In October 2024, a photo conservator in Edinburghough, Scotland was restoring a collection of early 20th century photographs when she discovered an image that would break her heart.
It was a simple portrait from 1905, a young boy, maybe eight or nine years old, sitting on front porch steps, cradling a tiny kitten in his arms.
At first glance, it was absolutely charming.
The kind of innocent, timeless image that makes you smile.
A child and his pet.
Pure joy captured on film.
But when the conservator, Dr.
Hannah Fraser, began the restoration process, removing 119 years of deterioration and enhancing details invisible for over a century.
Something emerged that completely changed the meaning of this photograph.
details in the background, symbols in the boy’s clothing, and most heartbreaking of all, an inscription on the original photo mount that had been hidden beneath layers of tape and grime.
What appeared to be a sweet moment of childhood happiness was actually something far more tragic.
Dr.
Fraser stopped work immediately and contacted medical historians and Victorian childhood specialists.
What they discovered wasn’t just sad.
It revealed a devastating reality about childhood in the early 1900s that this photograph had documented and then concealed for 119 years.
This is the story of one photograph, one boy, one kitten, and a truth that will make you see Victorian childhood in a completely different light.
Let’s begin.
The Edinburgh Photographic Archive houses over 200,000 historical images documenting Scottish life from the 1840s through the present day.
Most are cataloged, preserved, and accessible to researchers.
But in October 2024, the archive received an unusual donation from the estate of a deceased collector in Glasgow.
A box of approximately 60 uncataloged photographs from the early 1900s, many in severely deteriorated condition.
Dr.
Hannah Fraser, a senior photo conservator with 15 years of experience, was assigned to assess the collection and determine which images could be saved.
Most showed typical Eduwardian subjects, family groups, street scenes, holiday gatherings.
But one photograph immediately caught her attention, not because it was unusual, but because it was so perfectly charming.
The photograph measured approximately 5 by7 in mounted on thick cardboard backing typical of professional portrait studios from the period.
It showed a young boy, perhaps 8 or 9 years old, sitting on wooden porch steps in front of a modest house.
He wore a white sailor suit, the ubiquitous children’s fashion of the era, with a large bow tie and kneelength pants.
His hair was neatly combed, parted precisely down the middle in typical Eduardian style.
But what made the photograph special was the kitten.
[clears throat] The boy held a tiny tabby kitten in both hands, cradling it gently against his chest.
The kitten’s face was turned toward the camera, and the boy was looking down at it with an expression that seemed tender and protective.
It was the kind of image that belonged on greeting cards or calendar pages.
Innocent, sweet, timeless.
My first reaction was pure delight.
Dr.
Fraser later explained.
In this work, you see a lot of stiff, formal Victorian and Eduwardian portraits where everyone looks miserable because they had to hold still for long exposures.
But this one seemed to capture genuine affection between a child and his pet.
It was lovely.
The photograph was in poor condition.
The surface showed extensive foxing.
Those brown spots caused by fungal growth on aged paper.
Water damage had created stains across approximately 40% of the image.
The mounting board was warped and discolored.
Worst of all, someone had applied multiple layers of yellowed tape to the edges, apparently attempting amateur repairs over the decades.
But the photograph itself remained relatively intact beneath the damage.
The image was clear enough to see details, and the emulsion hadn’t flaked significantly.
Dr.
Fraser believed it could be successfully restored.
She began by carefully removing the photograph from its deteriorated mounting board, a delicate process that took several hours.
As she worked, she noticed something interesting.
The mounting board had text printed on the back.
Morrison’s portrait studio, Dundee, Scotland.
Established 1889.
A quick check of historical records confirmed that Morrison’s had been a well- reggarded portrait studio in Dundee that operated from 1889 until 1924.
But beneath the printed studio information, someone had written something in faded pencil directly on the mounting board.
The text was obscured by layers of tape and grime, making it illeible without removal and cleaning.
Dr.
Frasier spent the next two days carefully removing the tape residue and cleaning the mounting board.
As the text slowly became visible, she felt an inexplicable sense of dread growing.
Something about the handwriting, shaky, emotional, clearly written by someone in distress, suggested this wasn’t just a simple caption identifying who was in the photograph.
When the text finally became fully legible, Dr.
Frasier read it three times, feeling tears well up in her eyes.
Thomas, age 8, with his kitten buttons.
June 1905, taken one week before he left us.
Our sweet boy forever in our hearts.
Mother, one week before he left us.
The phrasing was unmistakable.
This wasn’t a photograph of a happy moment during a long childhood.
This was a memorial photograph.
The boy had died shortly after this portrait was taken.
