Around 1900, photographer Horace Warner took a series of portraits of some of the poorest people in London – creating relaxed, intimate images that gave dignity to his subjects and producing great photography that is without comparison in his era.
Previously, only a handful of Warner’s sympathetic portraits of the children who lived in the courtyards off Quaker St – known as the Spitalfields Nippers – were believed to exist, but through some assiduous detective work by researcher Vicky Stewart and a stroke of good luck upon The Gentle Author, they were able to make contact with his grandson who keeps two albums comprising more than one hundred of his grandfather’s pictures of Spitalfields, from which the photographs published here are selected.
This unique collection of pictures revolutionises our view of Londoners at the end of the nineteenth century, by bringing them startlingly close and permitting us to look them in the eye.
Belgian soldiers after surrendering German troops 1940British soldiers captured in Dunkirk square, France, 1940German troops marching through Paris, June 14th 1940Messerschmitt Bf-110E Zerstorer after returning from combat flight, 1940German soldiers in North Africa, 1941American soldiers and sailors unloading ammunition and stores on the shore of Guadalcanal, 1942Hungarian army on a street in occupied Belgorod, Russia, 1942.Hungarian 29M 8 cm 80-mm anti-aircraft gun during the war, Stary Oskol part of Kursk region, now part of Belgorod region, Russia, 1942Hungarian soldier with cart of wood near the village of Ivanovka Hohol’skogo district of Voronezh region, Russia, 1942Hungarian soldiers transported by cart, Soviet eastern front, 1942Hungarian soldiers with a captured Soviet Voroshilovets heavy artillery tractor, 1942Rearming guns on a RAF P-400 Airacobra from 601 Squadron, 194240-mm automatic anti-aircraft gun at Finnish airfield, Leningradskaya oblast, August 26, 1943Hungarian Pilot climbs into cockpit of a Messerschmitt Bf 109F-4, 1943Women with children in a courtyard in one of the occupied village of the Belgorod region, Russia, 19435 Rangers battalion in a troop ship LCA before departure to Normandy, Weymouth, England, 5 June 1944British fighter pilot and his best friend, Bazenville, Normandy, France, July 1944Canadian soldiers in the destroyed town of Falaise, August 1944Landing craft preparing for the landings in Normandy, Weymouth, June 1944US Gunners prepare 76mm anti-tank gun (3 inch Gun M5) for transportation in preparation for Operation Overlord, June 1944US Soldiers in the English village during tactical exercises in preparation for Operation Overlord, 18 April 1944US Soldiers playing darts, whilst waiting for loading on ships, before the beginning of Operation Overlord, England, June 1944USN LCT (1st Infantry Division) before Operation Overlord, at Weymouth, England, 05 June 1944USN LST 13, 4th June 1944Typhoon Mk-IB, RCAF, 1945Canadian trucks with QF 25 pounder in the square of the French city of Rouen (Rouen Cathedral in the distance)Children in the occupied village of Belgorod region and German soldiers next to the horseGerman pilots with peasant and oxen at one of the airports in BulgariaMountain soldiers of Wehrmacht troops relax on the sun loungers at a hunting lodgeReady for D Day, Falmouth, England, 1944Servicing a Fieseler Fi 156 Storch
Sophia Loren was born as Sofia Scicolone at the Clinica Regina Margherita in Rome, Italy, on September 20, 1934. Her father, Riccardo Scicolone, was married to another woman and refused to marry her mother, Romilda Villani, despite the fact that she was the mother of his two children (Sophia and her younger sister Maria Scicolone). Growing up in the slums of Pozzuoli during the second World War without any support from her father, she experienced much sadness in her childhood. Her life took an unexpected turn for the best when, at age 14, she entered into a beauty contest where she placed as one of the finalists. It was there that Sophia caught the attention of film producer Carlo Ponti, some 22 years her senior, whom she eventually married in 1966 once he finally obtained a divorce from his first wife. Perhaps he was the only father figure she ever had. Under his guidance, Sophia was put under contract and appeared as an extra in ten films beginning in 1950, before working her way up to supporting roles. In these early films, she was credited as “Sofia Lazzaro” because people joked her beauty could raise Lazzarus from the dead.
