Historic England’s newly-published round-up of listings added during 2025 attracted plenty of media attention.
Ancient burial sites, shipwrecks, a corrugated iron church and arts and crafts gardens were among the nearly 200 examples of places granted protection.
Pyramid-shape obstacles known as ‘dragon’s teeth’ designed to thwart Nazi tanks were made of concrete, a design material enthusiastically adopted throughout the 20th century.
Another example was a building designed by W.A. Gibbon and opened in 1962 as the country’s first purpose-built lecture block.
The Renold Building, once part of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), still has an eye-catching exterior.
However, much of the building’s original interior was lost during its recent transformation into an Innovation Hub with no-cost and low-cost workspaces for business start-ups.
Fortunately for posterity, photographers were on hand to record what the Renold Building looked like when it first opened in 1962.
Photo: Elsam, Mann & Cooper Ltd.
The following selection of images were published by Oriel Press in Modern Lecture Theatres (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1966).
The weighty book showcased examples of pioneering design and innovation from Britain, Europe and America and was edited by C.J. Duncan (1916-1979), head of the Department of Photography at Newcastle University.
For the Renold Building, a total of nine lecture theatres complete with blackboards, cinema screens and sound systems were designed to accommodate 500, 300 and 140 students in various configurations.
‘The Main Renold 500 seat Theatre – Conference in session.’ From Modern Lecture Theatres (Oriel Press: Newcastle upon Tyne, 1966).‘One of the twin 300 seat Theatres in lower block’. From Modern Lecture Theatres (Oriel Press: Newcastle upon Tyne, 1966).‘One of the six 140 seat theatres …’ From Modern Lecture Theatres (Oriel Press: Newcastle upon Tyne, 1966).
The fact that such spaces will be instantly recognisable to students of all ages from the past half century or so is a tribute to the success of their original innovative design.
Photohistory research often resembles a large jigsaw puzzle in which the pieces are randomly scattered around the world
It’s then the researcher’s job to try and locate pieces that have survived the passage of time and reassemble what remains of the puzzle until some sort of understandable picture emerges.
Nearly two years have passed since a couple of 3D stereoscopic images produced by London News Agency Photos (LNA) of 46 Fleet Street came to my attention on a well-known online auction site.
At the time, I made a case for the stereos taken at the 1910 Army Pageant at Fulham Palace being the work of early press photographer James Edward Ellam (1857-1920) whose career I continue to explore.
Then out of the blue, a recent email exchange with Julie Gibb from National Museums Scotland yielded yet more pieces of this particular jigsaw.
She curates the Bernard Howarth-Loomes Collection of around 11,000 stereos.
Unbeknownst to me, it included a set of five featuring the self-same 1910 Army Pageant and also published by London News Agency Photos
What was more exciting was that one of the Bernard Howarth-Loomes images matched the second one that that I obtained from Ebay in 2024 minus its handwritten caption as supplied by JE Ellam.
What is apparent from the further four LNA stereos in the Bernard Howarth-Loomes Collection is that they were published as a commercial set complete with printed captions.
This echoes the approach taken during the same era by Underwood & Underwood, a fellow stereoscopic photography company with a London office near Fleet Street.
Like LNA, they too published sets of stereocards featuring news events and supplied the images from the same assignment to newspapers and magazines.
To complete the picture, James Edward Ellam worked for the Underwood company for a decade from 1897 before joining London News Agency Photos after it began life in 1908.
These new LNA stereos featuring the 1910 Army Pageant add further weight to the case for them being Ellam’s work.
My thanks to Julie Gibb for permission to reproduce the following LNA stereos from the Bernard Howarth-Loomes Collection in this blogpost.
Saturday (6th December) marks the Feast of St. Nicholas when celebrations take place in many western Christian countries.
It’s a tradition that dates back to the 4th century when St. Nicholas as Bishop of Lyra was venerated for his generosity to children.
His later transformation into Santa Claus and Father Christmas during the 19th century has rather overshadowed his earlier role in the Christian church.
That said, many churches are named after St. Nicholas including one of my favourite buildings in Britain.
Newcastle Cathedral with its distinctive lantern tower began life during the 12th century as St. Nicholas Parish Church.
It’s a structure that continues to dominate the urban skyline and has been portrayed by successive generations of photographers as my own collection bears witness.
For instance, this carte de visite dates from the mid-1860s when the firm of W. & D. Downey was establishing its Newcastle studio in the heart of the city.
Erroneously titled ‘St. Peter’s’ in an unknown hand, it’s a view that had its origins in a stereoscopic 3D image.
In July 1864 as Downey’s consolidated its reputation for high-quality work, the firm placed one of its regular ‘Now Ready’ advertisements in the local press.
Newcastle Journal (15th July 1864). From British Newspaper Archive.
Like most collectors, the search for a particular image sometimes ends when you are least expecting it.
So it proved with a Downey stereo of St. Nicholas’ Church that appeared on a well-known auction site recently courtesy of a seller in the United States.
The first image I saw featured the verso of the stereocard revealing its title details printed on the company’s familar blue sticker.
The only slight disappointment was that, as closer examination of the two stereo halves reveals, the full 3D effect was undermined by the images being slightly out of alignment.
One explanation for this might be a result of the laborious process of cutting the photographic prints to size by hand.
Whether this particular stereo failed to meet Downey’s own high standards and ended up in the bin isn’t known.
Despite this, the pleasure of handling an object that is around 160 years old never fails to pall.
Photography has many memorable names associated with its long and celebrated history.
However, an unusual sounding one caught my attention during a recent research project.
A life-long resident of Newcastle upon Tyne, Burdus Redford FRPS (1868-1951) was an insurance company official by day, but an active and respected photographer in his spare time.
‘Four Bridges’ by Burdus Redford FRPS.Portrait of Burdus Redford FRPS by Philipson & Son Limited, Newcastle upon Tyne. From Royal Photographic Society Journal.
During his life, a number of organisations benefitted from Redford’s skill and expertise, both as a practitioner, who preferred to use plates rather than films, and as a lecturer employing lantern slides to illustrate his talks.
These included Tynemouth Photographic Society which he joined in 1904, later becoming its President; the Northern Counties Photographic Federation; and the Photographic Convention of the United Kingdom of which he was also President in the late-1920s.
This latter accolade seems to have coincided with a period when he became even more photographically active, perhaps in retirement.
For example, his membership of the Royal Photographic Society in 1927 was followed soon after by the award of a coveted fellowship (FRPS).
By this point in his life, Redford’s network of contacts was extensive and included John Betjeman (1906-1984), the celebrated architectural writer and later Poet Laureate
At Betjeman’s suggestion, he was invited to contribute photographs to Thomas Sharp’s Northumberland and Durham: A Shell Guide published in 1937.
Alongside ‘Four Bridges’ (above), his view of ‘Newcastle’ taken from a high vantage point overlooking the quayside captures a number of prominent landmarks that are still visible nearly a century later.
‘Newcastle’ by Burdus Redford FRPS. From Northumberland and Durham: A Shell Guide by Thomas Sharp (London: B.T. Batsford Ltd., 1937).
The photograph’s quality meant it was still included in a Shell Guide devoted solely to Northumberland published in 1954.
Betjeman was much taken by what he described as Redford’s “really exquisite views”, both rural and industrial.
‘Wheatfield’ by Burdus Redford FRPS.‘Hills and Trees’ by Burdus Redford FRPS.‘Colliery’ by Burdus Redford FRPS.
For Northumberland and Durham: A Shell Guide, Redford also supplied reproductions of woodcuts by the legendary North East wood engraver and author Thomas Bewick (1753-1828).
When Burdus Redford died in 1951, aged 82, an obituary published in the Royal Photographic Society Journal described him as “a craftsman … whose work was extremely delicate and showed the meticulous care which so characterised the man himself.”
Earlier this month, a conference titled ‘Shifting Perspectives: Scotland’s Urban Architecture Through the Lens’ was held at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh.
This offered a welcome opportunity to share new research on the architectural photographer Ursula Clark (1940-2000) whose overlooked career has been celebrated on this blog throughout 2025.
My paper focused on the Oriel Guide Architecture of Scotland (1969) for which Ursula was photographic editor and to which she contributed a number of photographs.
Front cover of Architecture of Scotland by George Hay (Newcastle upon Tyne: Oriel Press, 1969).
As regular readers will know, around 20,000 largely black-and-white negatives form the largest collection by a woman photographer in the care of Historic England.
Around 2,000 images in the Ursula Clark Collection have been digitised and show buildings in England that were previously under-represented including those from her native Newcastle-upon-Tyne and North East England.
However her Scotland images have remained unseen since first being published nearly 60 years ago.
