Was baby Christine born in Barnstaple in Devon in the winter of 1895? Was she named Christine Isobel? I can’t be sure but there was a little girl born then, daughter of Frederick and Catherine Thomas, sister of Frederick junior, born five years after her. her father was a goldsmith from Ilfracombe, her mother was born in Ramsgate in Kent. By the time of the 1911 census, another child had been born, little Helen, and the family now had two servants so they must have been doing well, even allowing for the fact that domestic labour was cheap and available.
I don’t know if the child in the picture is the child in the census and birth records; in the advertisement the writer of the endorsement is ‘K. Thomas’, and the real Christine’s parents were C. and F. Thomas… it’s a charming little advertisement, and the baby looks quite a character!
Lois Elsden 