By her late teens, Sophia was playing lead roles in many Italian features such as La favorita (1952) and Aida (1953). In 1957, she embarked on a successful acting career in the United States, starring in Boy on a Dolphin (1957), Legend of the Lost (1957), and The Pride and the Passion (1957) that year. She had a short-lived but much-publicized fling with co-star Cary Grant, who was 31 years her senior. She was only 22 while he was 53, and she rejected a marriage proposal from him. They were paired together a second time in the family-friendly romantic comedy Houseboat (1958). While under contract to Paramount Pictures, Sophia starred in Desire Under the Elms (1958), The Key (1958), The Black Orchid (1958), It Started in Naples (1960), Heller in Pink Tights (1960), A Breath of Scandal (1960), and The Millionairess (1960) before returning to Italy to star in Two Women (1960). The film was a period piece about a woman living in war-torn Italy who is raped while trying to protect her young daughter. Originally cast as the more glamorous child, Sophia fought against type and was re-cast as the mother, evidencing a lack of vanity and proving herself as a genuine actress. This performance received international acclaim and was honored with an Academy Award for Best Actress.
Sophia remained a bona fide international movie star throughout the sixties and seventies, making films on both sides of the Atlantic, and starring opposite such leading men as Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, Gregory Peck, and Charlton Heston. Her American films included El Cid (1961), The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), Arabesque (1966), Man of La Mancha (1972), and The Cassandra Crossing (1976). She gained a wider respect with her Italian films, especially Marriage Italian Style (1964) and A Special Day (1977). During these years she received a second Oscar nomination and won five Golden Globe Awards.
From the eighties onward, Sophia’s appearances on the big screen came few and far between. She preferred to spend the majority of her time raising sons Carlo Jr. (b. 1969) and Eduardo (b. 1973). Her only acting credits during the decade were five television films, beginning with Sophia Loren: Her Own Story (1980), a biopic in which she portrayed herself and her mother. She ventured into other areas of business and became the first actress to launch her own fragrance and design of eye wear. In 1982 she voluntarily spent nineteen days in jail for tax evasion.
In 1991 Sophia received an Honorary Academy Award for her body of work, and was declared “one of world cinema’s greatest treasures.” Later that year, she experienced a great loss when her mother died of cancer. Her return to mainstream films in Ready to Wear (1994) (“Ready to Wear”) was well-received, although the film as a whole was not. She followed this up with her biggest U.S. hit in years, the comedy Grumpier Old Men (1995) in which she played a sexy divorcée who seduces Walter Matthau. Over the next decade Sophia had plum roles in a few non-mainstream arthouse films like Soleil (1997), Between Strangers (2002) (directed by Edoardo), and Lives of the Saints (2004). Still beautiful at 72, she posed scantily-clad for the 2007 Pirelli Calendar. Sadly, that same year she mourned the loss of her spouse, Carlo Ponti, who died at age 94. In 2009, after far too much time away from film, she appeared in the musical Nine (2009) opposite Daniel Day-Lewis. These days Sophia is based in Switzerland but frequently travels to Los Angeles to spend time with her sons and their families (Eduardo is married to actress Sasha Alexander). Sophia Loren remains one of the most beloved and recognizable figures in the international film world. Text via IMDb
Sophia Loren swimming in the pool at the villa. (Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)(stills 11993) Sophia Loren, portrait in the 1960’s
The Thylacine, also called Tasmanian tiger because of its striped lower back, or the Tasmanian wolf because of its canid-like characteristics, was neither a tiger nor a wolf, but a marsupial, and closely related to the Tasmanian devil.
The last known Tasmanian tiger died in 1936, but hundreds of unconfirmed sightings have spurred investigations into whether the animal still lives. Below are some last known thylacines photographed at Beaumaris Zoo in 1933.
The thylacine was relatively shy and nocturnal, with the general appearance of a medium-to-large-size dog, except for its stiff tail and abdominal pouch similar to a kangaroo, and dark transverse stripes that radiated from the top of its back, reminiscent of a tiger. The thylacine was a formidable apex predator, though exactly how large its prey animals were is disputed. Because of convergent evolution it displayed a form and adaptations similar to the tiger and wolf of the Northern Hemisphere, even though not related. Its closest living relative is either the Tasmanian devil or the numbat. The thylacine was one of only two marsupials to have a pouch in both sexes: the other is water opossum. The pouch of the male thylacine served as a protective sheath covering the external reproductive organs.
