Notes
(LA) The elderly lady is Grandma Platts - born abt 1799 and died abt 1879 in Hasland (Grassmoor). The Platts family lived in Grassmoor/Hasland on Windwhistle farm and are buried in the North Wingfield Church. Interestingly, my Platts uncle's daughter Ellen married a Stringfellow farmer and her daughter married a doctor Graham and I noticed Stringfellow was a photographer on your site!
(BP) My estimate from the clothing and the fact that it is an ambrotype (is it actually an ambrotype?) is c. late 1850s. The subject lived in Hasland, a village just to the south-east of Chesterfield, and it seems very likely that this early photo was taken in Chesterfield. Any ideas as to who the photographer could have been? Could it be Stringfellow, who advertised in Chesterfield in 1860.
(JB) an Ambrotype, but I suspect the case may in fact be complete. I'd guess it was done by an itinerant photographer and mounted in a cheap half case/frame with a ring to hang it up.

Notes
(LA) Her daughter Mary who married Joseph Crofts in 1846 was born May 1829, but died of Typhoid Fever on 21 December 1868. The younger lady (I'll call her Mary Platts Crofts) died young, but she lived at Beetwell Street in Chesterfield. Her husband had a draper's shop in Claycross.
(BP) My estimate from the clothing is c. early 1860s.

Notes
(LA) Here is another picture of Grandma Platts - this one is on card stock and should be around 1874/1875 because the elderly woman died then!
(BP) Inscribed on the reverse "S. Whiting, Artist & Photographer, Vicar Lane near the Market Place, Chesterfield / American Ferrotype Portraits, London Branches &c. Copying of every description ..eatly ... EXTRA COPIES MAY BE HAD." I have not seen a Ferrotype before. Does this look like one? Exciting to have a photo by Samuel Whiting anyway, whatever type it is! Samuel Whiting lived in Chesterfield from at least 1863 until some time after 1881. Directory listings show him as a photographer in Church lane (1870) and later in Vicar lane (1879 & 1881). I guess this was indeed taken in the early 1870s.
(JB) An albumen print mounted as a cdv - ferrotypes are 'tintypes' and literally printed on a very thin sheet of tin.

Notes
(LA) An Uncle Platts.
(JB) Looks like an albumen print.

Notes
(LA) Auntie White, about 1905.
(JB) Looks like a silver gelatin print.

Notes
(LA) Joseph Crofts died in 1878 in Claycross, 10 years after his wife Mary died of Typhoid.
(BP)