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	The SPEIGHT FAMILY of RUGBY - PHOTOGRAPHERS  - Background and Research STOP PRESS - Sad News  Helen Speight  1912 - 2013 We are very sad to announce the death of Helen [née Speight] Larratt on 18 February 2013, aged 100.   STOP PRESS - Recent research findings Walbrook Glee Singers This fine mounted photograph was generously donated to the Speight Archive by John Woodfield in memory of his grandfather, Charles Henry Christie of Birmingham. The Walbrook Glee Singers were based in Rugby and sang in the area and occasionally further afield.  So far references to them have been found between 1894 and 1903.  The members of the established group from about mid 1900 comprised Messrs. Ernest Brooks, Walter White, Chas. Sapsted, and Sidney Laughton.  The photograph was taken by E H Speight of Rugby. It seems likely that it was Charles Sapsed, who was born in Kent in 1866 and who was the "Secretary", had founded the group, as he was also in the earlier line up and had a successful musical background in Saffron Walden before coming to Rugby.  He sang Base or Baritone, and worked as a clerk. Walter White was Rugby born in 1858, sang tenor and was an engine driver.  Sidney Thomas Laughton  was born in Rugby in 1876, he sang base, and had some musical training having won a prize for his singing in the Trinity College examinations at Leamington.  He followed his father's trade as a cabinet maker.  Ernest Brooks who sang tenor was also Rugby born in 1871; his father, Isaac, was manager of the Rugby Cement works, and in 1901 Ernest was Secretary to the works; he succeeded his father as Manager in 1906. The photograph has particular importance as it is the only known photograph of Ernest Brooks and is thus important to the ongoing research into the history of the Rugby Cement Works OTHER NEWS - For other 'recent' Stop Press Items and News Updates follow the link Edward Hall Speight, headmaster turned photographer, worked in Rugby from the early 1870s.  His subjects ranged from town scenes to family groups, from the workhouse poor to local worthies, including the Brooke family and their son who was the famous Poet, Rupert Brooke.  Edward Hall Speight had eight children: his six sons and elder daughter all became photographers, as did one of his grand-daughters.  The sons were sent out “with five pounds, a bible and a tin trunk” and set up studios in Market Harborough, Exmouth, Nuneaton, Kettering, Leamington Spa, Redditch and Sutton Coldfield.  To find out more about the family please follow the links. Click here to see the Speight family Research has been carried out on the family and photographic businesses of the Speight family of Rugby and later elsewhere.  The Speight Photographers Research Project has identified a number of individuals, either in photographs taken by the Speight family, or from entries in James Speight's diaries and autograph book and elsewhere. Various Speight archives have been obtained and are being prepared for deposit at the Warwickshire County Record Office. To assist Family History Researchers, this List of Names is detailed on a separate page. Click here for Rugby and other Names in the Speight Archive Thanks to the generous assistance of the Speight family and members of the public, in Rugby, around the UK and as far away as the USA and Australia, and the cooperation of museums, galleries, libraries, archives and record offices, the story of the lives and work of the members of this talented family can now be told. A Research Report and Booklet have now been published. Click here for more details of these publications Lectures are also available on the "Speight Family of Photographers".  This can be a general talk or can focus on the work of the individual photographers and their work in Rugby, Market Harborough, Nuneaton, Kettering or Sutton Coldfield. The author, John Frearson, is a researcher and family historian, living in Rugby, who came upon some photographs by Gulliver Speight, found that he was born in Rugby, and had to know more!  A Research Report and a Booklet have been published by John Frearson Publications. Further details can be obtained from:- John Frearson - johnphfrearson@btopenworld.com    .