In 1966, Architecture of Scotland was promoted as being “in preparation” by Ursula’s employer, the publisher Oriel Press of Newcastle upon Tyne, indicating the time period when the images were taken.
However, it was 1969 before the book appeared.
Its 96 pages feature nearly 250 photographs interwoven with text supplied by the Scottish architectural historian George Hay (1911-1986).
With the help of the team at Historic England’s archives in Swindon and using Ursula’s detailed shotlists, it has proved possible to identify a number of the Scottish locations that she photographed as well as the type of 35mm film she used.
Amongst the entries was Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfriesshire (1679-1690) where a sequence was photographed featuring the building in both wide-shot and close-up.
One shot in particular stands out featuring the ‘North front porch detail’ (negative no. 29A), a perspective arrowed in the page below.
From Architecture of Scotland (Newcastle upon Tyne: Oriel Press, 1969).
In this example, her use of Kodak Panatomic-X fine grain black-and-white film captures the intricacy of the stonework beautifully.
Another castle she photographed was Falkland Palace in Fife.
This summer, I had an opportunity to stand in Ursula’s footsteps and take a shot from a similar position of the South Range (top right below) using my Samsung camera phone
The main difference in the views taken 6 decades or so apart is the length of the adjoining grass.
Such is the richness of Scotland’s architecture that comparatively few pages in the Oriel Guide are given over to recent buildings photographed by Ursula such as the Glasgow School of Art (1897-1909, top left) and St. Andrew’s House, Edinburgh (1938, bottom right).
From Architecture of Scotland (Oriel Press: Newcastle upon Tyne, 1969).
Perhaps my favourite Scotland shot of Ursula’s features a structure that emerged in the landscape as her architectural photography career was taking flight.
The shot list records a sequence featuring the Forth Road Bridge (1958-1964) and culminating in a shot that also features the railway bridge (1890) in the far distance.
When the book was published, Architecture of Scotland was well received by both critics and readers with the British Book News highlighting “Ursula Clark’s magic as photographic editor”.
Following Oriel Press’s takeover in 1973 by Routledge & Kegan Paul, a second enlarged and revised edition with a new cover featuring Midmar Castle (1570) was published four years later.
Second-hand copies of Architecture of Scotland in both editions can be spotted from time to time on book websites such as AbeBooks.
The first edition copy that I managed to obtain was even signed by George Hay on 17th July 1969, just a few days before the first moon landing.
Despite a lack of the co-credit that she received for several other Oriel Guides, the quality of Ursula Clark’s contribution to Architecture of Scotland still shines through.
The arrival each November of red poppies and collection boxes, both physical and digital, up and down the land is a poignant reminder of wars past and present.
2025 has seen a number of World War 2 anniversaries marking 80 years since VE Day and VJ Day.
As the decades go by, fewer and fewer of the original combatants are still alive and able to bear witness to the terrible consequences of such conflicts.
So it is left to those with a familial connection to share memories of their loved ones and the sacrifices made for succeeding generations.
A year ago, Remembrance Day (11th November) fell on a Monday.
My regular Pressphotoman post then reflected on the medals awarded to Dad for his wartime service with the Royal Artillery that had lain untouched in a drawer for decades.
These covered the period from his call-up as a 20 year-old in September 1939 to his demob in February 1946.
The post also included links to two others from 2024 that centred on Dad’s album of snapshot photos from his time in Iceland (1940-1942) and following the North West Europe campaign of 1944/45 that began with D-Day.
The Army Pageant held at Fulham Palace, London in the summer of 1910 continues to yield revelations for this blog.
Drawn by Harold Oakley, The Graphic Summer Number (25th June 1910). From British Newspaper Archive.
Witnessed by around 100,000 spectators, the event featured what the Historical Pageants in Britain website describes as “a disparate selection of episodes that illustrated the development of military conflict and the British armed forces.”
Regular readers will be aware that it was an assignment covered by pioneering Fleet Street press photographer James Edward Ellam (1857-1920).
Working for the recently-launched London News Agency Photos Ltd. (L.N.A.), he supplied prints taken from his 3D images that were published as halftones, notably by the Illustrated London News.
Illustrated London News (25th June 1910). From British Newspaper Archive.
By contrast, The Graphic, one of the ILN’s long-standing competitors, used the work of artists rather than press photos to convey the drama and spectacle on view.
The costumes supplied to those participating in the pageant’s various episodes were particularly eye-catching as demonstrated by the cover of its Summer Number.
(The Graphic Summer Number (25th June 1910). From British Newspaper Archive.
Closer examination of the coverage inside revealed a detail I had previously missed.
It concerned Fulham outfitter Stanley Cave, one of the event’s organisers and the subject of an earlier Pressphotoman blogpost.
Mr. Cave’s skills handling horses were alluded to in this photographic postcard that initially prompted the post, portraying him as a ‘Roman Charioteer’.
But in a scene from the pageant featuring ‘Ancient Britons’, an uncredited artist with TheGraphic placed Mr. Cave at the heart of a full-page drawing, adding a full beard to his distinctive facial features.
The Graphic Summer Number (25th June 1910). From British Newspaper Archive.
At this point in press history, the battle between art and photography as competing illustrative media was still in full swing.
It maybe that the Graphic artist used a photograph as the basis for his version, perhaps even one supplied by James Edward Ellam of L.N.A.
However, in this example with its vivid portrayal of a bearded Mr. Cave and his spectacular horse-drawn chariot, artistic licence could be argued to have won out over factual accuracy.
The Border town of Berwick-upon-Tweed in Northumberland has a number of claims to fame including its location as the most northerly in England.
On the banks of the River Tweed within sight of the border with Scotland, Berwick has an historic atmosphere and features an array of wonderful old buildings and structures.
Curated by Cameron Robertson of the Berwick Record Office, the gallery was packed for an exhibition preview I was delighted to attend.
Cameron Robertson (right) at The Days of Light Past exhibition preview. 25th October 2025.
Among its many highlights, the exhibition uses an impressive range of visuals to explore nearly a century and a half of photohistory.
The story starts in August 1839 with the town’s specific inclusion in the first England and Wales patent licence for Louis Daguerre’s new daguerreotype process.
Berwick’s first commercial photography studio followed a decade later and the stories of various pioneers are celebrated in display cases of the carte-de-visites they sold by the thousand.
Among the most eye-catching photographs are a selection taken during the mid-late 19th century and blown up in size so their details can be fully enjoyed.
These include a striking image used in the exhibition poster of a group of boys pictured in front of the Royal Border Bridge that carries the East Coast railway line across the River Tweed.
Like many towns across Britain, Berwick and its day-to-day life was later captured photographically by both press photographers and photo agencies.
A selection of these mid-20th century portraits transcend their origins and testify to the skill and artistry of the photographers involved.
It was also a treat to see a display of photographs and contact sheets by the late Jim Walker FRPS, who portrayed the salmon fishing industry on the Tweed.
If you’re in the vicinity, a visit to The Light of Days Past comes highly recommended (Wednesday – Sunday, 11am – 4pm until 22nd February 2026). Admission is free though donations are welcome.
From the 1860s, photographers W. & D. Downey were among Queen Victoria’s favourites and produced defining royal images into the early decades of the 20th century.
However, by the time the Daily Mirror published this front page Downey portrait of Queen Alexandra marking her Diamond Jubilee in 1923, the company’s fortunes were already in decline.
Daily Mirror (7th March 1923). From British Newspaper Archive.
By July 1932, according to a notice that appeared in the Daily Telegraph, liquidators were called in and creditors asked to make claims on any outstanding debts.
Daily Telegraph (25th July 1932). From British Newspaper Archive.
That, one might have assumed, was the end of the W. & D. Downey story.
However, new research reveals that both the company name and its famous address of 61 Ebury Street in London’s Belgravia lived on.
The photographer responsible was Miss Sarah Partridge (1868-1955) whose career as a high society portraitist was celebrated in last week’s Pressphotoman blogpost.
By the time of Downey’s liquidation, she had a long and illustrious CV in the photography business.
Examples of Sarah’s photography have been shared with this blog by Jennie Gray, her great great niece who lives in Australia.
These untitled examples are both signed ‘S. Partridge’ with a London address at ‘26 Victoria Street, SW’ from where she operated in 1920, according to the London telephone directory.
Untitled by Sarah Partridge (1868-1955). Courtesy of Jennie Gray.Untitled by Sarah Partridge (1868-1955). Courtesy of Jennie Gray.. Signature of Sarah Partridge (1868—1955). Courtesy of Jennie Gray.
When the 1921 Census was taken, Sarah was recorded as a self-employed ‘photographic finisher’, working from home in the Surrey suburb of Croydon where she lived with her sister Lillie Kerswill and her family.
