This English carte de visite (CDV) is one of the most popular in my collection, if Flickr views and Pinterest re-pins equate to evidence, that is. It shows a young British widow—identifiable as such by the white ruching on her black bonnet—squatting in the background, having just propelled her black-clad daughter toward the photographer. The widow stares forward forlornly, her hand over her mouth, indicating without words her shock and concern for their future. It is a candid, painfully honest pose, and one rarely seen in types of images. She is no “Hidden Mother,” but a vital element of a tableau meant to convey the message, “This is his orphan.”
The reverse stamp on the CDV reads “T. Bennett, Photographer, 46 Foregate Street and Church Street, Malvern.” According to research conducted by the creator of Photographers of Great Britain and Ireland, 1840-1940, Thomas Bennett “opened his first studio in Worcester in 1856. At different times, he operated at five studios in Worcester and three in Malvern under his own name and the business continued under the name of Bennett & Son and Bennett & Sons until at least 1916.”
“The 1861 census records the [Bennett] family living at his shop at 46 Foregate, Worcester, where he is described as a Lay Clerk (of the church) and photographer. His firm Thomas Bennett and Son is thought to have been established about 1856. His branch in Great Malvern was possibly the second photographic studio” in that town—this information gleaned from the Malvern Records Office. Bennett threw open the doors of his Malvern studio in 1868 and the CDV of mother and daughter could not have been taken long afterward.
Helpful Flickr historians pellethepoet and EastMarple1 spotted one of Thomas Bennett’s studios in the foreground of the CDV below. The building at bottom righthand corner, with the word “photos” just visible above the door, was almost certainly where this Worcestershire widow brought her daughter to mark their terrible loss in a fixed image that could never be altered.
My CDV appears on many Pinterest pages, and in particular, one where user comments suggest that this little girl is dead, held up by props, or suspended with wires.
This is not a deceased child. In the photo, her eyes were caught whilst tracking the photographer, and she supported herself to a degree through her hand, wrist, and arm. One of her feet was slightly lifted as she prepared to take a step.
Bodies were not embalmed at the time this image was taken. That preservation process came into practice during the American Civil War as a way of returning bodies of dead Union soldiers to their families. It was not widely used in the United States or Great Britain for another 40 to 50 years.
Dead bodies that are not embalmed do not stand on their own, even during rigor mortis, without some sort of brace or rigging. There is no evidence in the historical record that these types of devices were used during regular postmortem photography. Sometimes unidentified bodies or murder victims such as Katherine Eddows, a victim of Jack the Ripper, were propped up to be forensically photographed.
Further, it should be asked why a mother would choose to allow the corpse of her dead daughter to be held up by wires or clamped in some sort of brace when she herself could have cradled the body—as is seen in so many other postmortem images?
The props that photographers did use were to keep people still, not to hold them up, as is clearly seen in the photograph below. Ω
"Your Dying Charlotte" 
That widow’s expression, and her hand to her mouth – I can see why this image is so popular. Exhaustion, grief, uncertainty about the future, all of it is there. I know if there were some way of tracing what happened to this pair you’d find it. I can’t help but be curious.
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I’m so glad you did an article on the repeated use of CDV’s etc. (other early photography) that are NOT post-mortem photographs as if they were post-mortem photographs. I’m not sure why anyone would assume this was a post-mortem photograph anyway, if the owner has clearly made clear that it is not one, to me (and I am no expert), it is obvious that child is alive and partially supporting itself. I doubt any photographer of the time would have allowed such a gruesome display of a dead child, no less than a grieving mother (or father)! Such a sad photo, but a wonderful example of how some mourning photos are incredibly personal and original in composition.
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