Dr.
Frasier sat back from her workbench, looking at the photograph with completely new understanding.
The boy’s expression, which she had initially interpreted as tender affection for his pet, now seemed different.
There was something in his eyes, a tiredness, a fragility, that she hadn’t noticed before.
And his pose, which had seemed natural, now looked carefully arranged.
His mother had posed him, dressed him in his best clothes, and had this photograph taken because she knew, or feared, it would be one of the last images of her child.
Dr.
Fraser decided to proceed with full digital restoration and enhancement.
If this was a memorial photograph, she wanted to recover every detail to honor this child who had died years ago.
What the restoration would reveal would be even more heartbreaking than she anticipated.
Dr.
Fraser beyond the digital restoration by creating an ultra highresolution scan using a Hasselblad H6D400C camera capable of capturing 400 megapixels.
This level of detail would reveal elements completely invisible to the naked eye and would allow her to work with the image at microscopic precision.
The resulting digital file opened on her laboratory monitor and Dr.
Fraser began the painstaking process of removing digital artifacts, correcting for fading and discoloration, and rebuilding damaged areas using AI assisted reconstruction techniques trained on thousands of period photographs.
As the enhanced image emerged, details that had been obscured for 119 years became visible, and each one added to the heartbreaking story this photograph told.
The boy’s face, now clear and detailed, showed signs that Dr.
Frasier recognized immediately from other Victorian memorial photography she had worked with.
His skin had an unusual translucent quality, pale to the point of being almost luminous.
The areas under his eyes were darkened, creating shadows that suggested exhaustion or illness.
His cheeks were slightly hollow, indicating recent weight loss.
But most telling were his eyes.
Enhanced to full resolution, they showed a particular quality that Dr.
Fraser had seen before in photographs of seriously ill children from this era.
A brightness that wasn’t vitality, but rather the feverish intensity that comes with certain diseases.
The pupils were slightly dilated, and there was a distant quality to his gaze, as if he were looking past the camera rather than at it.
Dr.
Fraser examined the boy’s clothing more carefully.
The white sailor suit appeared to be brand new.
The fabric showed no signs of wear, no stains or repairs that would be typical of everyday children’s clothing in 1905.
This was a special outfit purchased or made specifically for this photograph.
His mother had dressed him in his finest clothes because she knew this portrait would be precious.
Then Dr.
Fraser noticed something that made her pause.
On the boy’s left wrist, partially hidden by his sleeve, but visible when she enhanced the contrast and brightness, was a piece of white fabric, a bandage or dressing of some kind.
She zoomed in further.
The fabric appeared to be wrapped carefully around his wrist and lower forearm, suggesting either an injury or medical treatment.
The kitten, enhanced to full detail, was heartbreakingly young, probably only a few weeks old, small enough to fit easily in the boy’s hands.
Its eyes were wide, and its tiny body was relaxed in the child’s grip.
But Dr.
Fraser noticed something peculiar.
For a photograph taken in 1905 with exposure times that typically required subjects to remain perfectly still for several seconds, the kitten showed no motion blur at all.
It was perfectly sharp.
That suggested the kitten had been deliberately selected for this photograph specifically because it was calm enough to be held still.
Or possibly, Dr.
Fraser realized with a chill the kitten had been sedated slightly, a practice that was not uncommon in early photography when photographing small children or animals.
But the most revealing details came from the background.
Dr.
Fraser had initially paid little attention to the house visible behind the boy, assuming it was just typical Eduwardian domestic architecture.
But as she enhanced the background, removing blur and sharpening details, she noticed something significant.
The window visible behind and to the left of the boy showed a white cloth hanging in it, specifically a white sheet or curtain positioned in a particular way.
In early 20th century Britain, this was a recognized signal.
A white sheet hung in a front window indicated that someone in the household had died or was seriously ill.
It was a visual warning to neighbors and visitors, a sign of mourning or sickness.
But the photograph showed the white sheet already hanging, meaning the house was already marked as a place of illness when this portrait was taken.
The boy’s family already knew he was dying when they had this photograph made.
Dr.
Fraser felt tears streaming down her face as the full context became clear.
This wasn’t just a portrait taken shortly before a sudden death.
This was a farewell photograph commissioned by parents who knew their child was terminally ill and wanted one final image to remember him by.
They had dressed him in his best clothes, given him a kitten to hold to make him smile, and captured this moment, knowing it would be one of their last memories of their son.
The question now was, what illness had killed 8-year-old Thomas in June 1905? And could the photograph provide any clues about the disease that had taken his life? Dr.
Fraser contacted Dr.