Sarah’s work for Bruton Studios in London’s Mayfair alongside society photographer Robert Johnson (1856-1926) seems to have lasted for around a decade into the early 1930s.
Examples of portraits by Sarah Partridge (1868-1955). Courtesy of Jennie Gray.
The details of how she then became connected with the W. & D. Downey company name after its liquidation are not known.
However, by 1935, ‘Sarah Partridge (Miss) (late of Bruton Studios) was operating as a ‘photographer & photographic instructor’ from Downey’s long-established London address at 61 Ebury Street in Belgravia.
1935 London Telephone Directory. From My Ancestry.
Trade directories reveal that she was sharing the premises with, amongst others, a cabinetmakers and a handicrafts business.
Examples of Sarah’s photography during this period have not survived, but she was using the company name as late as 1940 when this telephone directory listing was published.
1940 London Telephone Directory. From My Ancestry.
The following year, ‘W. & D. Downey’ is again listed in a London Post Office directory at 61 Ebury Street, but on this occasion there’s no mention of Sarah Partridge.
It’s at this point that the research trail goes cold, though the Royal Collection Trust website which features nearly 1,500 examples of the company’s photography, confirms that 1941 was Downey’s last year of operation.
Entry for W. & D. Downey from Royal Collection Trust website.
The lack of any surviving company archives by way of glass plate negatives or prints and written records suggests that the London Blitz may have had a hand in the company’s eventual fate.
What can be celebrated though with more certainty is the overlooked career of Miss Sarah Partridge who can now be recognised as a talented portrait photographer.
Sarah Treneman Partridge (1868-1955). Courtesy of Jennie Gray.
The search to discover more examples of her work and uncover more information about the final days of W. &. D. Downey continues.
Photohistory sometimes takes the researcher down less travelled byways and throws up unexpected connections that take the breath away.
That is certainly the case with the photographer Sarah Partridge (1868-1955) whose career is fleetingly captured in a series of public records and press cuttings.
Sarah Treneman Partridge (1868-1955) in later life. Courtesy of Jennie Gray.
The first ‘wow’ moment in trying to learn more about her photography was provided by an entry in a 1925 London Street Directory for 10 Bruton Street in the Mayfair district.
Two names in particular stood out: ‘Norman Hartnell’ and ‘Gladys Cooper’.
As revealed in his 1955 autobiography Silver and Gold, the fashion designer Norman Hartnell (1901-1979) opened his first haute de couture at 10 Bruton Street in April 1923.
According to Hartnell, “no house was ever started in a more unprofessional, amateurish way” (London: V&A Publishing, 2019 reissue).
Despite this, Hartnell was soon earning rave reviews in Paris and by the mid-1930s, he was designing clothes for the Royal Family.
It was a relationship that culminated in Princess Elizabeth’s wedding dress in 1947 and her magnificent Coronation dress six years later.
Also occupying commercial premises in the Georgian building at 10 Bruton Street was the celebrated actress Gladys Cooper (1888-1971).
At this point in her theatrical career, Gladys (later Dame Glad2ys) was the darling of the tabloid and illustrated press as demonstrated in this 1925 portrait from The Sketch.
Her ‘beauty preparations’ business chimes with Hartnell’s recollection of Cooper being the first person he knew who followed a diet (milk and potatoes, two days a week) to stay slim.
However, what Hartnell’s account omitted to mention were the two photographers also operating from 10 Bruton Street, ‘Robert Johnson’ and the subject of this blogpost ‘Miss Sarah Partridge’.
Using the business name ‘Bruton Studios’, both were well connected in the world of royalty and high society.
Robert Johnson (1856-1926) created this striking colourised portrait in the late 1890s when the future George V was Duke of York.
It is one of three of images credited to him in the National Portrait Gallery, London that underline his credentials as a portrait photographer.
Like Johnson, Sarah Partridge began working in photography during the later decades of the 19th century.
First as a photographer’s assistant and then photographic re-toucher, the 1911 Census recorded her ‘personal occupation’ as ‘photographer’s artist’.
Her artistry is evident in examples of her work shared with this blog by her great great niece Jennie Gray, who lives in Australia.
Examples of portraits by Miss Sarah Partridge (1868-1955). Courtesy of Jennie Gray.
The verso of the portrait (above bottom right) identifies its subject as ‘Mrs. Sydney Cullon Wells’.
Verso of ‘P3684’. Courtesy of Jennie Gray.
‘P3684’ may relate to the thousands of similar portraits that Sarah was responsible for creating for a wealthy list of clients.
In the second part of this blogpost, I’ll share further research about Sarah’s photography that culminates in her role during the final days of royal photographers W. & D. Downey.
Over the past few days, a significant anniversary in the history of the British monarchy and the media was passed.
On 3rd October 1896, Queen Victoria together with other members of the royal family were filmed for the first time.
Frame taken from cinefilm of Queen Victoria (3rd October 1896).
Keeping pace with the Queen’s passionate interest in all matters photographic, the shoot took place only ten months after the Lumiére brothers unveiled their first cinematograph films in Paris.
The firm of W. & D. Downey, often regarded as Victoria’s favourite portrait photographers, was tasked with recording the first moving pictures of her.
Given the importance of the assignment, members of the extended Downey photographic family travelled to the Scottish Highlands where the Queen was in residence at Balmoral.
Leading the filming project was William Edward Downey (1855-1908), who by this point had taken over day-to-day running of the firm co-founded in the mid-1850s by his father William (1829-1915).
Mr. W.E. Downey. From The Professional Photographer (1906).
He was joined by his cousins James John Downey (1854-1902) and Frederick Downey (1862-1936), who both travelled from Tyneside where the original Downey business had its roots.
By the 1890s, their own firm, J.J. & F. Downey based in South Shields, was a thriving photographic concern in its own right.
Details of filming at Balmoral and its aftermath can be gleaned from a variety of contemporary sources.
‘From a photograph by W. and D. Downey, Ebury Street, W’.
According to Queen Victoria’s Journals, 3rd October 1896 was “A lovely morning. — Nicky & Arthur breakfasted with us. — At 12 went down to below the Terrace, near the Ball Room, & were all photographed by Downey by the new cinematograph process, which makes moving pictures by winding off a reel of films.”
She continued: “We were walking up & down & the children jumping about. Then took a turn in the pony chair.”
Staying with the Queen were Tsar Nicholas II (known as Nicky) and his wife Tsarina Alexandra of Russia, who added additional glamour and international appeal to the occasion.
Recent research has revealed that unfamiliarity of working with the new technology meant the film was incorrectly loaded into the camera.
This resulted in an unstable image featuring “a severe vertical jumping motion and blurring of the picture.”
Using copies of the footage held by the BFI National Archive and Movietone News, the National Library of Scotland undertook a digitisation project in 2021 that has greatly improved the viewing experience.
Several weeks later, the national press reported how footage shot by W. & D. Downey, described as ‘animated photographs’, had been shown to the Queen and royal family members during a film and lantern slide show held at Windsor Castle.
Illustrated newspapers and magazines had only recently begun to employ halftone reproductions alongside engravings.
So to provide readers with an impression of watching moving pictures, Lady’s Pictorial used the latest printing technology to reproduce three pages of frames taken from the film footage.
Lady’s Pictorial Supplement (5th December 1896). From British Newspaper Archive.
Back on Tyneside, J.J. & F. Downey wasted little time in placing an advert in their local paper, the Shields Daily Gazette, offering the chance to view what they branded ‘Downey’s Living Photographs’.
Shields Daily Gazette (8th October 1896). From British Newspaper Archive.
It was to prove a fruitful avenue for theirs and other photographic businesses in the years that followed as moving pictures took over from portrait galleries and lantern slide shows as forms of mass entertainment.
The Linked Ring Brotherhood of photographers that broke away from the Royal Photographic Society in 1892 featured some of the medium’s best-known practitioners.
Famous names such as P.H. Emerson, Frederick H. Evans, Frank Meadow Sutcliffe, James Craig Annan, Alvin Langdon Coburn and F.J. Mortimer were among those responsible for transforming photography into an art form before the movement’s demise in 1910.
Another active though less celebrated member of the invitation-only group was Frederick Colin Maitland, the 14th Earl of Lauderdale known as Viscount Maitland (1868-1931).
He practised photography from a studio and dark room in his ancestral home at Thirlestane Castle in the Scottish Borders.
Author’s photo. September 2025.
During his decade-long contribution to the Linked Ring (1898-1909), Maitland exhibited regularly at its Photographic Salons where he used the pseudonym Guardsman.
Typical examples of his pictorial work feature in a slightly-battered copy of The Practical Photographer dated February 1905 that I chanced upon in a second-hand bookshop on Tyneside.
