William and Ethel Hopcroft by Lowthian Bros. c1904.

An image kindly supplied by Dianne Roberts. A portrait of her grandparents.

William Kirk Hopcroft was born in Bulwell, Nottinghamshire in 1879. He was brought to Grimsby from an orphanage to be a fishing apprentice. He married Ethel Mary Oates on 30th June 1904 at St. Andrew’s Church, Freeman Street. It’s highly likely that this photo was taken in 1904.

William Hopcroft was a fishing engineer in 1922. The family lived in Daubney Street. William died in 1963 and Ethel died in 1959. They are buried in Cleethorpes Cemetery.

Harry (1860-1947) and Charles Lowthian (1861-1898) were born in Manchester. They were sons of Jabez Lowthian, artist, of Keswick, Cumberland. They moved to Grimsby in the 1880s and set up as Lowthian Bros., professional photographers, in Freeman Street. Charles Lowthian later set up a photographic studio in Cleethorpes. He married Harriet Charles in Grimsby in 1887. Sadly, he died in 1898, aged just 37. Studio photographs by C. Lowthian, as opposed to Lowthian Bros., are rare as he died at such a young age.