A likeness of Elijah Williams (07-x-1809 08-ix-1854)

[John Upham]

An appeal to everyone who enjoys this sort of thing...

I have struggled to find a likeness of Elijah Williams (07-x-1809 08-ix-1854)

Can you help?

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

[deleted]

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Alternatively you could take a guess based on a photograph of one of Elijah Williams' grandsons, Geoffrey Baynton Williams:
https://www.easyliveauction.com/catalog ... -november/

[Matt Mackenzie]

I think that as with Alexander McDonnell, there is no reliable likeness of Williams in existence (or known to have survived at any rate)

[John Saunders]

I asked ChatGPT to: "draw a picture of an Englishman in 1850, described as burly form, light hair and eyes, and florid complexion" (see https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter180.html) and it came up with this:

Is it really necessary to use AI to generate spurious images? Before we know it, this image will be all over the web as if it were actually the man himself, despite the disclaimer in the jpg name. Can I suggest it be deleted?

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Is it really necessary to use AI to generate spurious images? Before we know it, this image will be all over the web as if it were actually the man himself, despite the disclaimer in the jpg name. Can I suggest it be deleted?

Yes, good point. I've deleted it.

[Neil Blackburn]

There certainly is no image of him that I could find - I searched the bna archives of the newspapers of the time without finding an image of him whilst putting a blog together.

[John Upham]

There certainly is no image of him that I could find - I searched the bna archives of the newspapers of the time without finding an image of him whilst putting a blog together.

Thanks Neil.


See

https://britishchessnews.com/2020/09/08 ... -williams/

[Neil Blackburn]

Thanks for the kind mention. As a side note the description of Williams as an apothecary may be wrong, and based on his being licenced to distribute medicine during the epidemic. Somewhere - I forgot to note the source - he is listed as a surgeon. That would make sense as Bristol was a centre of surgery and anatomy teaching, complete with bodysnatching, in the early 19th c.

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Elijah Williams' profession is given as a surgeon in various documents.

Pigot's Directory for Bristol from 1842
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageviewer/ ... d=24355365
That link will only work if you have an account with Ancestry.

A document of intended marriage (his first) in 1844:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903 ... 75&lang=en
That link will only work if you have a (free) account with Family Search.

Parish marriage record for his second marriage in 1850:
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageviewer/ ... 5098-00159

The image of the 1851 census is quite difficult to read, but I think it says "surgeon not practising"
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageviewer/ ... _1568-0432

Elijah Williams' page on Family Search:
https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/pe ... s/GWRR-B8T