The sequence starts with ‘Afternoon’, a study of Dedham Bridge over the River Stour in Suffolk that was the subject of an earlier painting by John Constable (1776-1837).
In an accompanying article, Rev. F. C. Lambert, editor of The Practical Photographer, cited ‘Sons of Temperance’ as “an example of breadth of chiaroscuro” highlighting Maitland’s use of contrasted light and shade.
A contrast in terms of subject and treatment is offered by ‘Here are severed lips, Parted with sugar breath’ capturing a child’s face in profile using half shadow.
For ‘An Atlantic Roller’, the accompanying editorial states: “In this picture, we see that all parts belong to the whole and that what we have is complete in itself. We do not, for example, need any figures, or shipping, or rocks, or coast line.”
The appeal of Viscount Maitland’s work as a photographic artist is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that a page containing two further images – ‘Give us the core, Bill’ and ‘A Hertfordshire Farm’ – had been carefully removed from my copy of The Practical Photographer earlier in its long life.
Shortly before his sudden death in 1895 at the age of 45, the award-winning photographer Matthew Auty registered a number of views for copyright that he had taken around Tyneside.
Among them were well-known Newcastle locations including its Central Station, both High Level and Swing Bridges, Stephenson’s Monument and Jesmond Dene.
Many were popular sellers for the Auty Series imprint that continued to bear his name as the late-Victorian and Edwardian postcard boom took hold.
However, what caught my attention whilst visiting the National Archives where his copyright forms are stored were his less familiar views of locations across the River Tyne … in neighbouring Gateshead.
Today Saltwell Park is regarded as one of the best examples in Britain of a Victorian park and is popular with visitors of all ages.
At its heart sits the wonderful Saltwell Towers, an example of Gothic revival architecture, that was home to the distinguished stained glass manufacturer William Wailes (1808-1881).
No doubt aware of the connection, another of Auty’s Gateshead views features examples of Wailes’s stained glass,
Today St. Mary’s Church, a familiar sight to train travellers on the East Coast railway line as it crosses the River Tyne, is Grade 1 listed and houses a Heritage Centre.
Around the time this photograph was taken, it was purchased by Gateshead School Board, re-named Gateshead Secondary School and underwent various name changes before its demolition in 1960.
It is rather poignant that the copyrighting of these images in November 1894 came in the final months of Matthew Auty’s career as a professional photographer.
Newcastle Weekly Chronicle (3rd August 1895). From British Newspaper Archive.
His importance as a photographer in the North East of England and further afield is reflected in the list of attendees at his burial in Newcastle’s Jesmond Old Cemetary.
These included a veritable Who’s Who of the region’s photographers led by J.P. Gibson, President of the Newcastle and Northern Counties Photographic Association.
Among those present were Linked Ring member Lyd Sawyer (1856-1927) and James Dickinson whose photography shop was a feature of Newcastle city centre well into the 20th century.
A regular occurrence during the holiday season off the Northumberland coast is the rescue of visitors heading along the causeway to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne.
Within a few days last month, two different families were plucked to safety by teams from the RNLI and Coastguard Rescue as their vehicles were consumed by the incoming tide.
Despite repeated warnings to check the tide tables, Northumberland County Council estimate that between 10 and 20 vehicles are stranded each year, putting the lives of both rescuers and the rescued at risk.
News headlines created by these recent incidents reminded me of a photograph taken nearly a century ago titled ‘Road to Holy Island.’
A wonderfully evocative image, it was taken by Lancashire-born J.R. Bainbridge (1891-1967).
Known as Roland, he took up freelance journalism and photography during the economic slump of the 1920s by which time he had relocated to Belfast in Northern Ireland.
Like a number of photographers, he responded to a call for images to illustrate Northumberland and Durham: A Shell Guide published in 1937.
The idea of publishing a series of county guides aimed at holidaying motorists was inspired by John Betjeman, the celebrated architectural writer and later Poet Laureate.
With Betjeman as editor, the series sponsored by Shell Petroleum launched in 1934 with Cornwall followed in quick succession by Kent, Wiltshire, Derbyshire, Devon, Dorset, Buckinghamshire, Somerset and Oxfordshire.
For Northumberland & Durham, Betjeman signed-up County Durham-born Thomas Sharp (1901-1978) whose writings about the changing face of Britain were attracting national attention.
The guide that Sharp compiled was published with an eye-catching cover featuring a Farne Islands puffin with a painting of Tynemouth Priory on its title page.
The guide’s design was more problematic as it employed a ring-bound spine in red plastic, which means that few copies have survived intact.
Alongside line drawings and reproductions of works by legendary Northumberland wood engraver Thomas Bewick (1753-1828), nearly 50 photographs were chosen to illustrate the guide.
In addition to ‘Road to Holy Island’, JR Bainbridge was credited with a second image titled ‘Roman Wall’.
Despite being presented across two pages with the red ring binding cutting it in half, this stretch of Hadrian’s Wall is immediately recognisable.
It will also be familiar to those who know Dan Jackson’s The Northumbrians (London: Hurst, 2019).
The book’s cover features the same location as portrayed in a British Railways poster by the artist and illustrator Jack Merriott (1901-1968) that was created around the same time as Bainbridge’s photograph.
Today, J.R. Bainbridge is best-known to historians and researchers for his photographs taken in Ulster during the Second World War.
However, his two contributions to Northumberland & Durham: A Shell Guide were considered of sufficient quality to appear nearly twenty years later when a Shell Guide devoted solely to Northumberland was published.
In September 2023, a blog-a-day series of Pressphotoman posts featuring stereographs mostly attributable to the early press photographer James Edward Ellam (1857-1920) concluded with a question.
Was Ellam the man portrayed in one of the newly-discovered cache of stereos?
Though faded with age, a figure in full Highland dress pictured with a garden backdrop was captioned ‘His Majesty.’
The handwriting was immediately recognisable from the multiple copyright forms that Ellam completed during his career, whilst the title ‘His Majesty’ appeared to be a humorous reference to one of his best-known images.
Taken for Underwood & Underwood, it featured Edward VII and his grandchildren (including the future Edward VIII and George VI) at Balmoral following the King’s Coronation in August 1902.
These pieces of evidence seemed to point strongly, but not conclusively, in one direction.
For the past couple of years, Pressphotoman has been on the look out for photographic evidence that might corroborate this theory.
Thanks to Dr. Michael Pritchard, editor of the British Photographic History blog and The PhotoHistorian, journal of the Royal Photographic Society Historical Group, another photograph featuring Ellam has emerged.
It was taken in July 1908 when around 300 photographers, both professional and amateurs, gathered in Brussels for the 23rd Photographic Convention of the United Kingdom.
The choice of location was informed by the Convention president Sir Cecil Hertslet FRPS (1850-1934) who was His Majesty’s Consul-General to Belgium from 1903 to 1919.
At this point in his career as a professional photographer, Ellam was nearing the end of a decade-long working relationship with 3D giants Underwood & Underwood based in London’s West End.
He had become a member of the Royal Photographic Society in 1907 and was also an active member of the West London Photographic Society, lecturing on stereoscopic photography at one of its meetings.
In 1909, as part of a display by the United Stereoscopic Society, he created a stereoscopic transparency displayed by lantern at the annual RPS exhibition.
By the following year, he was working for London News Agency Photos at 46 Fleet Street covering events like the Army Pageant of 1910 held in Fulham Palace Gardens.
The discovery of another photograph of Ellam helps bring a further dimension to several blogposts on this site that can be found by putting his surname into the search engine via the link below.
During the summer of 1866, the celebrated photographic firm of W. & D. Downey named after its founding brothers William and Daniel placed a series of advertisements in the regional press.
These announced that they had opened a ‘branch establishment’ in the Northumberland seaside resort of Newbiggin by the Sea (last line below).
Newcastle Weekly Chronicle (16th June 1866). From British Newspaper Archive.
The choice of Newbiggin, fifteen miles along the North Sea coast from Downey’s main studio in Newcastle upon Tyne, was rooted in a significant family moment.
It was in Newbiggin that on 18th April 1866, Daniel Downey’s wife Elizabeth gave birth to a daughter.
Shields Daily News (20th April 1866). From British Newspaper Archive.
The couple’s choice of location for the baby’s delivery may well have been informed by the health benefits of escaping the pollution of an industrial city where child mortality rates were high.
Indeed, the couple, who married in 1863, had lost their first child, a boy named William Daniel, early the following year.
The safe arrival of Elizabeth Jane Downey was followed by a period of entrepreneurial photographic activity that characterised the firm throughout its long history.
