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Richard Tunnecliffe – A photographer of Quorn
Richard Anthony Tunnecliffe from Seacombe, Wallasey on the Wirral was a keen and skilled photographer. He was a founder member of the Wallasey Amateur Photographic Society, which came into being in 1904 and many of his photographs are of events, scenes and people from his local area. However, his son Frank, lived in Quorn and Richard used to visit him, taking unique photographs.
The Quorn photographs formed only a small part of Richard’s collection, and when local historian Sue Templeman purchased them, she realised that these had never before been published, so were extremely special.
Roots in Derbyshire
Richard Anthony Tunnecliffe (or Tunnicliffe/Tunnicliff) was born in Ockbrook in Derbyshire in 1846, and was baptised on 25th December that same year in Ockbrook Parish Church. The baptism record states that he was the son of framework knitter Philip Tunnecliffe and his wife Eliza. Philip Tunnecliffe and Eliza Rowbottom had married in Nottingham in April 1844.
It would appear that all was not well in his parents’ marriage and in 1851, four year old Richard was staying with his maternal grandparents, Richard and Mary Rowbottom in Ockbrook.
Moving to Leicester
The 1861 census shows Richard, aged fifteen, as a printer’s apprentice, living at 2 Framland Street in Leicester. This was in the Highfields area, but the property was demolished in the 1960s. He was living with twenty-eight year old Joseph Newton, and described as his son! This is obviously incorrect, but there is some foundation for the entry… Joseph Newton was his mother Eliza’s new partner. She became known as Eliza Newton, but her whereabouts in 1861 can’t be traced anywhere. Was she avoiding being recorded, or was she simply away from home and her hosts had forgotten to include her?
Marriage and hard times
In 1867 Richard (our photographer) married a local Leicester girl, Ann Durrad. They had one son, Frank Walter Tunnecliffe, born in 1869. The 1871 census finds the young couple living on Charles Street in Leicester, but possibly due to Ann being ill, their son Frank was living with his maternal grandparents in Oadby. Ann died later in 1871, aged only 24. In those days it was difficult for a man to bring up a child on his own, and after Ann’s death, young Frank went to live with his paternal grandmother, Eliza Newton and her partner Joseph Newton, who were still living in Leicester.
Moving to the north-west
Richard became increasingly skilled in his trade as a lithographic printer and moved to the Layton area of Blackpool, where he went into partnership with Frederick Wigney as ‘Lithographic Printers and Bookbinders’. After a few years, in 1882, he met and married his second wife, Annie Agnes Johns from Manchester. They had two children; Annie Maud in 1883 and Henry in 1888. The family stayed in the north-west, eventually settling in Wallasey. Frank continued to live in Leicester, but kept in touch with his father, Annie and their children.
The Quorn connection
So Richard Tunnecliffe’s connection with Leicestershire is very significant. He grew up in the city of Leicester, and although he moved away, he always came back to visit his eldest son Frank.
The 1911 census shows Frank, his wife and their two children living at 35 Loughborough Road in Quorn. Richard and his family no doubt came down to Quorn from Chester Station on the Great Central Railway to visit his son, and took photographs whilst he was here.
Richard Tunnecliffe died in October 1915 in Birkenhead, Cheshire, aged sixty-eight.
Pictures
1. Richard Tunnecliffe
2. On the left is Frank Tunnecliffe, his wife Clara and their two children, Percy and Elsie. Standing on the right is Frank’s half-brother Henry and seated is his stepmother Annie
3. The chart shows the Tunnecliffe family tree.
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Submitted on: |
2025-07-20 |
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Submitted by: |
Sue Templeman |
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Artefact ID: |
2614 |
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Artefact URL: |
www.quornmuseum.com/display.php?id=2614 |
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Print: |
View artefact in printer-friendly page or just on its own (new browser tab). |
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