Margaret Chen, a medical historian at the University of Edinburgh who specialized in Victorian and Eduwardian childhood diseases.
Dr.
Chen had published extensively on child mortality in early 20th century Britain and had advised on numerous historical medical cases involving photographic evidence.
When Dr.
Chen viewed the enhanced photograph and examined the visible symptoms, she was able to provide a preliminary assessment within minutes.
Based on the palar, the facial shadows, the weight loss, and particularly the bandaging on the wrist, I believe this child was suffering from tuberculosis, what the Victorians called consumption.
The wrist bandaging suggests he may have had tubercular lesions or was receiving some form of treatment applied topically.
Tuberculosis was one of the leading causes of death in children during the early 1900s.
Before the development of antibiotics, TB was essentially a death sentence, particularly in children.
The disease attacked the lungs primarily, but could also affect bones, skin, and other organs.
Treatment options were extremely limited.
Fresh air, rest, and nutritious food were the primary recommendations, and they rarely changed the outcome in serious cases.
What makes this photograph particularly poignant, Dr.
Chen explained, is that by 1905, families understood that tuberculosis was often fatal, especially in young children.
When a child was diagnosed with advanced TB, families knew they were facing months of watching their child slowly deteriorate.
Memorial photographs like this one were commissioned specifically to capture the child before the final stages of the disease made them unrecognizable.
Dr.
Fraser asked if there was any way to confirm the diagnosis or find more information about Thomas’s case.
Dr.
Chen suggested searching Scottish death records from June 1905, focusing on the Dundee area since the photograph had been taken at Morrison’s portrait studio in that city.
Dr.
Fraser contacted the National Records of Scotland and requested access to death certificates from Dundee in June 1905 for boys named Thomas, aged approximately 8 years old.
Within two weeks, she received digital copies of three potential matches.
The third certificate stopped her breath.
Thomas Andrew Morrison, age 8, died June 18th, 1905 at 47 Commercial Street, Dundee.
Cause of death, pulmonary tuberculosis.
Duration of illness, 6 months.
The surname Morrison was significant, the same as the portrait studio.
Dr.
Fraser immediately began researching the Morrison family.
What she discovered added another layer of tragedy to an already heartbreaking story.
Morrison’s portrait studio had been owned and operated by Andrew Morrison, a professional photographer in Dundee from 1889 until his death in 1924.
Andrew Morrison and his wife Helen had three children.
Margaret, born 1895, Thomas, born 1897, and Elizabeth, born 1899.
Thomas was their only son.
The photograph wasn’t just a memorial portrait commissioned by a grieving family.
It was a father’s last professional photograph of his dying son.
Andrew Morrison had used his skills as a photographer to capture one final image of Thomas, posing him carefully, lighting him beautifully, and creating what appeared to be a cheerful portrait of a boy with his kitten while knowing his son had only days or weeks left to live.
Dr.
Fraser found records of Morrison’s portrait studio in Dundee business directories and local newspapers from the era.
In July 1905, the month after Thomas died, the studio had placed a notice in the Dundee Courier.
Morrison’s portrait studio will be closed until further notice due to family bereiement.
We thank our patrons for their understanding.
The studio reopened in September 1905.
and Andrew Morrison continued operating it until 1924.
But Dr.
Fraser discovered something telling in the studios advertising after 1905.
Previously, Morrison’s had advertised specialties including family portraiture and children’s photography.
After Thomas’s death, those specialties were no longer mentioned.
The studio focused instead on commercial work, weddings, and formal portraits.
Andrew Morrison, it seemed, could no longer bear to photograph children after losing his son.
Dr.
Fraser found one more piece of evidence in the archives of the Dundee Central Library.
A small obituary for Thomas Morrison published in the Dundee Courier on June 20th, 1905, died on the 18th instant.
At his residence, 47 Commercial Street, Thomas Andrew Morrison, beloved son of Andrew and Helen Morrison, aged 8 years, a bright boy taken from us too soon.
funeral private, no flowers by request.
The phrase, “A bright boy,” echoed across 119 years.
Thomas Morrison had been someone’s sweet boy, someone’s hope and joy, someone who had laughed and played and loved his kitten named Buttons.
And then tuberculosis had slowly stolen his life while his family watched helplessly.
The photograph that Dr.
Fraser had initially seen as a charming portrait of a boy and his pet was actually something far more profound.
A father’s final gift to his dying son.
A moment of peace and innocence captured before suffering and death and a memorial that had survived 119 years to tell Thomas’s story to a world that had forgotten him.
As Dr.
Fraser continued her research into the Morrison family.
She made another discovery that added an unexpected dimension to the tragic story.
