If you spend your life digging in the genealogical allotments of ephemera, you learn to welcome an unusual name. You can keep your “John Smiths” and your “Tom Browns” : give me a “Roderick Trencheon-Philpotts” any day. Or, more specifically, give me a Booth Denton – which is the name pencilled-in on the reverse of this Victorian Cabinet Card. I bought it because it comes from a local Huddersfield studio (Sellman & Co), and because it features a beard you ignore at your peril. A little spade work reveals that Booth Denton was a grocer from Mirfield (a few miles to the east of where I live) who was born in 1831 and died in 1894. He not only weighed out the tea, and parcelled up the cheddar cheese, he was also a bit of a pillar of the local community, who sought election to the local Board of Guardians on at least one occasion. He looks a formidable character – you wouldn’t be too keen on going back to the shop to complain that your butter had gone rancid, or your flour had mouse droppings in it.
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