Sarah Street Collection

On the 1st August 2010 Vivien Noakes received an email telling her of some pictures owned by descendants of Sarah Street, née Lear. A further e-mail yielded a few tantalizing details; but the onset of her final illness aborted the correspondence. It was not until June last year that communication with the family could be renewed; and several months passed before photography was possible.

Sarah, Edward’s second oldest sister, emigrated to New Zealand in the 1850s, but remained in contact with other family members; her granddaughter Emily, later Mrs. Gillies, was the main family beneficiary of Lear’s will, and it was Sarah’s daughter-in-law, Emily’s mother, Sophie Street, who dictated the family lore written down, apparently several years later, by Lily Bowen, Emily’s daughter, at the beginning of the XX century. This memoir would be the main source for the family history in Angus Davidson’s biography.