Teenage girls in the 21st century have opportunities and outlets unimagined to their great-grandmothers. Just imagine living in a world where TV, radio and internet are yet to be invented.
Violet’s father Henry Arthur Poole had a successful business as a photographer based at 34 The Mall in Waterford, a city in the South East of Ireland which was then a part of the British Empire.
Mr Poole was born at Taunton in Somerset, England and the 1901 Census shows him resident at 10 The Mall with his nephew Bernard I. Poole (photographer) aged 23, and 3 children, Bertram aged 14, Violet aged 13 (born 1st February 1888) and Vyvian aged 10.
In 1904 when aged 16 Violet spent a year exchanging postcards with various correspondents in England, Scotland, Ireland and Continental Europe. As all these postcards are postmarked 1904 OR 1905 and they now provide a unique insight into a world before the devastation of two World Wars.
The correspondence on the cards gives us a sense of the world inhabited by Violet and her friends. It appears that she visited England that year because some of the cards are addressed to her there. Confusingly one of her friends was also called Violet, and Violet herself occasionally went by the nickname of “Biddy” on occasions.
The Census of 1911 shows Violet resident at 12 The Mall aged 23, still living with her parents and now a Photographer’s Assistant.
The A.H. Poole Collection of Photographs is available online and features many historical pictures of people and places in the Waterford area down the years. The Poole Collection is in the National Library www.nli.ie .
Violet’s postcard collection has been passed down in my family and to the best of my knowledge has not been seen by the public before now.
Violet became Mrs Fleming, lived at 5 Percy Terrace in Waterford, and died on 13th November 1953 at the age of 65.
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BILL McCONNELL
March 2021.
Violet Poole Postcards 