Stockton High Street 1918 – This photograph was taken on the west side of Stockton High Street during the celebrations to mark the end of the First World War. The photograph was taken by a relative Wilfred L Richardson born a 26 Newtown Avenue, Stockton in 1898. The large building clearly visible over the left shoulder of the young lady dressed in white is number 93 High Street. Photograph and information courtesy of Brian Swales 
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Brian – I was fascinated by your reference to your Uncle Wilf, born in 1898 at 26 Newtown Avenue. My mother, Ethel Galloway, was born at number 27 in 1904!! Were they next-door-neighbours, or was the road numbered odds on one side and evens on the other? I know Newtown Avenue still exists – much changed from the days of your uncle and my Mum, though! It”s wonderful to have so many old photographs on the Picture Stockton site – I wonder if anyone has got one of Newtown Avenue at the end of the 19th/early 20th century? Best wishes Judy
Unfortunately I have no idea who the people are in this photograph, but my gut feeling is that they are family. I tend to agree with David Mills, they do look like mother with her son and daughter. It was my Uncle Wilf who took the photographs, in fact he took several this particular day. The family wern”t wealthy but they wern”t “working class” either and my uncle had a very good job throughout his life. He would have been 20 years old in 1918, and to have his own camera then must have been fairly unusual. People around that time certainly didn”t smile for studio photographs but they had good reason to be smiling that day – celebrating the end of a terrible War.
Well, if we are hazarding guesses as to who and what the relationship between these people are let me join in, I think they look like entertainers. Perhaps they were in a variety show somewhere in Stockton. The man in particular looks as if he is a comedian. They look very well dressed for people from Stockton in 1918. The usual garb for that time was black wasn”t it? They never smiled for the camera either then did they? The young lady on the right reminds me of a girl I used to work with called Rosalyn Madden. Thats all I can add to it sorry.
Don”t recognise anybody but the guy on the left and the lady on the right of the photograph look like brother and sister perhaps with mother in the centre?
What a terrific picture this is, a snapshot in a time of great joy and hope, of three young people with everything to live for, full of the exhuberance and optimism that must have followed the end of the “War to end all wars”.
This photograph was taken on the west side of Stockton High Street during the celebrations to mark the end of the First World War. The photograph was taken by a relative Wilfred L Richardson born a 26 Newtown Avenue, Stockton in 1898. The large building clearly visible over the left shoulder of the young lady dressed in white is number 93 High Street. At the time the photograph was taken it was probably the Bank of Liverpool but in the 1980″s it was Barclays Bank. In recent years it was known as The Banque and it”s now Goldies bar. Does anyone recognise the people in the photograph?