Miss Charlotte Kennard

Identified in the Silvy daybooks as 'Miss Kennard and Miss M. Kennard', the sitters are identified by a pencilled inscription in a period hand on the reverse of the mount as 'Charlotte Kennard / and Ethel May / my godmother / 1867.'

Charlotte Anne Kennard was a daughter of the financier and industrialist Robert William Kennard, who earned vast sums of money through his connections to the iron and steel industries. At the time of the 1861 census, she was living at number 37 Porchester Terrace, which would have been the house across the road from Silvy's studio. When this portrait was taken, Charlotte was twenty-nine years old and unmarried. On 31 March 1869 she married Lewis Cubbitt, an engineer and a nephew of William and Thomas Cubitt, the leading master builders in London. She died on 24 October 1926 at Eden Hall in Edenbridge, Kent.

Ethel May Kennard was born on 26 May 1864, the daughter of Howard John Kennard and his wife Ellen, of 54 Cleveland Square, Bayswater. Her father was on the board of the Falkirk Iron Company and Chairman of Blaenavon Iron Company. Charlotte was Howard's sister, so Ethel May was her niece. Ethel May was baptised at Christ Church, Lancaster Gate, on 12 July 1864. She never married. The 1911 census shows her living alone with one servant at Winchfield in Hampshire. She died there in 1913, aged 48.

Photographed by Camille Silvy on 27 March 1866.