In the collection of photographs she had been restoring, there was a second image featuring the same house and front porch taken from a slightly different angle showing the same wooden steps.
This second photograph, dated August 1905, 2 months after Thomas’s death, showed Helen Morrison, Thomas’s mother, sitting on the same porch steps.
She wore black morning clothing, as was customary in the Victorian era following a death in the family.
Her face was turned partially away from the camera, her expression distant and griefstricken.
And in her lap, clearly visible in the enhanced image, was a tabby kitten that appeared to be the same one from Thomas’s photograph.
Buttons.
Dr.
Fraser felt a wave of emotion seeing this.
The kitten had survived.
After Thomas died, his mother had kept his pet, caring for the animal her son had loved.
In Victorian morning culture, this was not uncommon.
Grieving parents often kept their deceased children’s possessions, pets, or favorite toys as tangible connections to the child they had lost.
Dr.
Fraser found a third photograph in the collection dated December 1905.
It showed the Morrison family, Andrew, Helen, and their two daughters, Margaret and Elizabeth, in a formal Christmas portrait.
And there, held by young Elizabeth, was Buttons the kitten, now [clears throat] slightly larger, but still recognizable by its distinctive tabby markings.
The kitten had become part of the family’s living memorial to Thomas.
Every time they looked at buttons, they remembered the boy who had held her so gently.
In June 1905, Dr.
Fraser decided to investigate whether there were any other records or photographs of the Morrison family in Dundee archives.
She contacted local historical societies and genealogical researchers.
What she discovered was both touching and sad.
A researcher named Colin Mloud responded to her inquiries with information he had compiled about Dundee photographers.
He had been studying Andrew Morrison’s career for a local history project and had actually interviewed Morrison’s daughter Margaret in 1978, shortly before her death at age 83.
According to Mloud’s notes from that interview, Margaret had spoken about her brother Thomas and about the photograph with the kitten.
My father took that photograph about a week before Tommy died.
Margaret had told Mloud.
“We all knew he was dying.
The doctors had told us there was nothing more they could do, but my father wanted Tommy to have one happy moment, so he bought him a kitten from a farmer down the road.
Tommy loved that kitten so much he named her Buttons because she had little white spots on her paws that looked like buttons.
Margaret had continued.
After Tommy died, buttons became so important to all of us, my mother especially.
She would sit in Tommy’s room and hold buttons and cry.
That cat lived for 16 years until 1921.
When Buttons died, my mother mourned her almost as much as she had mourned Tommy.
I think she felt like she was losing her son all over again.
The kitten that appeared in the photograph as a tiny ball of fur had lived a long life.
16 years was exceptional for a cat in the early 20th century.
Buttons had been held by Thomas in his final days, had comforted his grieving mother for 16 years, and had become a living memorial to a boy who died too young.
Mloud’s notes included one more detail from his interview with Margaret Morrison.
She had told him that when Buttons died in 1921, Helen Morrison had written a small memorial card and placed it in the family Bible next to a pressed flower from Thomas’s funeral.
The card read, “Buttons, 1905 to 1921.
Beloved by Thomas, she brought us comfort when we needed it most.” Dr.
Fraser felt the full weight of this story settling on her.
What had started as a charming photograph of a boy with his kitten had revealed itself as something far more complex, a document of love, loss, grief, and the small comforts that help families endure tragedy.
The photograph wasn’t just about Thomas.
It was about a family’s attempt to capture joy in the face of death and about a small animal that became a bridge between a lost child and the family that survived him.
But there was one more element to uncover.
Dr.
Frasier wanted to know what had happened to Thomas’s sisters and parents.
Had they lived long lives? Had they found happiness after such devastating loss? The answers would complete Thomas Morrison’s story.
Dr.
Frasier spent the following weeks tracing the Morrison family through Scottish records, census data, and archival materials.
What she discovered painted a picture of a family forever changed by the loss of their son and brother.
Andrew Morrison continued operating his portrait studio until 1924 when health problems forced him to retire.
He died in 1926 at age 61, relatively young, but not unusual for the era.
His obituary in the Dundee Courier mentioned his successful photography business and his contributions to documenting Dundee’s history through his work.
It made brief mention of his family.
He is survived by his wife Helen and daughters Margaret and Elizabeth.
Thomas was not mentioned in his father’s obituary.
By 1926, 21 years after his death, society’s conventions had moved on.
The grief of a child’s death, no matter how profound, was expected to remain private.
Helen Morrison lived until 1947, dying at age 78.
She had spent 42 years as a widow, outliving her husband by two decades.
According to records Dr.