Newspaper adverts reveal that by mid-July, the Downey’s had moved their seaside studio to Monck House, a property once occupied by Sir Charles Monck of Belsay.
A leading aristocrat in the region, Monck had previously sat for the Downey’s at Belsay Hall and was part of their expanding network of influential figures.
Monck House was certainly more in keeping with the facilities on offer at their 9 Eldon Square base in Newcastle as this newspaper advert confirms.
Newcastle Daily Journal (3rd August 1861). From British Newspaper Archive.
On 14th July 1866, an advert carried by the Morpeth Herald announced that Downey’s Newbiggin branch, now with its Monck House address, was open “for a short season, for the convenience of visitors to this beautiful watering place.”
It also advised that “to prevent disappointment, or having to wait, it will be better to make an appointment.”
Together with a series of views of “Newcastle, Woodhorn and Newbiggin-by-the-Sea”, another of the paper’s small ads made its readers aware of yet more Downey product that could be purchased in the resort.
Morpeth Herald (14th July 1866). From British Newspaper Archive.
Apart from mis-spelling its surname, the use of ‘Messrs. D & W.’ reversing the usual order of ‘W. & D.’ suggests that Daniel was combining his duties as a new father with this varied photographic schedule.
What a recent Pressphotoman visit to Newbiggin revealed was that the mid-1860s were pivotal years in the resort’s development.
1866 itself saw the building of Newbiggin Rocket House, one of Britain’s oldest and one that was involved in life-saving ship rescues well into the 20th century.
Within weeks of their summer season at Newbiggin by the Sea, the Downey brothers began a ground-breaking new chapter in their firm’s illustrious history.
For the first time, they were summoned by Queen Victoria to Balmoral where her diary for Saturday 22nd September 1866 records that “on coming home was photographed by a very good photographer Downey from Newcastle”.
Like the couple featured in a giant sculpture that watches over Newbiggin by the Sea today, the Downey’s never looked back.
The late August Bank Holiday in Britain (apart from Scotland) marks the traditional end of Summer.
Today’s forecast for glorious sunny weather offers an ideal opportunity to venture to the beach for a dip in the sea.
It’s a moment captured in a celebrated stereocard, titled ‘Miss Ward, the greatest of all Lady Divers’, whose back story comes to mind on this particular Bank Holiday Monday.
In the Spring of 1891, the American stereoscopic photography company Underwood & Underwood (U&U) opened a new branch office in Britain.
Its decision was informed by the port city of Liverpool’s key role in trade across the Atlantic Ocean and as a hub for transport links into the lucrative European market.
At this point, U&U’s 3D cards featured Liverpool alongside New York; Ottawa, Kansas (where it had started life); and Toronto, Canada as cities from which it operated.
Further evidence of its new commercial commitment to Europe came on 27th February 1893.
It was then that the company’s co-founder Bert Underwood (1862-1943), who had set up the Liverpool office, registered a number of its stereos for copyright in the UK.
Among the first he submitted (COPY 1/411/262) was titled ‘Miss Ward, the greatest of all Lady Divers’ complete with its ‘copy attached’ seen below in the National Archives at Kew.
This stereo like others registered at the same time had proved a popular seller for Underwood & Underwood in the United States.
An example in the Pressphotoman collection reveals that it first appeared in 1889 bearing the stamp of its New York partner company Strohmeyer & Wyman.
The photographic brilliance of its ‘instantaneous’ composition allows the viewer to relive the feeling of flying through the air in 3D en route to the water beyond.
But who was ‘Miss Ward’ and where was this remarkable shot taken?
The card’s verso records its location as ‘Coney Island, U.S.A.’, home in its late-19th century heyday to three seaside resorts in the Brooklyn district of New York.
Among the amusements on offer to holidaymakers and daytrippers, ‘Miss Ward’ performed diving displays that drew large and enthusiastic crowds.
Another U&U stereocard, also taken in 1889, that recently joined the Pressphotoman collection features ‘Daring Miss Ward’ in a less dramatic pose.
Last week’s post featuring William Tyler’s photographic journey along the River Thames around 1896 drew a number of admiring comments about his prints.
Part 2 features another five that he registered for copyright in January 1897 and are part of the National Archives at Kew.
Their pristine condition suggests that they have lain unseen for over a century.
Tylar’s view of the South Oxfordshire village of Whitchurch on Thames includes the steeple of St. Mary’s Church in the centre of the shot and Whitchurch Mill to its left.
Sonning Lock to the east of Reading has been rebuilt three times since its first appearance in 1773 and now features steel gates that replaced the original wood at the start of the 21st century.
In this portrait, Tylar has managed to capture a group navigating a craft through the lock, a bowler-hatted man sat on the riverbank and another figure walking towards camera in the far distance.
Medmenham Abbey, misspelled by Tylar as ‘Medenham’ on both his copyright form and the photograph’s original caption, occupies the site of what was once a Cistercian monastery.
Its history includes hosting the infamous Hellfire Club during the 18th century when Sir Francis Dashwood and his followers “socialised”.
Today it is a grade 2 listed mansion that is privately owned.
Tylar’s final two prints need little introduction as they feature Eton College, one of Britain’s best-known public schools, and Windsor Castle, the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world.
Both scenes are being observed not only by their cameraman.
A man in a punt is enjoying the view across the river to Eton College whilst a white horse with cart in tow is taking a rest amid harvest time in the shadow of Windsor Castle.
William Tylar (1859-1929). Courtesy of British Library.
According to copyright forms (COPY 1/428/397-405, 410) that he submitted in January 1897, Tylar photographed a sequence of well-known Thames locations between Oxford and Windsor.
What I wasn’t prepared for when viewing the ‘Copy Attached’ to each of the forms was both the size and quality of the ten black-and-white prints he produced.
They were approximately 16” x 20” (40cms x 50cms), framed in card mounts and presumably intended for display or exhibition.
Judging by their pristine condition, they had lain unviewed for well over a century.
To rectify this unintended neglect, this week’s post and next will be devoted to sharing these wonderful images
The sequence starts in Oxford with a scene featuring university barges moored along the river, also known as Isis, at Christ Church Meadows.
They were constructed in the 1770s as part of Capability Brown’s landscaping scheme for the Harcourt family’s estate.
During the 1920s, both the cottages and wooden bridge are thought to have fallen into disrepair and demolished during the Second World War when Nuneham Courtnay House was used by the RAF.
UPDATE: Andrew Crosby writes on Facebook: “The lock cottage at Nuneham there is still partly extant. Only a few bricks and a wall, but it’s not gone completely. The bridge to the island is not to be seen, but it is clear where it was originally located.”
One of the Thames most scenic spots is occupied by the villages of Goring in Oxfordshire and Streatley in Berkshire which lie opposite each other.
Tylar’s prints manage to capture the beauty and peace of both locations, partly because he chose a time to set up his camera when no-one was around.
Continuing his river trip, Tylar’s view of Mapledurham Mill near Reading is equally calm and tranquil though two young boys can be seen kneeling to the front left of the mill building.
Dating from 1626, the watermill is pictured here prior to the years between 1947 and 1977 when it was out of operation and had to be restored.
Next week, another five of William Tylar’s prints from his expedition along the River Thames in the summer of 1896 including Windsor Castle and Eton College.
The very first Pressphotoman post published in December 2022 featured a Channel 5 tv documentary about Queen Alexandra.
Portraying “the little celebrated and long-suffering wife” of King Edward VII, I questioned why a 70-minute programme rich in archive photographs had ignored one particular celebrated carte de visite portrait.
The resulting carte reportedly sold around 300,000 copies at a time when photography offered the public an affordable outlet for their fascination with the royal family.
That fascination continues as evidenced by another royal tv documentary broadcast in Britain last week.
Again, it offered an unmissable opportunity to utilise well-known carte de visite portraits of its subjects.
This time the programme makers did not disappoint.
Titled ‘Queen Victoria: Secret Marriage? Secret Child?’, Dr. Fern Riddell presented new evidence revealing a romantic relationship between Queen Victoria and her Highland servant John Brown.
As its title hinted, this included the claim that they not only married, but even had a child together.
Photohistorians have long pored over carte de visite portraits of the couple that were produced during the 1860s and 1870s.
Among the earliest was taken by the Aberdeen photographer George Washington Wilson at the Queen’s Balmoral estate in October 1863.
Marking the anniversary of her last Highland ride with Prince Albert, Victoria together with her pony ‘Fyvie’ were flanked by two of her servants, John Brown and John Grant.
However, when the photograph was published as a commercial carte, Grant was edited out of the shot leaving Brown and the Queen together.
The photograph later became symbolic of the monarch’s deep mourning for her late husband and her relationship with Brown that was already the subject of much gossip.
