Description:This is the wedding group photograph of Reginald Tivey and Katie Birks (centre). Reginald Tivey had worked as an elephant hunter in Africa before joining the 9th North Staffordshire Regiment in 1914. He made officer in 1917 and fought in France and Flanders before being seriously wounded by shrapnel in his right leg and being taken back to England. Katie Birks was the daughter of Alboin Birks (left, next to Reginald), the ceramics artist and owner of the 'White House' where this photo was taken. Left of Alboin is his wife Elizabeth and his his daughter Lilian Madge who would later marry Tom Brown Tivey (behind the groom).
Tom Tivey joined up in 1914, and served with the 5th North Staffordshire Regiment, the Leicester Regiment and the Northumberland Fusiliers and eventually reached the rank of Platoon Sergeant. He fought in Mesopotamia where he contracted malaria and was injured by a bullet to the chest which damaged his lung. After the war he married Lilian Madge Birks (Katie Birks' sister) and became a writer and lecturer at the Staffordshire College of Building.