Johnson family in Manchester?

Fair enough Andy...:D

But now here is the deal...how brave do I need to be to develop 4x5 colour slide myself?:nuts:
 
Now to get that Thornton Pickard shutter off to the UK for rebuild...
 
Great to see some pics and they look rather good. Well done Anton.

Btw I found a bit of an article about the death of our Mr Johnson's cousin (the Colonel). Seems like despite surving WW1 and the Somme, his eventual demise resulted from getting struck by lightning in the grounds of his country pile, poor chap.
 
kenm said:
Great to see some pics and they look rather good. Well done Anton.

Btw I found a bit of an article about the death of our Mr Johnson's cousin (the Colonel). Seems like despite surving WW1 and the Somme, his eventual demise resulted from getting struck by lightning in the grounds of his country pile, poor chap.
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Hey Ken

Thanks for that and the kind comments!

It is an absolute joy shooting Wilfrid's old camera successfully and seeing the results...

Please keep them coming if you come across Johnson family facts!

Apart from sending off the shutter for rebuild I have to get all 3 the film holders operational...that way I can at least shoot 6 negs on an outing.

Cheers(y)
 
Thought the trail had gone cold but maybe not. Looks like brother Percy had a farm in Zimbabwe: Namilongwi Farm, Pemba, Northern Rhodesia. Both he and his wife Marie Anne are listed in the British Colonial Institute’s yearbook of 1914. Percy is now at St Mary, Prestwich;

http://twgpp.org/information.php?id=2125300

[d.] 16th May 1915. Age 40. Son of Helen Johnson, of 9, Cranley Place, South Kensington, London, and the late James Clarkson Johnson; husband of Marie Johnson, of Namilongwi, Pemba, Northern Rhodesia. Served in the South African Campaign, retiring with the rank of Captain. Remembered at Helles Memorial.

Father, James, is also buried there.

Most of the contemporary death records relate to “lunatics” since Prestwich was home to a rather large asylum.

Funnily enough I was in Prestwich last weekend on non-photo business, had it not been a last minute visit I’d have taken a camera and visited the graveyard.
 
Ken

I don't know how you find the time to find all of this but thanks, it is great to see all these bits of info and how they link up and confirm each other!(y)
 
Hello Everyone

Just a quick update...

I got the shutter back yesterday, rebuilt like new with a new shutter curtain and also the 3 repaired dark slides.

Within an hour or so patiently assembling I will have all 3 film boxes working so I will be able to make 6 exposures on an outing.:D

This was done by Ian Grant in the U.K. Those who are interested can see his work at www.lostlabours.co.uk. Please support this man in any way you can, he is an absolute legend!

Now the really serious testing can begin(y)

Piccies to follow soon, promise!
 
antonroland said:
Hello Everyone

Just a quick update...

I got the shutter back yesterday, rebuilt like new with a new shutter curtain and also the 3 repaired dark slides.

Within an hour or so patiently assembling I will have all 3 film boxes working so I will be able to make 6 exposures on an outing.:D

This was done by Ian Grant in the U.K. Those who are interested can see his work at www.lostlabours.co.uk. Please support this man in any way you can, he is an absolute legend!

Now the really serious testing can begin(y)

Piccies to follow soon, promise!
Click to expand...

I am really looking forward to seeing the photo's from this camera, what a brilliant project.
 
Great news - I'm sure everyone who has followed this thread is chewing their fingernails in anticipation at seeing more pics. Makes such a difference knowing a bit about the history of such an, err, historic camera.
 
Fantastic work by both you and Ian, looking really good. Could you post the picture of how she looks now in this thread please, I don't have access rights on lfp and can only see the thumbnail.

Cheers

Andy
 
Will do later in the morning Andy...
 
Great work, it's looking fantastic and a real thing of beauty.
 
Fantastic stuff Anton, she really looks fabulous. I'm really excited about seeing the results from her.

Andy
 
Well folks, tomorrow is the day we leave on the trip...making a week holiday out of it.

We are hoping for some snow and there has been some but it is melting already.

As for the camera, I have been making some red and yellow filters that go inside the lens but have not had much time to check results. I was also not sure about my next box of Ilford FP-4 4x5 arriving on time but I got it yesterday so I worked sparingly with the box I have.

Picked up the new box yesterday so the last day or two was spent packing and prepping everything. A bit far from home to discover I left something important behind...

I am now about to upload some pics to another thread I started recently about the darkroom in a box I designed and had built for this trip and future use.

Hope to post daily from this trip.

Chat soon!
 
Hello everyone

We arrived on Clearwater farm today...well, what was Clearwater farm...

Scouted the location for Friday's shoot...will take and share more pics tomorrow...been a loooooong day so off to bed now!
 
antonroland said:
Hello everyone

We arrived on Clearwater farm today...well, what was Clearwater farm...

Scouted the location for Friday's shoot...will take and share more pics tomorrow...been a loooooong day so off to bed now!
Click to expand...

Woot...can't wait..
 
So today was a long day exploring the south-western corner of Lesotho...grand fun.

Here are a few images of my scouting session of late yesterday afternoon...

M5V9015_crop.jpg


This is the farm yard...the two little sandstone structures are typical for the area...two of them, however are clearly dated 1914 and so they would not have existed at the time our man Wilfrid did his thing...

The one behind the old Landy is marked "garage" over the doorway facing the yellow main house partially visible in the background. The one to the right is marked "Dairy"
 
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M5V9012_crop.jpg


This better shows the 3 sandstone buildings at the south-westerly corner of the farmyard...
 