Although the thylacine was extinct on mainland Australia, it survived into the 1930s on the island state of Tasmania. At the time of the first European settlement, the heaviest distributions were in the northeast, northwest and north-midland regions of the state. They were rarely sighted during this time but slowly began to be credited with numerous attacks on sheep. This led to the establishment of bounty schemes in an attempt to control their numbers. The Van Diemen’s Land Company introduced bounties on the thylacine from as early as 1830, and between 1888 and 1909 the Tasmanian government paid £1 per head (the equivalent of £100 or more today) for dead adult thylacines and ten shillings for pups. In all they paid out 2,184 bounties, but it is thought that many more thylacines were killed than were claimed for. Its extinction is popularly attributed to these relentless efforts by farmers and bounty hunters.
However, it is likely that multiple factors led to its decline and eventual extinction, including competition with wild dogs introduced by European settlers, erosion of its habitat, the concurrent extinction of prey species, and a distemper-like disease that affected many captive specimens at the time. A study from 2012 also found that were it not for an epidemiological influence, the extinction of thylacine would have been at best prevented, at worst postponed.
Whatever the reason, the animal had become extremely rare in the wild by the late 1920s. Despite the fact that the thylacine was believed by many to be responsible for attacks on sheep, in 1928 the Tasmanian Advisory Committee for Native Fauna recommended a reserve similar to the Savage River National Park to protect any remaining thylacines, with potential sites of suitable habitat including the Arthur-Pieman area of western Tasmania.
The last known thylacine to be killed in the wild was shot in 1930 by Wilf Batty, a farmer from Mawbanna in the state’s northwest. The animal, believed to have been a male, had been seen around Batty’s house for several weeks.
Work in 2012 examined the relationship of the genetic diversity of the thylacines before their extinction. The results indicated that the last of the thylacines in Australia, on top of the threats from dingoes, had limited genetic diversity, due to their complete geographic isolation from mainland Australia. Further investigations in 2017 showed evidence that this decline in genetic diversity started long before the arrival of humans in Australia, possibly starting as early as 70–120 thousand years ago.
One of only two known photos of a thylacine with a distended pouch, bearing young. Adelaide Zoo, 1889.A thylacine, ca. 1902.Thylacines in a Washington, D.C. zoo, ca. 1906.Thylacine family at Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart, 1909.Thylacine family at Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart, 1910.This 1921 photo by Henry Burrell of a thylacine with a chicken was widely distributed and may have helped secure the animal’s reputation as a poultry thief.A Tasmanian hunter with a recently killed thylacine, 1925.A Tasmanian tiger in captivity, circa 1930.ca. 1930Wilfred Batty of Mawbanna, Tasmania, with the last Tasmanian tiger known to have been shot in the wild. He shot the tiger in May, 1930 after it was discovered in his hen house.
Are you lacking a massage in certain needed areas? Then the Vibra-Finger is for you! Whatever that means, but this 1950s massager was dentist-approved.
The original bad girl of burlesque, and the dancer who popularized the use of live snakes, Zorita was a 1940s glamour girl. Known for her original and raunchy dances, Zorita was recognizable by the blonde streaks she often had in her black hair.
Born Kathryn Boyd in Youngstown, Ohio in 1915, she was adopted by a strict Methodist couple. She was said to be “built to the hilt” for her age, and by the time she was 15 she began working at stag parties and nudist colony events at the San Diego Worlds Fair. Boyd also entered beauty pageants and by the time she was 20 she was turned onto the burlesque world.
Zorita became well known for her unique and naughty acts. In one number she danced in front of a rhinestone spiderweb, while the hands of an unseen spider gradually removed her clothing. Another act was a kinky take on a vaudeville staple – the Half and Half. Taking gender bending to new levels, she dressed one half of her body as a male groom, and the other as a female bride. Always keeping one profile to the audience, the groom and bride gradually removed each others clothing, leading to a climactic “wedding night” romp.
With her exotic fierce looks it is no wonder Zorita became popular, and adding the danger and eroticism of the snakes, the audiences just went wild. She used the movement of the snakes, named Elmer and Oscar, to emphasize her own. In her popular act “The Consummation of the Wedding of the Snake”, she stripped while holding an 8 foot boa constrictor.
