We had thought this photo of the Hussey and Butler families of Kensington, London, may have been taken in 1891 on the occasion of the marriage of James Hussey and Jane Butler. However, Alison Carter, Senior Keeper of Art at the Hampshire Museums Service, dates the photo at about 1894 or 1895, based mainly on the dress of the woman seated at the far right of the middle row. The large hats apparently date the picture to the 1890s, but the size of the sleeves, which started with a small puff at the top in the early 1890s but developed into a bigger puff as the decade progressed, date it to the mid-1890s.

We do not know the identities of everyone in the photo, although we do have names for four individuals:

If you can spot him, the white-haired bearded man in the back row is builder Thomas Hussey, father of James Hussey; beside Thomas, on the left, is George Butler (1834-1911), father of Jane Butler; standing behind George, behind the main group, is Thomas's son William; and the second man from the right in the back row is Thomas's son Thomas, who married Jane Butler's elder sister Mary in 1886. Based on another photo, we believe the third person from the left in the middle row, with her arms folded, is Jane Butler (née Lynch), mother of the Jane Butler.

There are four priests in the photo and, because the only priest we know of in either the Butler or Hussey families who was alive in 1891 was James Hussey (brother of Thomas senior), he is likely to be pictured (James died in early 1896). Any help in identifying the remaining individuals would be most welcome.