M5V9010_crop.jpg


Here is a fourth little sandstone building closer to the main house. In the picture is my guide, Vincent who lives in this area since birth.
 
There are a few stories in the area about the presence of members of the family Johnson and how and why they ended up here...

Some say the farms were bought by the Johnson family in the U.K. and the black sheep of the family were sent into banishment as it were...

Rumours about gay men and all other sorts of issues which might have caused embarrassment to the family Johnson back in blighty...

There are no living descendants of Johnsons in this area at least so one has but that.

Which makes me wonder if our Wilfrid himself was banished and if he just happened to visit the relatives down south...

22-23 years is a long time to visit...

And if the camera notebooks are anything to go by that was one rather cushy banishment...
 
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OK, so the big thing for me was walking around a bit to get a feel for the place.

I was anxious to find a vantage point from where our Wilfrid would have taken these pictures...

And there are 2 possibilities...the first and most obvious was a slight high spot about 200m or so to the south-east...piccies to follow in a few seconds...
 
M5V9011_1.jpg


This is the house that would have been the Clearwater homestead. Rather in a sad state of disrepair and currently occupied by a farm labourer.

This is spitting distance from Lesotho and not many people want to live here due to it being so remote and stock theft into Lesotho is a fairly large problem.

The shaded side to the left faces south-easterly and would originally have been a semi-enclosed verandah now completely enclosed.

The right-hand side was apparently the north-easterly facing frontal elevation...which makes sense given the sunrise and sunset directions.
 
M5V9025_1.jpg


This is Clearwater as seen from my first possible vantage point. It did not take me long to spot this little rocky outcrop that looks like it was placed there for a tripod to stand on.

The clump of trees in the pic to the right of the homestead and towards the road behind were also not there at the time of our Wilfrid...

Walking about 80 to 100 meters away from the outcrop to the east one gets a very pretty view of the "Basuto hills" and it is highly possible that our man Wilfrid might have done exactly that...
 
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M5V9022_2.jpg


Walking away in an easterly direction one sees this view of the Basuto hills.

It still ties in nicely with the times of 12:00 and 12:05...only about 80-100 meters to cover...
 
And now for the problematic second scenario...


M5V9024_2.jpg



Vincent pointed out to me that the Johnson family members in the area also had another little house halfway up a little hill north east from the farmhouse...about a quarter mile away from the main Clearwater homestead.

They also had a little shop right next to the roadside...the foundation can still be seen...

This is the little hillock in the foreground - in fact, seen from only meters away from vantage point 1. It is probably only about 30 to 40 meters high but quite a challenge to climb at dusk...

I could not photograph it yesterday as I tried to clamber up the little hill after sunset negotiating boulders the size of houses...promise to take better pics tomorrow!

Towards the left-hand edge of the image a higher concentration of trees are visible halfway up the slope. Those trees must have been planted by the Johnsons as they are not found in the area and are probably not indigenous to South Africa.

Among those trees are the remains of a little sandstone cottage roughly the size of a single garage...3 walls still standing to nearly roof height.
 
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Now given the fact that the old camera has a lens very slightly but not much longer than 50mm I submit that the top of that little hillock is probably the better option as the place from where he could have taken those pics...

1) It faces the main homestead almost squarely.

2) The more dramatic mountain in the background of the previous image (which is in Lesotho) would make a far more impressive picture as it is much closer than those in the previous image...

The problem with this second vantage point is that the clump of trees to the north-north-east of the main homestead now totally obscure the view of the homestead from that little hillock.

I am told that these Johnson guys, black sheep or not, really did very well in cultivating the land.

I hope to go and see some more places tomorrow after the shoot where the Johnsons had a hand in things...
 
Brilliant stuff Anton, can't wait for the next episode.

Andy
 
Fascinating, what a fantastic journey through the history of the area with the Johnsons. Top work Anton.
 
I stumbled on this thread yesterday while searching for more details on my family.

My paternal grandmother, Sophie Eugenie Jacot-Guillarmod (nee Kohler) was the daughter of French missionaries who founded the Cana mission station in Basutoland. Her younger sister Marie Anne was married in 1905 - at the age of 15 (!) to Percy Clarkson Johnson (Wilfrid's elder brother, and the one killed at Gallipoli in 1915). I wonder what Frederic Kohler - her father - had to say about that! Probably why they ended up in what is now Zambia. She and Percy had two sons. Marie then married Peter Orme Brocklehurst, and returned to Enkeldoorn in Rhodesia, dying there in 1960.

It's interesting this all happened in the area of the Free State bordering Lesotho - Cana is near Teyateyaneng in Lesotho, which is just south of Clocolan in the Free State, where my dad was born. His father was Swiss - he came out to South Africa in the 1890s and managed farms in the Reitz and Heilbron areas before running the trading store at Mamathes, which was taken over by my dad in 1940. I grew up at Mamathes, just up the hill from Cana. For what it's worth, my grandmother struggled with English - she was fluent in French and Sesotho, and passable in Afrikaans.

Thanks to all the other posters to this thread for their research, which serendipitously coincided with mine... it's been fascinating
 
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Welcome to F&C, @Jacot , and to one of the more fascinating threads on it! I'm guessing your interest is more family history than photographic. This thread is also tantalising as it has petered out just before the denouement on 21 Jun 2013. Have you thought of contacting @antonroland to see if he found out any more that he has not managed to report here? I also wonder if @kenm ever found out any more.
 
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