Originally Posted by Hill Walker (Post 1080862)

I was uncertain which forum would be best for this question but as searches of this site and the web in general indicate that Accrington's current football activities have no connection back to 1911 here seemed best.

I have two photos in an album of Accrington photos which are obviously related both to each other and to Accrington. There is strong commonality of people between the photos and some commonality of people occurs with other Accrington photos in the album. Unfortunately I'm about as good at reading 100 year old handwriting as I am at devising legal get rich quick schemes so the annotation on the rear of the second photo might reveal all, if only I could read it!

So if anybody can come up with a hint as to what these photos relate to I would be very grateful. The only two hints I have is that at least one of the people (a none player) worked for the Corporation Transport Dept. and the date 1911. Both are printed on generic postcard stock so no help there.

I should add that these two photos seem completely out of place in the album so they were obviously important to the lady who's album it was, hence my curiosity.

Originally Posted by Hill Walker (Post 1080862)

I was uncertain which forum would be best for this question but as searches of this site and the web in general indicate that Accrington's current football activities have no connection back to 1911 here seemed best.

I have two photos in an album of Accrington photos which are obviously related both to each other and to Accrington. There is strong commonality of people between the photos and some commonality of people occurs with other Accrington photos in the album. Unfortunately I'm about as good at reading 100 year old handwriting as I am at devising legal get rich quick schemes so the annotation on the rear of the second photo might reveal all, if only I could read it!

So if anybody can come up with a hint as to what these photos relate to I would be very grateful. The only two hints I have is that at least one of the people (a none player) worked for the Corporation Transport Dept. and the date 1911. Both are printed on generic postcard stock so no help there.

I should add that these two photos seem completely out of place in the album so they were obviously important to the lady who's album it was, hence my curiosity.

Originally Posted by Hill Walker (Post 1080862)

I was uncertain which forum would be best for this question but as searches of this site and the web in general indicate that Accrington's current football activities have no connection back to 1911 here seemed best.

I have two photos in an album of Accrington photos which are obviously related both to each other and to Accrington. There is strong commonality of people between the photos and some commonality of people occurs with other Accrington photos in the album. Unfortunately I'm about as good at reading 100 year old handwriting as I am at devising legal get rich quick schemes so the annotation on the rear of the second photo might reveal all, if only I could read it!

So if anybody can come up with a hint as to what these photos relate to I would be very grateful. The only two hints I have is that at least one of the people (a none player) worked for the Corporation Transport Dept. and the date 1911. Both are printed on generic postcard stock so no help there.

I should add that these two photos seem completely out of place in the album so they were obviously important to the lady who's album it was, hence my curiosity.

Originally Posted by smobile (Post 1080904)

Bloke on the extreme right of the 1st picture looks like he's giving some kind of hand signal :eek:

Originally Posted by Hill Walker (Post 1080906)

Many thanks to all.

I think the annotation has been cracked. The 'railway sleepers' in the first photo are almost certainly tramway sleepers. At both the left and right of the photo you can see the spacing of the drill holes for the rail shoes, its too close to be the five foot eight and a half inches of the standard railway gauge but its about right for the four foot gauge of Accrington trams. Also I done a web search for other tramway football teams and found evidence that at least Preston, Glasgow and Newham had them. As to the 'Leister' this is perhaps not a mis-spelling but an abreviation of Leicester that seems to be in (slight) use even today. If you do a Google search for 'Leister University' you get offered a lot of University of Leicester pages. Perhaps more significantly a hunt through American medical paper citations makes references to 'Leister-University' tracking down the research again you end up at Leicester University (Hospital).


Given the above I am satisfied that the annotation can be read as "Tramwayman's Leister 1911".

Special thanks to MargretR that guide to copperplate script will prove very useful, its far better than the one I've been using.

Originally Posted by lancsdave (Post 1080915)

Could Leister not be the surname of somebody.

Originally Posted by Hill Walker (Post 1080906)

Many thanks to all.

I think the annotation has been cracked. The 'railway sleepers' in the first photo are almost certainly tramway sleepers. At both the left and right of the photo you can see the spacing of the drill holes for the rail shoes, its too close to be the five foot eight and a half inches of the standard railway gauge but its about right for the four foot gauge of Accrington trams. Also I done a web search for other tramway football teams and found evidence that at least Preston, Glasgow and Newham had them. As to the 'Leister' this is perhaps not a mis-spelling but an abreviation of Leicester that seems to be in (slight) use even today. If you do a Google search for 'Leister University' you get offered a lot of University of Leicester pages. Perhaps more significantly a hunt through American medical paper citations makes references to 'Leister-University' tracking down the research again you end up at Leicester University (Hospital).

Given the above I am satisfied that the annotation can be read as "Tramwayman's Leister 1911".

Special thanks to MargretR that guide to copperplate script will prove very useful, its far better than the one I've been using.