What she did with these snakes eventually landed her in trouble. Possibly as an attempt to censor Zorita’s acts, in February 1949 she was arrested by the New York ASPCA claiming she had been cruel to animals. In the above photo she sits in a courtroom with her 10-foot rock python and 20 month old daughter Tawny (who was said to have been put in a drawer while her mother performed in order to keep her safe). The claim was that Zorita had taped the mouths of her snakes before each performance. She was released on $1500 bail, but all her snakes were confiscated.
Although Zorita dated men, and admitted she only spent time with the ones she could use, she was a lesbian and never married. Her unrequited love was fellow performer Sherry Britton, who she pursued relentlessly to no avail.
Retiring from burlesque in 1954, Zorita kept herself busy owning several burlesque clubs in New York and Miami, often passing on tips and tricks. While she taught burlesque routines to others, she refused to tell the secrets of her signature snake stripteases. She quite the scene entirely in 1974, and moved to Florida where she bred Persian cats.
Troops of the British 57th and 59th Divisions (XI Corps) entering Lille, France. October 18, 1918.New Zealanders at Pont-a-Pierres, Beaudignies in France, moving wounded German soldiers onto stretchers. 2 November 1918Soldiers pose for the camera outside their tents.A soldier poses for a photo on the front line.German and Canadian wounded receive hot coffee and biscuits from a YMCA hut near the front lines. November 24, 1917Soldiers of the 5th London Rifle Brigade with German Saxon regimental troops during the truce at Ploegsteert, Belgium. Christmas of 1914.A German prisoner helps British wounded make their way to a dressing station near Bernafay Wood following fighting on Bazentin Ridge – Battle of the Somme. 19 July 1916German AV-7 tank “Adalbert” with two of its crew being transported upon a railway flat car. Spring 1918Soldiers of an Australian 4th Division field artillery brigade on a duckboard track passing through Chateau Wood, near Hooge in the Ypres salient, 29 October 1917.Two German soldiers in a farm house in Gouzeaucourt, France in 1915. The large village was occupied by the Germans until the British managed to invade it in early 1917Russian soldiers on the Eastern Front take aim in a trench while wearing chlorine gas masks.A carrier pigeon being released from a port-hole in the side of a tank near Albert, during the Battle of Amiens, 9 August 1918.Two Australian Soldiers relaxing under an ‘Elephant Iron’ shelter at Westhoek Ridge, Flanders, Belgium. Sept. 1917American medics of the 103rd and 104th Ambulance Companies give medical attention to wounded German prisoners. Sept. 1918German prisoners captured in the battle of Menin Road Ridge wait their turn to be vaccinated at Locre in Belgium. Sept. 1917A British wounded and German prisoner sharing a cigarette at a 21st Division Advanced Dressing Station, near Épehy, Somme. Sept. 1918Troops of the 52nd (Lowland) Division with captured German MG 08/15 machine guns. In Quéant, a commune in the Pas-de-Calais. 6 September 1918.An Australian dressing station on the Menin Road during the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele), 20 September 1917.Leutnant Werner Voss, Staffelführer of Jasta 10 in his Fokker F.1, September 1917. (KIA 23/9/17 aged 20)A Canadian miner resting after a heavy night’s work, 1918An exhausted British soldier asleep in a front line trench at Thiepval, Somme. September 1916.A Lewis gun is manned by Indian troops in Mesopotamia in 1918.New Zealand soldiers prepare to fire a cannon in Le Quesnoy, France in 1918.Battle of the Drocourt-Quéant Line. Mule in a limber team collapsed after being hit by a shell splinter near the village of Remy. 2 September 1918German MG 08 anti-aircraft machine gun post set up in a shell hole. Flanders Front, September 1917A German A7V Sturmpanzerwagen (Nº504 “Schnuck”) captured by the New Zealand Division at Frémicourt, Nord-Pas-de-Calais on the 31 August 1918 (photo taken 18/9/18).A soldier with the Royal Engineers Signals Section putting a message into the cylinder attached to the collar of a dog at the Central Depot of the Messenger Dog Service at Étaples-sur-Mer. 28 August 1918Stretcher-bearers (SB) of the 6th Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders asleep. 29 August 1918Troops of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry who captured this trench during the Battle of Messines, 11th June 1917. They are wearing German helmets or caps.A British Chaplain saying a prayer over a dying German, near Epehy in France, 18 September 1918.Wounded of the 27th Brigade, 9th Division, at a regimental aid post near Meteren following the formation’s successful attack on Outtersteene Ridge, 18 August 1918.A Scots Guardsman giving a wounded German prisoner a drink. Near Courcelle-le-Comte. 