Barbara Roberts writes:
My Australian cousins have two family portraits but don’t know who the subjects are! I am not sure whether the pictures are paintings or, as I suspect, photographs which have been painted over. Neither bear the date or the sitter’s name, but if you could provide an accurate date range it might help us to identify them. My cousins’ grandmother, Mary Ann (Pollie) Macmillan, née Whaite (1862-1944), emigrated to Australia in 1889 with her cousin, Emma Tyrrell (1831-89), and we believe the portraits came over with them. If so, the couple depicted could be the parents of either Pollie or Emma. Pollie’s father was a foreman in the London docks and Emma’s was a butcher in Diss, Norfolk. We believe the Tyrrells were quite wealthy and Pollie was brought up by them. So it seems most likely that the portraits are Tyrrells, as I doubt the Whaites could have afforded them.
Emma’s parents are: George Tyrrell (1790- 1855) & Mary (née Whaite) (1797-1872).
Pollie’s parents are: Thomas Whaite (1824-74) & Hannah Matilda (née Taylor) (1824-1910).