Above: My great-great-great-great grandmother, Sarah Barnes Bishop. This photo was taken by Stamford photographer Mrs Elizabeth Higgins. Elizabeth was the daughter of James and Hannah Goond. She was born in Saint Michael, Stamford, Lincolnshire, in 1828.On January 8, 1854, at Brentford, Middlesex, 23 year old Elizabeth married Henry Augustus Higgins, a 28 year old Chemist's assistant.
The 1861 Census for St. Michael, Stamford, found Henry and Elizabeth living with Hannah Goond, Elizabeth's widowed mother, who was earning a living as an inn keeper. Henry was still a Chemist's assistant, but Elizabeth's occupation was stated as being "Photographic Artist". Each census return for the next twenty years showed Elizabeth's occupation as 'Artist' or 'Photographer, until 1891 when it was given as 'Living On Her Own means'. The 1871 census showed that Elizabeth Higgins had taken on her 22 year old niece Annie B Hopgood as an assistant, and by 1881 Annie had been joined in this position by her younger sister Mary Hopgood.
Henry Augustus Higgins died in 1890 and despite Elizabeth no longer stating her occupation as 'photographer' in the 1891 census, her two Hopgood nieces who were still living with her were both listed as photographers.
All of the photographs that my great-great grandfather Henry Bishop carried with him to Australia from Stamford were taken by Elizabeth Higgins in the very early 1860s.
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