Photograph of Maggie and Grace Crawford

Category

Museums & Galleries Item

Item no

52473

Title

Photograph of Maggie and Grace Crawford in fishwives costumes taken at Klondike, Newhaven, c. 1900

Description

Sepia photograph on a postcard showing Maggie and Grace Crawford as children in fishwives costume and holding a fishwives creel, standing outside a house door. Part of a group of photographs found in 1970 in a house which was due to be demolished. The photographs relate to the Crawford Family.

Accession number

NH.2010.17

Copyright

The City of Edinburgh Council Museums & Galleries

This photograph is part of a group of photographs found in a house which was being demolished in Newhaven in the 1970s relating to the Crawford Family. They show different generations of the family, photographs taken to celebrate weddings, children in fishwives and fishermen's costume, school photographs, one relates to street games, several are WW I related with men in uniform with their wives/girlfriends. Some have identifiable Edinburgh photography studios.

This image depicts Maggie and Grace Crawford in fishwives costumes. Other images from this group also state Maggie and Grace were in the fishwives choir. this image is also marked Klaundyke. This probably refers to the Klondike - an area of large tenements at the corner of Hawthornvale and Lindsay Road in Newhaven. It is possible this image was taken outside their house. The name relates to the date they were built which was during the Canadian Gold Rush. Klondike is the name of a major Gold Rush settlement.

During the Auld Reekie Retold project, some of these photographs were featured in a blog about the work to identify the families and locations depicted. Some of the images were shared on social media. This was during the COVID-19 pandemic and people were not allowed to meet in large numbers. The response online however gave the team some leads to investigate. The photographs were also shared as printed material with the Newhaven Heritage history group. By happy chance, the Museums & Galleries' plea for information on these images got the attention of the direct descendants of the Crawford family who appear so prominently in the photographs. As soon as restrictions allowed, the Auld Reekie Retold team arrange a story catching event, and learnt so much more about the lives of these people. Many had ceased to be anonymous, but now came to life with the stories they now could tell.

Read more about this collection and how we found out about it on the Auld Reekie Retold blog .

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