The wedding photograph of Rose Lilian Paxton and George Varnom, at Preston on 29th August 1906.
Rose was the sixth daughter of Preston carpenter William Paxton and his wife
Emma. George was a gardener from Hampton in Arden. The wedding was held in
Preston church, and the photograph may have been taken at No.50, the home of
Rose's eldest sister Elizabeth and her husband
Richard Beavington, the village baker. The Beavington family are marked
on the picture.
Neither of Rose's parents lived to
see her wedding. Her mother had died a year after her birth, and her father had
died in 1902. William's second wife Ellen, nee Dyde, may be the elderly lady on
the far right. The identities of the other subjects are not known, but the
young women on either side of the couple likely include Rose's three unmarried
sisters, Jane, Emily and Mary, and her married sisters Ellen Waters and
Catherine Trotman. Her brother William, who died on the first day of The Somme, is probably also present.
Rose's wedding dress wouldn't be
out of place in a wedding today. The now-traditional white dress has its
origins in Queen Victoria's wedding to Albert of Saxe-Coburg in 1840.
Fashionable brides quickly began to copy her elaborate white lace dress, just
as people imitate celebrity fashions today. The 'white wedding' became a
lasting institution.
George and Rose made their married
home in Hampton in Arden, and their only child, Lilian Violet, was born two
years later. They remained in the area for their lives.
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