Sales during the following year were just short of 13,000 copies of this and other portraits made on the same occasion though the ‘Fyvie’ carte was the most popular.
The documentary also made great use of a similar portrait of Victoria and Brown taken five years later.
In the documentary, it was used to provide physical evidence for its argument that the Queen had given birth to a child with Brown the previous year.
Photographers like the Downey brothers and George Washington Wilson were no doubt privy to all kinds of interactions between the Queen and members of the royal household.
Exactly what they knew and saw would no doubt have interested today’s royal documentary makers.
What these intimate photographs capture only adds to the mystery surrounding Victoria and Brown.
Bigg Market in the heart of Newcastle upon Tyne is home today to numerous bars and restaurants that are a popular destination for a lively night out.
The name Bigg Market derives from a type of barley – ‘bigg’ – grown in the North of England and Scotland since Neolithic times.
From the early 19th century, varieties of grain from oats to corn were sold at a regular market staged in an area of Newcastle close to St. Nicholas Church, now its Anglican cathedral.
The name Bigg Market stuck.
It is a location captured during the late-1860s in this 3D stereocard by W. & D. Downey that has recently become part of the Pressphotoman collection.
Stereoscopically, it has the hallmarks of their work in terms of quality with the two wheeled carts in the immediate foreground acting as a trigger for the three dimensional effect.
Even without a stereo viewer to hand, it is possible to achieve the 3D effect by looking into the heart of the card and relaxing your eyes.
Downey’s had published stereos since its early days in South Shields at the end of the 1850s, but examples are hard to find.
Dating this card is helped by the knowledge that the prominent facade of Newcastle Town Hall (with St. Nicholas Church and its distinctive lantern tower in the background) was completed in 1863.
Another Downey stereo in my collection features the town’s catholic cathedral, St. Mary’s, and dates from around the same time when the company was actively promoting its series of ‘views’ of Newcastle in press adverts.
Again, yellow card is used, but the images are arched rather than square; and the verso features a blue coloured sheet of paper pasted onto the card that helped the stereos retain their shape.
One feature that is common to several Downey items in my collection is the same seller’s stamp on the verso.
‘Allan’ was Thomas Allan (1833-1894), a Newcastle blacksmith with a love of reading who set up in business as a bookseller and newsagent in 1858.
Three years later, he established another branch in nearby Dean Street which then moved to the ‘corner of Dean Street and Mosley Street’ as per his seller’s sticker.
As the company established itself in Newcastle, Downey’s ever-expanding range of carte de visite as well as stereocards were available to customers at all branches of Allan’s.
Thomas Allan joined forces with his brother William in 1881 and the T. & G. Allan company was a thriving concern across the North East of England into the 21st century.
The genre of seaside photography has a long history in Britain dating back to Victorian times.
Armed with a camera, its practitioners operated on promenades and piers, snapping holidaymakers and trippers as they enjoyed a seaside stroll.
Customers were then issued with a card inviting them to call later at a booth to collect their set of prints.
Our family’s collection of photographs contains several examples of the genre snapped at various holiday resorts in the first half of the 20th century.
For photographers with access to a seaside location, the commercial opportunities were significant.
In the summer of 1882, A. D. (Alexander Denholm) Lewis opened his Photo Atelier in the coastal resort of Tynemouth.
Born in Scotland, he had operated as a photographer running the North of England Photo Institute at various addresses in nearby Newcastle on Tyne for around 20 years.
A new railway station had just opened in Tynemouth bringing day trippers from across the region as well as families wanting to enjoy the delights of the new craze for seaside holidays.
A.D. Lewis’ newspaper adverts drew particular attention to what he called his Chaste New Tynemouth Promenade Carte describing it as a “great favourite.”
The Shields Daily News (19th June 1882). From British Newspaper Archive.
The claim that it had “been adopted by all the principal Photographers of the South, the Continent and America” may seem exaggerated.
However, an example that recently joined the Pressphotoman collection suggests that Mr. Lewis saw himself as an inventor and even an innovator.
Measuring 12.5 cms x 6.5cms, the Tynemouth Promenade Carte is longer than a standard carte.
Rather than photographing clients as they strolled in the open air, ‘A.D.L’ appears to have used a studio at 56 Front Street which was only a stone’s throw from Tynemouth sea front.
This enabled him to offer customers a more formal setting for their portrait and eliminated many of the technical challenges that faced outdoor photographers.
Though seaside photographers were still operating well into the second half of the 20th century, Mr. Lewis’ like many of his competitors appears to have suffered a downturn in his fortunes.
Aged 67, the 1901 Census records that he was a ‘retired photographer’ and was an ‘inmate’ of the Union Workhouse in Westgate Road, Newcastle.
This week in 1876, one of the engineering wonders of the industrial age in Britain opened to river traffic for the first time.
The wrought iron Swing Bridge on the River Tyne linking Newcastle and Gateshead was designed to improve navigation for larger ships and expand trade on its upper reaches.
171 metres long and 14 metres wide, the bridge swung open around a central pivot, creating two unobstructed waterways on either side of its main central pier.
As the fourth structure to be built on the same site spanning Roman and Medieval times, it cost £240,000 (or £24 million in today’s money).
An engraving published in the Illustrated London News captures the moment on Monday 17th July 1876 when The Europa became its first customer.
Illustrated London News (29th July 1876). From British Newspaper Archive.
Dwarfed by the high-level railway bridge in the background, the ship was on her way to pick up a 100 ton gun from the Armstrong works at nearby Elswick for the Italian government.
Illustrated London News (29th July 1876). From British Newspaper Archive.
The Swing Bridge has long been a popular photographic subject and its distinctive design was what caught my eye when a stereocard in which it featured recently appeared on eBay.
Produced by Realistic Travels of London, Capetown, Bombay, Melbourne and Toronto, it shows the Newcastle quayside in the background lined with ships and other vessels.
Realistic Travels are best-known for their sets of First World War battle scenes mimicing giant publishers such as Keystone View and Underwood & Underwood.
Indeed, one of Realistic’s co-founders, Hilton DeWitt Girdwood (1878-1964), had learned the 3D trade with the Underwood company as a salesman and later as a stereographer.
A stereo titled ‘HRH the Prince of Wales discusses cinematography with Dr. H. D. Girdwood’ is part of the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London complete with the Realistic Travels branding.
As described by Paul M. Bond in a recent article for Stereo World magazine (January/February 2025), Girdwood and his business partner Henry Creighton Beckett also produced non-war stereos from as early as January 1919.
Realistic Travels operated from a London address at 73 Westwick Gardens, Hammersmith and the small-scale nature of the operation is perhaps reflected in the poor quality printing on view in its Swing Bridge stereo.
It would be several years before the view beyond included the distinctive arch of the Tyne Bridge opened in 1928 and currently being repainted ahead of its centenary.
The Swing Bridge is also undergoing major repairs with the hope that it will be working again in time for its 150th birthday next year.
The architectural photographer Ursula Clark (1940-2000) is best-known for an archive of around 20,000 largely black-and-white images held by Historic England.
They were created by the Newcastle upon Tyne publisher Oriel Press during the 1960s and 1970s for a series of architecture guides featuring buildings in Britain and continental Europe.
Earlier this year, the Royal Photographic Society Historical Group hosted a talk in which I presented original research about Ursula Clark and her pioneering role in photographic history.
That research is ongoing and has focused recently on non-Oriel Press books and illustrated magazines where her architectural photographs were also published.
From visiting the Historic England archive in Swindon, I was aware that a proportion of her output involved colour photography.
Two of her exercise book shot lists are titled ‘Colour Copies’, suggesting that Oriel Press intended to reproduce images in colour.
Perhaps, given the company’s later financial difficulties which led to a corporate take-over by Routledge Kegan Paul in 1973, any plans proved too expensive to realise.
Given this background, it’s a pleasure to share colour versions of Ursula’s 35 mm photography in this latest Pressphotoman post about her photographic career.
These images were discovered in Architecture of Europe, a guide published in 1985 in Britain by Newnes Books and by Larousse in the United States.
The guide was authored by Bruce Allsopp (1912-2000), who was Ursula’s chief collaborator at Oriel Press and hired her on its launch as the publisher’s photographic editor in 1962.
Colour photographs credited to ‘Ursula Clark’ illustrate a section of Architecture of Europe devoted to Spain and Portugal.
It appears that some were first published as black-and-white illustrations in Oriel’s Architecture of Spain and The Great Tradition of Western Architecture (both 1966).
This information helps date these images as being taken during a period when Ursula was in her mid-twenties.
The sequence starts with a striking image of Barcelona’s ‘Facade of the Casa Battló’ (1905-07) by Antoni Gaudi, perhaps best-known for the catholic cathedral Segrada Familia, also in Barcelona that is due to be completed in 2026.
