The late August Bank Holiday in Britain (apart from Scotland) marks the traditional end of Summer.
Today’s forecast for glorious sunny weather offers an ideal opportunity to venture to the beach for a dip in the sea.
It’s a moment captured in a celebrated stereocard, titled ‘Miss Ward, the greatest of all Lady Divers’, whose back story comes to mind on this particular Bank Holiday Monday.
In the Spring of 1891, the American stereoscopic photography company Underwood & Underwood (U&U) opened a new branch office in Britain.
Its decision was informed by the port city of Liverpool’s key role in trade across the Atlantic Ocean and as a hub for transport links into the lucrative European market.
At this point, U&U’s 3D cards featured Liverpool alongside New York; Ottawa, Kansas (where it had started life); and Toronto, Canada as cities from which it operated.
Further evidence of its new commercial commitment to Europe came on 27th February 1893.
It was then that the company’s co-founder Bert Underwood (1862-1943), who had set up the Liverpool office, registered a number of its stereos for copyright in the UK.
Among the first he submitted (COPY 1/411/262) was titled ‘Miss Ward, the greatest of all Lady Divers’ complete with its ‘copy attached’ seen below in the National Archives at Kew.
This stereo like others registered at the same time had proved a popular seller for Underwood & Underwood in the United States.
An example in the Pressphotoman collection reveals that it first appeared in 1889 bearing the stamp of its New York partner company Strohmeyer & Wyman.
The photographic brilliance of its ‘instantaneous’ composition allows the viewer to relive the feeling of flying through the air in 3D en route to the water beyond.
But who was ‘Miss Ward’ and where was this remarkable shot taken?
The card’s verso records its location as ‘Coney Island, U.S.A.’, home in its late-19th century heyday to three seaside resorts in the Brooklyn district of New York.
Among the amusements on offer to holidaymakers and daytrippers, ‘Miss Ward’ performed diving displays that drew large and enthusiastic crowds.
Another U&U stereocard, also taken in 1889, that recently joined the Pressphotoman collection features ‘Daring Miss Ward’ in a less dramatic pose.
Here she is wearing shoes and stockings unlike in the diving pose where she is barefoot with her hair tied in a pigtail.
Given the conventions of the time regarding public bathing, it is perhaps unsurprising that ‘Miss Ward’ caused such a stir.
It would though take a new century before the world was ready was the Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman and her one-piece bathing suit.
Pressphotoman 
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