Having recently come across some very early photographs of the Pedder family - taken by the photographer Robert Pateson who compiled a comprehensive photographic history of Victorian Preston - I wondered if they were the same Pedders involved in a celebrated Preston banking crisis? Having found out that indeed it was the same family I found it to be intriging and yet chilling that they had once enjoyed wealth (and the power that naturally must go with it),social influence and had commanded a respect that many of the inhabitants of Preston could not imagine having access to.............only to have all these things swept away virtually overnight due to the untimely death of one man ( Edward Pedder) and thenceforth the uncovering of the true state of the banks standing. It is a very sad and sobering tale of how even those who seemingly have whatever they wish within their grasp can lose the lost via the fortunes of fate............ Their beautiful sepia photographs display them in all their sumptuous (and yet restrained) monied pomp - top hatted, crinolined, carriages and coachmen at the door of the rambling and substantial Whinfield House, the epitome of the financial ruling class. And then suddenly, all gone.................... Yours faithfully Margaret McLaughlin