Fraser found, Helen had never moved from the house at 47 Commercial Street where Thomas had died.
She had lived in that house with its memories and ghosts for the rest of her life.
Margaret Morrison, who had been 10 years old when her brother died, never married.
She worked as a teacher in Dundee schools for 40 years and lived with her mother until Helen’s death in 1947.
Margaret then lived alone in the family home until her own death in 1979 at age 83.
The interview notes from Colin Mloud suggested that Margaret had spent her life teaching other people’s children, perhaps trying to fill the void left by her lost brother.
Elizabeth Morrison, the youngest, had been six when Thomas died.
She married in 1923, moved to Edinburgh, and had three children of her own.
She named her first son, Thomas Andrew, after her lost brother.
Elizabeth lived until 1982, dying at age 83.
Through Elizabeth’s descendants, Dr.
Fraser was able to make contact with Thomas Morrison’s great great niece, a woman named Clare Davidson, who lived in Edinburgh.
Clare was fascinated to learn about the photograph and the research Dr.
Fraser had conducted.
I knew about great great uncle Thomas, Clare told Dr.
Fraser when they met in November 2024.
But only the bare facts that he had died young of tuberculosis.
I didn’t know there were photographs.
I didn’t know about the kitten.
I didn’t know the depth of the grief his family carried.
Clare shared family stories that had been passed down through generations.
My grandmother, Elizabeth’s daughter, used to tell me that her mother Elizabeth never spoke much about her childhood.
But she said that once when my grandmother assumed why they never celebrated Thomas’s birthday or acknowledged the anniversary of his death, Elizabeth said, “Some griefs are too deep to touch.
We carry them silently.” That was how a generation dealt with loss.
Dr.
Fraser showed Clare all the photographs she had restored.
Thomas with buttons, Helen Morrison in mourning holding the kitten, the family Christmas portrait with buttons.
Clare looked at them with tears in her eyes.
“That little boy is my ancestor,” Clare said quietly.
“He’s been dead for 119 years, but he’s part of why I exist.
If he had lived, maybe the family would have been different.
Maybe Margaret would have married and had children.
Maybe the whole family tree would look different.
His absence shaped everything that came after.
Dr.
Frasier prepared a full conservation report and historical analysis of the Morrison family photographs.
The images were donated to the Dundee City Archives where they are now part of the permanent collection documenting Dundee’s social history.
The archive created a dedicated exhibition titled Thomas and Buttons, a Victorian family’s story of love and loss.
The exhibition opened in December 2024 and included the restored photographs, historical context about childhood tuberculosis in the early 1900s, information about Victorian memorial photography, and the Morrison family’s story as reconstructed through Dr.
Fraser’s research.
Among the opening day visitors was a primary school class from Dundee.
Their teacher, a woman in her 60s, brought the children to see the exhibition as part of a local history lesson.
As the children looked at the photograph of Thomas Morrison holding his kitten, one little boy, about 8 years old, the same age Thomas had been, raised his hand.
“Did the kitten miss the boy when he died?” the child asked.
The teacher knelt beside him.
I think she probably did miss him,” she said gently.
But the boy’s family took care of the kitten for the rest of her life.
So even though the boy couldn’t be there, his love for the kitten continued through his family.
The child nodded, seeming to understand something profound about love and loss and continuity.
Dr.
Fraser watched this exchange with a lump in her throat.
This was why historical preservation mattered.
Not just to document the past, but to help the present understand timeless human experiences.
Love, loss, grief, and the small comforts that help us endure.
The photograph of Thomas Morrison and Buttons the Kitten had seemed like a simple charming image, a sweet moment of childhood innocence.
The restoration had revealed it as something far more profound.
A document of a father’s love for his dying son.
A family’s attempt to capture joy in the face of inevitable loss.
And a reminder that every life, no matter how brief, matters and deserves to be remembered.
Thomas Morrison lived for 8 years.
He loved a kitten named Buttons.
He was photographed by his father one week before he died of tuberculosis in June 1905.
His family grieved him for the rest of their lives.
His kitten lived for 16 years and brought comfort to his mourning mother.
And 119 years later, his photograph was restored, his story was researched, and his brief life was honored properly.
His name was Thomas Andrew Morrison.
He was 8 years old.
He was someone’s sweet boy.
He held his kitten gently and looked at her with love in his eyes.
And now more than a century after his death, he is remembered not just as a tragic statistic of Victorian child mortality, but as a real child who was loved, who loved in return, and who left behind a photograph that speaks across the years about the universal experiences of childhood, love, and loss.
This is Thomas’s story.
And now you know the truth behind that photograph from 1905.
