The photographer's sons with their ayah

A pencilled inscription verso identifies the boys as John and James. The boys appear on the 1881 census, living with their parents James and Elizabeth Jameson at 50 North Pitt Street, Edinburgh. At the time of the census, John was 4 and James was 2.

According to one of John's descendants, in later life the two brothers fell out over a woman. John married and his wife gave birth to several children but one of these eventually reregistered her birth to show James D. Jameson, the younger brother in this portrait, as her father.

Photographed by James Jameson of Edinburgh.