Then a double page is devoted to Ursula’s photographs with a brief accompanying explanatory text to point out significant features or historical information.
I reproduce them in the order they appear with a caption identifying each location.
The previous Pressphotoman piece marking a significant photographic anniversary has sent this blog’s research into the firm of W. & D. Downey of Newcastle on Tyne in fresh directions.
On 29th June 1863, William Downey took this group portrait in the garden of the London home of the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
It features Rossetti and William Scott Bell, known as the Northern Pre-Raphaelite, together with the movement’s champion John Ruskin.
The explanation for the hat and wig he is wearing is that his facial hair including his eye brows had recently fallen out due to an attack of alopecia.
This dramatic change is evident in an earlier Bell Scott portrait, also attributed to W. & D. Downey.
It is one that features in the collection of the Watts Gallery, Surrey (my thanks to Antony Ryan for this information).
The exact dating of the portrait is unknown, but it has the hallmarks of the company’s early celebrity cartes de visite published around 1860 when the Downeys were still based in South Shields.
As head of the Government’s School of Design in nearby Newcastle on Tyne (1843-1864), Bell Scott was a significant figure in the North East of England.
Eight of his best-known artworks completed between 1857 and 1861 feature in the Central Hall of Wallington, Northumberland, a stately home now in the care of the National Trust.
Rear view of Wallington, Northumberland. June 2025. Author’s photo.
Commissioned by Lady Pauline Trevelyan, Bell Scott’s brief was to decorate the hall with ‘wall paintings to illuminate the history and worthies of Northumbria.’
These are titled ‘The Roman Wall,’ ‘King Efrid and Cuthbert,’ ‘The Descent of the Danes,’ ‘The Death of Bede,’ ‘Spur in the Dish,’ ‘Bernard Gilpin,’ ‘Grace Darling’ and ‘Iron & Coal.’
The Central Hall designed by the Newcastle architect John Dobson took its inspiration from John Ruskin’s vision of an Italian Renaissance courtyard.
A recent opportunity to visit Wallington confirmed the impressive nature of both the hall and its paintings.
Central Hall, Wallington. June 2025. Author’s photo.Central Hall, Wallington. June 2025. Author’s photo.
On 29th June 1863, photographer William Downey set up his equipment in the garden of a house in the Chelsea district of London.
The house was home to the poet and illustrator Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882).
Joining him for the photoshoot were his friend and fellow Pre-Raphaelite artist William Bell Scott (1811-1890) together with the writer and critic John Ruskin (1819-1900).
Earlier in the year, Rossetti and Bell Scott had been photographed separately by William and his brother Daniel for their company, W. & D. Downey of Newcastle on Tyne.
Newcastle Daily Journal (21st March 1863). From British Newspaper Archive.
Hence, adding Ruskin to the line-up had a commercial caché.
The resulting photographs featuring the trio were then published by Downey in a variety of formats including cabinet cards and cartes de visite.
As to how the photoshoot came about, Bell Scott may well have been pivotal.
He was a Tyneside connection of the Downey brothers from his years as head of the Government School of Design in Newcastle (1843-1864).
In later years when interviewed about his own career, William Downey (1829-1915) recalled an incident about the Bell Scott/Rossetti/Ruskin photoshoot “hitherto unpublished.”
“I was taking their portraits together, and for the purpose of grouping would have had Mr. Ruskin sit down.
“But no. His reverence for Rossetti was so great that he would not sit down in his presence, and so had to be taken standing” (from ‘The Queen’s Photographer,’ English Illustrated Magazine, March 1896).
For the collector and those with an interest in the Downey photographic dynasty, these images are high on any wish list.
But their scarcity and budgetary constraints make adding such images to the Pressphotoman collection highly unlikely.
Given this, it was a moment of high excitement this week to obtain this carte portrait of John Ruskin taken on the same occasion.
This week’s Stereoscopy Day, an international celebration of stereoscopic 3D, is a wonderful opportunity for enthusiasts to share their passion for this form of photography.
21st June marks the anniversary of the day in 1838 when Sir Charles Wheatstone shared his revolutionary reflecting telescope with the Royal Society of London and demonstrated his theory of binocular vision.
In the past 12 months, my own collection of stereocards has grown in size as examples by commercial publishers and amateur photographers have come to my attention.
I’ve picked out a number of highlights with the accompanying Pressphotoman blogpost where you can learn more about each one.
It starts with what was a chance discovery: a card by George Washington Wilson of Aberdeen that is now the oldest in my collection.
The second card comes from a collection created at the turn of the 20th century by the model toy designer and entrepreneur W. J. Bassett-Lowke (1877-1953) of Northampton, England.
The Army Pageant staged during the summer of 1910 in the grounds of Fulham Palace, London was by all accounts quite a spectacle.
Advertisement from Illustrated London News (18th June 1910). From British Newspaper Archive.
It featured around 5,000 performers and was witnessed by an estimated 100,000 spectators during its 21-performance run, according to The Times.
The Historical Pageants in Britain website describes what pulled in the crowds as “a disparate selection of episodes that illustrated the development of military conflict and the British armed forces.”
Illustrated London News (25th June 1910). From British Newspaper Archive.
Among the press photographers on hand to record the action was James Edward Ellam (1857-1920), whose stereoscopic camera recorded various scenes for London News Agency Photos based in Fleet Street.
The Fulham and District organiser for the Army Pageant was Stanley Cave, a gentlemen’s outfitter with a shop at 815 Fulham Road, SW.
Interviewed earlier that year by the Fulham Chronicle, he explained that an estimated 600 local residents of all ages would be needed to stage its allocated Elizabethan episode.
As to costumes, they could be designed, cut and, if necessary, made to order under the supervision of Miss Lorna Burn-Murdoch, Mistress of the Robes.
Mr Cave went on to tell the paper: “The cost of the costumes will have to be borne by the players, who can spend practically what they like on them, from a few shillings to a few pounds.
He continued: “They will, of course, be the property of the wearers once the Pageant is over, and will serve as costumes for fancy dress balls and skating carnivals and will also be an interesting souvenir of the event.”
Press reports confirm that Mr. Cave took part in the Elizabethan episode of the pageant as one of the “Courtiers (mounted).”
However, a photographic postcard that recently joined the Pressphotoman collection suggests that his horse-riding skills may have led to another role too.
Aside from Mr. Cave’s splendid outfit, the photographer also captured his visibly distracted expression, which I initially put down to the pressures of helping organise such a huge undertaking.
However, a press report, again taken from the Fulham Chronicle, revealed how a few weeks earlier, Stanley Cave had suffered a family tragedy.
Fulham Chronicle (3rd June 1910). From British Newspaper Archive.
An inquest heard how his ten year-old daughter Ellen had died from a cerebral haemorrhage whilst she slept.
A week later, the paper reported on her funeral “amidst many manifestations of grief and sympathy.”
In the years that followed, members of the Cave family took an active part in many more pageants staged in Fulham raising money for local charities.
When Mr. Cave’s youngest daughter Mary married in 1931, the Fulham Chronicle described how she had taken the role of Anne Boleyn on several occasions playing opposite her father’s Henry VIII.
Following contact with her family, a photograph emerged of Mrs. Burrell, known as Theonie, together with her dog Judy.
Henrietta Theonie Burrell (1860-1934). Courtesy of Simon Burrell.
However, other examples of Mrs. Burrell’s work in the photographic medium have been reluctant to show themselves … until now.
Copyright records held by the National Archives revealed that, alongside her Marie Hall portraits (COPY 1/460/372-374), she lodged another form with a different subject in late-December 1904.
According to its description, COPY 1/481/107 features a ‘Photograph of Mr. Philip Cunningham – front face.’
During a recent research visit, I successfully located the form together with its attached photograph.
Each form is preserved within a clear sleeve so obtaining a photograph without any reflections is nigh on impossible as the image below demonstrates.
Despite this, the quality of the portrait Mrs Burrell produced is evident.
Her sitter’s identity slowly emerged via a number of newspaper articles.
They revealed that ‘Philip Cunningham’ (or Cuningham’ as it is sometimes spelt) was the stage name of Philip Harold Boosey (1865-1928).
The family business was music publishing, but the lure of the stage proved irresisitible and he made his theatrical debut in 1885 as a walk-on alongside Sir Henry Irving in a London production of Faust.
By the time ‘Mr. Philip Cunningham’ appeared in front of Mrs. Burrell’s camera, he was a household name.
The exact circumstances of the sitting aren’t known, but the dating of Mrs. Burrell’s copyright form points to a touring production of ‘The Eternal City’ staged at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle in which he appeared.
