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Wiggin and Gray

postcard

Worthing Motor Services "slipper" coach on a South Heighton Sunday School outing, 1910

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Photographers, 30 Meeching Road, Newhaven. Very little is known about this short-lived firm, which appears to have opened for business in 1909. Pike's Directory of 1910-11 records that the firm was continuing to trade and that a Miss R. Gray lived at 30 Meeching Road. However, by the time the 1911 census was held, William Lancelot Elkington had taken over from Wiggin and Gray. He was 25, and had been born in Jersey. Also living at 30 Meeching Road in 1911 were Amos Skinner, a coal merchant, and his wife and son. Elkington, who for some reason traded under the name "William Day", soon moved on, to be replaced as a photographer by Frank Turner.

Only a few Wiggin and Gray postcards have come to light. The example shown above records a Sunday School outing to Newhaven. The charabanc is parked outside Bertie Noakes' hairdresser's shop in Bridge Street. The card was posted in July 1910 and is labelled on the back "Wiggin and Gray, Photographers, Newhaven". Other Wiggin and Gray cards that have been noted show local families or soldiers on military exercises at Newhaven.

Directories fail to record Mr Wiggin's first name or even his initials, and no way has been found to identify him with any certainty in the 1901 and 1911 censuses. The identity of Miss Gray is also unclear.

Acknowledgement: the assistance of Paul Green (Hampden Park) and Mike Green (Barcombe) is gratefully acknowledged.

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