Is she or isn't she our Phyllis Palin?

As I have mentioned before every time findmypast adds a new newspaper I will do a quick general search for the name Palin.  If I am lucky I will find a new article about someone in our family tree.  A lot of the time I will find either an article I already have or it is about a Palin that is not in our Tree. But every once in a while I will feel like I have hit that jack pot and find an article about a member in our tree along with a picture of that person.

This may or may not be one of those times!



Findmypast just added "The Tatler" and in my search a wonderful picture of General Robertson and his son came up and I have already added that to the website.  There was also a beautiful picture of a Phyllis Palin, (our Phyllis was born in 1892) in the November 30, 1904.  The picture was on a page showing 10 other pictures of children that were submitted in the Tatler's Beautiful Children Contest.

There is an address given for this Phyllis Palin as 7 Gloucester Walk, Campden Hill.  Knowing that our Phyllis Palin was born and lived in India, my first thought that it was not our Phyllis.  There have been times though in the past were we have seen that many of our Palins that served in India have sent their children home for schooling or have come home for and extended leave so I decided to investigate further.

First thing I did was to check the 1901 census and the 1911 census to see if Phyllis was at that address.  No she was not, but in the 1901 census there was two people that gave their birth location as India.  Perhaps they knew Phyllis or her parents.

Next thing I checked was to see if there were any other Phyllis Palins that may have been born between 1890-1900.  I checked familysearch, findmypast and ancestry and our Phyllis was the only one that came up, so that would be a strong indicator that the picture is our Phyllis.

I then googled the competition and found the Tatler page that advertised the competition and the rules.  Anyone could submit a picture of a child, whether it be parent or friend and the child had to be no older than twelve.  Perhaps it was a friend that submitted the picture and the address given was the friends and our Phyllis would have been 12 in 1904, so that fits as well.

I also found a blurb about one of the judges and who the winner was.

This competition was in two parts - one in August judged by Lady Conan Doyle and Mrs. Thomas Hardy and then the public would select the best of 160 portraits that were published in the magazine as seen in this article on Nov 30, 1904 on page 307.

 The Silver Cup

 There have been many hundreds of portraits sent to this office in connection with the Pretty Children Competition - to be explicit, 5,000 in all.   There were only three prizewinners, and there have been consequently many disappointments.  The Editor has suffered, as Thackeray suffered, from “thorns in the cushion” the appeals of mammas whose darlings have not won prizes and the still more piercing appeals of those parents who would at least liked to see their children’s portraits in The Tatler.  Only 160 portraits, however, have been published in all, and the Editor has regretfully to stop those that appear in the present number in spite of the hundreds of portraits, not less beautiful, in his possession.  From those 160 portraits you are asked to decide who, as the most beautiful, shall be adjudged a Silver Cup.  My readers are invited to send post cards voting for one or other of these children – merely giving the name of the child and the page of The Tatler in which its portrait appeared.  These postcards may be sent in up to December 7, after which the result will be announced.

If anyone can confirm our deny that this picture is our Phyllis, please let me know.

You can find Phyllis Palin in the tree here.