21 August 1918Battle of Amiens. British and German wounded at a dressing station of the 58th (London) Division near Chipilly, Somme. 10 August 1918An Australian Artillery gunner minding a baby outside his billet in Adinkerke, Belgium. 6 August 1917German prisoners carrying a wounded Canadian 3rd Division soldier to the rear during the second day of the Battle of Amiens. 9 August 1918British soldier giving a cigarette to a badly wounded German lying in a ditch at Pilckem. The Battle of Pilckem Ridge. 31 July 1917Stokes (3-inch) 81mm Light Infantry Mortar team in action during the 100 days offensive in 1918.Members of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment having some ice cream in Ayr, Scotland. July 1915Gunners of the Royal Garrison Artillery moving an 8-inch howitzer Mark V into position during the Battle of the Somme at Becordel, July 1916.Canadian 42nd Battalion – The Royal Highlanders of Canada (Black Watch) resting in Grand Place, Mons, Belgium.British troops survey the battle scene in France.A group of Australian and New Zealander soldiers with motorcycles at Gallipoli in 1915Indian bicycle troops during the Battle of the Somme which took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916 on both sides of the upper reaches of the River Somme in France. More than three million men fought in the battle and one million men were wounded or killed.Canadian soldiers in the Battle of Amiens during the First World War in August 1918.British troops in a captured German trench with a sign reading Old Hun Line at Serre, March 1917.Indian troops serving the British Empire on the western Front.German sailors pose for a photo on a U-boat before battle.Irish soldiers in a trench at Mesopotamia.The 50th Aero Squadron in Clermont-en-Argonne Airdrome, France in 1918.American engineers marching though the village of Nonsard-Lamarche during the battle of St. Mihiel. September 12-19th, 1918.
Actress and singer Ann-Margret is one of the most famous sex symbols and actresses of the 1960s and beyond. She continued her career through the following decades and into the 21st century.
Ann-Margret was born Ann-Margret Olsson on April 28, 1941 in Valsjöbyn, Jämtland County, Sweden, to Anna Regina (Aronsson) and Carl Gustav Olsson, who worked for an electrical company. She came to America at age 6. She studied at Northwestern University and left for Las Vegas to pursue a career as a singer.
Ann-Margret was discovered by George Burns and soon afterward got both a record deal at RCA and a film contract at 20th Century Fox. In 1961, her single “I Just Don’t Understand” charted in the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 Charts. Her acting debut followed the same year as Bette Davis’ daughter in Frank Capra’s Pocketful of Miracles (1961). She appeared in the musical State Fair (1962) a year later before her breakthrough in 1963. With Bye Bye Birdie (1963) and Viva Las Vegas (1964) opposite Elvis Presley, she became a Top 10 Box Office star, teen idol and even Golden Globe nominated actress. She was marketed as Hollywood’s hottest young star and in the years to come got awarded the infamous nickname “sex kitten.”
Her following pictures were sometimes ripped apart by critics. She couldn’t escape being typecast because of her great looks. By the late 1960s, her career stalled, and she turned to Italy for new projects. She returned and, by 1970, she was back in the public image with Hollywood films, Las Vegas sing-and-dance shows and her own television specials. She finally overcame her image with her Oscar-nominated turn in Mike Nichols’ Carnal Knowledge (1971) and succeeded in changing her image from sex kitten to respected actress.
A near-fatal accident at a Lake Tahoe show in 1972 only momentarily stopped her career. She was again Oscar-nominated in 1975 for Tommy (1975), the rock opera film of the British rock band The Who. Her career continued with successful films throughout the late 1970s and into the 1980s. She starred next to Anthony Hopkins in Magic (1978) and appeared in pictures co-starring Walter Matthau, Gene Hackman, Glenda Jackson and Roy Scheider. She even appeared in a television remake of Tennessee Williams’s masterpiece play “A Streetcar Named Desire” in 1983. Another late career highlight for her was Grumpy Old Men (1993) as the object of desire for Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. She continues to act in movies today.
