ANNIE BROMILOW (1842-1911), pictured left, was the daughter of James and Ellen Bromilow of Green End House, St. Helens, Lancashire. The photograph on dark glass (below left) is believed to be that of James and his family. Edward McLaughlin, then a 19-year-old first lieutenant in 1857 married Annie aged only 16.

The June wedding is puzzling, at least to the pure, to whom all things are impure. Subalterns were discouraged from marrying for fear that it could ruin them financially and because it removed them from the comradeship of the mess.

The officiating minister was Edward's father, the Rev. Hubert McLaughlin. So why was the ceremony not held in his church at Boraston? Or in St. Helens? Or in a town garrisoned by the groom and his fellow officers? Instead the wedding was in Bournemouth, a seaside resort visited by only a select few.

Please let me know if you can identify what Annie is holding in her carte de visite reproduced below right.

James, who died before Annie's marriage, was the second son of William, a founder of Bromilow, Foster & Co. Ltd., which owned coalmines in and around St. Helens. James established the St. Helens Crown Glass Company in 1826, along with members of another prominent local family, the Pilkingtons.

He was supposed to keep the company's books, but after three years James was forced out and had to sell his shares to young William Pilkington. This recently appointed manager had discovered that James had made extremely costly accounting errors. James then went into partnership with William West running another glass factory, but that went bankrupt after West's own brother correctly informed customers that West was guilty of a huge excise tax fraud. Meanwhile the St. Helens Glass Company went on to become one of the world's largest glass manufacturers, Pilkington.

A portrait of Ellen (1807-1891) painted in her youth is shown above left. After James died, Ellen married John Rose Hall (1790-1858) in 1845. Mrs. Rose Hall is pictured left in old age, a detail from a carte de visite made by Samuel Oglesby of Llandudno, "Photographer to the Queen and the Emperor of the French."

John Rose Hall treasured the last letters of his contemporary and friend Francis Charlton Kinchant, treacherously killed at the age of 24 during the Battle of Waterloo, five months after purchasing a a cornetcy* in the Royal Scots Greys. Kinchant ordered his sergeant to spare a French officer's life and take him prisoner. The Frenchman gave up his sword, but then shot Kinchant with a pistol, whereupon the sergeant cut off his head with a single sabre stroke.
*A cornet was the officer who carried the colors in a troop of cavalry.