eras, which are so rarely done these days. Andrew’s sister Ruth says: "One of the older boys must be Cousin Willy who was a soldier in WW1. We have a postcard photo of him with a message to Cousin Sam who would have been a small boy when it was sent.” Andrew comments about the missing names (shown as “Name Box”), that they may be: (L to R) Harry Pickstone, Arthur Pickstone and Lydia Pickstone (but the latter seems to be labeled as died in infancy if I read the Pickstone tree correctly, which doesn’t seem to fit). He asks me to assist. I will try, as soon as I can. I will update or correct the above. It is extremely easy to do. Meanwhile, the above represents our best endeavours to-date (21.9.2015), and one of the “miracles” of the digital era we are in, is that instantly-available amendments to something like the above can be published world-wide in such a simple way.
Looking back, historically, 1910 represented the apogee of the ‘Old World Order’. Edward VII’s funeral was on 20th May 1910 at Windsor, and ‘The Whole World’ (of the royalty of Europe) came to it, including the extensive German connections of the royal family, still called Saxe-Coburg Gotha at the time of this photo. Kaiser Willy was spoiling for war, and extremely relieved at the death of his diplomatically incomparably talented uncle. Read Barbara Tuchman’s “The Guns of August” to get the true flavour of the world that came tumbling down in August 1914 in the farmland of Belgium. How much were the Pickstones aware of all that? Wouldn’t that be wonderful to know. A diary might assist us to find out. Perhaps one day?
(Added 20.8.20 after work on the censuses relating to these people):
This photo should really be called the "Brother and Sister married Brother and Sister" photo. That phrase was Nancy Garner's ever-repeated catch-phrase for summarising the Garner family history, and though for many years I thought of it merely as a not-very-meaningful label, I see now that it does sum up a very interesting aspect of the Garner and Pickstone family histories.
In short, brother and sister really did marry brother and sister, in the Garner and Pickstone families. More specifically, Mark Pickstone and his sister Betsy Pickstone married, respectively, Alice Garner and her brother Harry Garner. I do not yet have the dates of the weddings. Ruth (Archer, my wife) and I wondered at first whether it might have been a double wedding, but that is clearly unlikely as the ages of the respective families' children suggest that Mark and Alice married at least a few years before Betsy and Harry. For example, Mark and Alice had a son, Samuel Pickstone, who was 12 years older than his namesake first cousin Samuel Garner (my wife's father).
(Added 27.8.20): Afterthought: in a subsequent generation (Phil's generation) there was a somewhat related 'double-wedding of sorts, when Sister and Brother married second cousin and second cousin, namely:
'Sister' (Ruth Garner), eldest child of Samuel Garner (second child of Betsy Pickstone and Harry Garner above) and her 'Brother' (Andrew Garner, second child of Samuel Garner) married, respectively, Phil Archer (of this website) and Phil's second cousin, Jonnet Kirkby, whose mothers (Gwen Penfold.Archer, and Elizabeth Milne-Redhead.Kirkby) were first cousins.Well, well. All very dry and dusty when it is written out like that. But fairly unlikely. Though so many things in this life and its history are unlikely juxtapositions like that, that it is hardly worth mentioning them.
Summarising, this photo shows:
1. Patriarch, William Pickstone and his wife Anne Pickstone (nee Emerson); and
2. William Pickstone's three children, Harry, Mark, and Betsy Pickstone; and
3. The spouses of those three children: Mary (surname not yet known), Alice (Garner), and Harry (Garner); and
4. The children of those three couples:
a) Harry and Mary's one son: Arthur (who apparently died in 1918, perhaps in the Great War, or the subsequent Spanish 'flu pandemic);
b) Mark and Alice's two boys and two girls: William Emerson, and Samuel Harrison; and Alice Mary, and Edna; and
c) Harry and Betsy's one girl and one boy: Annie; and Samuel;
5. In other words, the photo is of William Pickstone (1834 - 1917) and his wife Anne (nee Emerson) and their three families, those three families comprising 3 + 6 + 4 persons each; so the total number of persons in the photo is 3+6+4 +2 (the old couple) = 15, which is indeed the head-count.
What else do we know about this family?
1. Well it represents almost the sum total of my wife Ruth's known family history, because her mother, Nancy Garner (wife of Samuel Garner, age 1 in the above photo) was almost an orphan, with very little readily-discoverable family history - see elsewhere on this site; and\
2. This branch of the Pickstone and Garner families was deeply involved in the Lancashire cotton industry in the 19th century, William Pickstone, the patriarch here, becoming an "Overlooker" at a cotton mill, according to the censuses, in other words, the man who cracked-the-whip in the weaving shed, when anyone was not working properly, and was much feared, accordingly, so Ruth says. If he was the proprietor's understudy in that respect, and if the account given in a recent TV version of "North and South" by Mrs Gaskell, is anything to go by as to the proprietor's willingness to do violence to his employees caught smoking, then, yes, the overlooker's job was a serious one. William's daughter Betsy was a 'Cotton Weaver' for more than 10 years prior to marriage to Harry Garner, and the boys were likewise working in the textile world, with Mark moving with his family to Wyke, Bradford, Yorkshire, in the 1910s, where (judging from the present look of the house he then bought) he moved up in the world. (More to be added soon, I hope) 20.8.20. PS: I need to update the above photo with the names shown as "name box". Will do ASAP.