My Family in 100 Images : 5. David Beanland

A HISTORY OF MY FAMILY IN 100 IMAGES

5. DAVID BEANLAND (1889-1951)

This is a photograph of my mother's cousin, David Beanland. Or at least I think it is (why, oh why, didn't I take more notice of what my mother said as she went through the old family photographs!). David was, I believe, active in the Scouting movement so I assume that this is him dressed in his uniform. Born on the 9th January 1889, David was the first - and only - child of Arthur Beanland and Clara Hargreaves. Sadly, Clara died shortly after the birth, and Arthur remarried within a couple of years and went on to have more children with his second wife, Emma Binns. For whatever reason, David was not brought up by his father and his new wife, but by his grandfather, Fowler Beanland. In 1901 he is living with his grandfather, grandmother and his various uncles and aunts - one of whom was my grandfather, Albert Beanland.

In 1911 he was 22 years old and had now moved into a house in the centre of Keighley with his uncle (another Fowler Beanland) and his Aunt Eliza. He continued to live with them for the rest of his life and never married. In the 1911 census he is listed as an "iron turner" (the same occupation as his Uncle Fowler), but by the end of the 1930s he was a wool comber in a textile mill.

Looking at the photograph there seems to be a sadness about him - although this may simply be me reading too much into a fairly standard studio pose of the time. I see, however, a man who never knew his mother; who was sent away from the family home to live with other relatives; who never married; - and I feel a kind of sadness on his behalf.