Based on the novel by Hall Caine, the play portrayed what the Newcastle Daily Chronicle (17th May 1904) described as “pictures of Italian politics and Pontifical procedure.”
The reviewer went on: “If the mounting of the play is excellent, it can be said most unreservedly that the acting is upon an equally high level.”
There was particular praise for “Mr. Philip Cunningham as the Radical orator David Rossi.”
Given the success she enjoyed with her postcard portraits of Marie Hall, it seems likely that Mrs. Burrell pursued the same commercial model, but this time with a different London publisher, John Beagles & Co.
The resulting postcard of the actor is certainly a striking image and would have been popular with fans clamouring for his autograph at stage doors across the country.
Unlike her Marie Hall postcards though, the credit ‘Mrs. Burrell, Newcastle on Tyne’ was nowhere to be seen on either the image nor its verso.
As to the roundel version attached by Mrs. Burrell to her copyright form, it suggests that she may have produced a similar print for her sitter, perhaps for his private use.
Though he may be a largely forgotten name these days, Mr. Philip Cunningham as portrayed by Mrs. Burrell of Newcastle on Tyne captures a stage star at the peak of his powers in a rare surviving example of her photography.
The Victorian Society’s national list of ‘Top Ten Endangered Buildings 2025’ features one building recognisable from regular visits down the decades to Newcastle upon Tyne.
Gibson Street Baths was built in the early 20th century under the 1846 Public Baths and Wash-houses Act that was still in force.
Photo: Graham Tyrrell/Instagram.
A weekly visit to such buildings was part of everyday life for many families including earlier generations of mine.
Now Grade 2 listed, Gibson Street Baths has lain dormant since 2016 and, according to the Victorian Society, “needs a sensitive reuse before restoration costs escalate further.”
It’s a theme that has echoed down the years as revealed by a 1971 article that recently joined the Pressphotoman collection.
North Magazine was a monthly publication for ‘Durham, Northumberland and North Yorkshire’ edited by the journalist and author Leslie Geddes-Brown (1942-2020).
The cover of the October 1971 issue (vol. 1, no. 4) featured an eye-catching photograph of the Tyne Bridge, which is currently undergoing major renovation as it approaches its centenary in 2028.
The series of photographs referred to came from Historic Architecture of County Durham by Neville Whittaker and Ursula Clark (Oriel Press) that was about to be published.
Regular readers will recognise the name of Ursula Clark (1940-2000) as the architectural photographer, who featured in my recent talk for the RPS Historical Group marking the 25th anniversary of her death.
The three-page North Magazine article devoted much of its space to Ursula’s photographs and it is instructive to trace what has happened to the featured buildings in the half century since.
In the years since, all three of the featured properties – Whitfield Place, Wolsingham; West Auckland Old Hall; and New Holmside Hall, near Burnhope – have been lovingly restored to their former glory.
Perhaps the most stunning transformation though is the classical shop front in High Street East, Sunderland (top right below) with its “ornate and elegant pillars” described in 1971 as “in a bad state.”
Thanks to becoming part of Sunderland’s Heritage Action Zone (HAZ), the adjoining terrace initially built as merchants’ houses in the late 18th century is now home to Pop Recs, a café, music and arts venue and community hub.
Photo from Pop Recs Facebook page.
These restorations and reinventions confirm that there is hope for the current crop of endangered buildings of which Newcastle’s Gibson Street Baths is just one.
The attribution ‘Unknown Photographer’ is like catnip to the photohistorian.
Sometimes the pieces of the jigsaw fall neatly into place and a credible name for the author of an image emerges.
That’s exactly what happened during the writing of this blogpost.
It began with a portrait photograph that is more than 160 years old and among the earliest protected by UK copyright law.
Copy 1/1/279. National Archives/OGL.
It features the veteran statesman and philosopher Henry, Lord Brougham (1778-1868) and was taken by Daniel Downey, one of the Tyneside brothers behind the celebrated photography firm of W. & D. Downey.
These facts are known because of a vital piece of legislation that early photographers in particular were quick to embrace.
On 29th July 1862, the Fine Arts Copyright Act became law and required anyone wanting to protect their paintings, drawings or photographs to complete a form and attach a copy of the work.
The first photograph (COPY 1/1/1) was registered on 15th August at Stationers Hall in London where the act was administered.
A few months later, according to a document stored in the National Archives at Kew, Daniel Downey submitted a form together with a copy of the photograph (seen above) that he had taken.
Copy 1/1/279. National Archives/OGL.
Dated 19th November 1862, the resulting form complete with his signature is numbered ‘279.’
For a researcher like me with an ongoing interest in charting the history of the Downey company, seeing such a document in the flesh as I did recently was a real privilege.
As regular readers will be aware, 1862 was a pivotal year for the Downey brothers, William and Daniel, who had started their photography business in South Shields several years earlier.
That January, their photographs of the aftermath of the New Hartley pit disaster claiming the lives of 204 men and boys were acclaimed by Queen Victoria.
Then, in March, their new studio at 9 Eldon Square, Newcastle on Tyne opened and quickly became a go-to destination for the great and good seeking a high-quality photographic portrait.
Daniel’s portrait of Lord Brougham was subsequently issued commercially as a carte de visite.
An example of this carte marked ‘Copyright’ and ‘W. & D. Downey’ on the front is part of the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.
As to when the photograph was taken, an article in the Newcastle Daily Journal (12th January 1863) reported how Downey had been honoured with repeated commissions from Brougham, who it called “the great opponent of the slave trade.”
The paper went on: “… only recently they were on a professional visit to his residence in Westmoreland, when they had the rare good fortune to obtain, in one small carte de visite, the portraits of both Lord Brougham and Mr. Gladstone.”
Searching online for this carte featuring Brougham with the then Chancellor of the Exchequer and later Prime Minister in four British governments, I came across this image.
Titled ‘Henry Brougham …. and William Ewart Gladstone’ and described as an ‘albumen print, late 1850s,’ the website of the National Portrait Gallery, London states that it was purchased in 1991 and attributes it to an ‘unknown photographer.’
Looking at the chair being used and the stone wall background, the visual evidence suggests a number of similarities with Daniel Downey’s copyrighted portrait of Lord Brougham.
Copy 1/1/279. National Archives/OGL.
Press reports also help identify a possible date and location at which these portraits featuring Brougham alone and together with Gladstone were taken.
In a report headlined ‘Mr. Gladstone’s visit to Newcastle’, the Newcastle Courant (10th October 1862) described how “the right honourable gentleman [Gladstone] and Mrs. Gladstone, who had been staying with Lord Brougham at Brougham Hall, near Penrith … arrived at Blaydon-on-Tyne, on Monday afternoon, by train from Carlisle.”
Newcastle Courant (10th October 1862). From British Newspaper Archive.
This account points to the period prior to this when the sittings took place with Brougham Hall being a strong candidate as the location.
It would also connect neatly with an event that took place in Newcastle the day after Gladstone and Mrs. Gladstone’s arrival in the city on Monday 7th October 1862.
The next day, the Newcastle Courant reported that Gladstone paid a visit to “the studio of Mr. Downey, photographer, Eldon Square, where the Chancellor of the Exchequer sat for a portrait.”
This resulting carte de visite issued by W. & D. Downey is part of my collection and also features in several versions in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Taken together, the sequence of events strongly suggests that Daniel Downey not only took the portraits featuring Lord Brougham and Mr. Gladstone at Brougham Hall, but also as that of Gladstone at Downey’s Eldon Square studio in Newcastle.
Whatever the exact details of their provenance, the resulting photographs capture two of Britain’s best-known politicians in their Victorian pomp.
In 1905, the photographer James Edward Ellam was at a turning point in his professional career.
A skilled amateur stereographer in his native Yorkshire, he had journeyed south a decade earlier to pursue opportunities offered in London by the leading American 3D company Underwood & Underwood.
It was a decision that changed his life.
Ellam is best-known for a number of the stereos he took for the Underwood company.
Today they feature in museum collections around the world.
Among them are Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee celebrations (1897), King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra in their coronation robes (1902) and Pope Pius X in his pontifical robes in the Vatican’s Throne Room (1903).
Despite these achievements, Ellam’s career path into Fleet Street seems to have included a subsequent period where he created photographs with a distinctly local flavour.
Hence, his decision to register the copyright of two images taken in or around the Essex town of Dunmow where he lodged at weekends.
Last week’s blogpost featured the first of these press photographs.
It portrayed the prospective Liberal Member of Parliament Barclay Heward (1853-1914) and his wife strolling along Dunmow High Street in the run-up to 1906 General Election.
What he omitted to mention was that one of that group was one of the most famous women in the land.
Fashionably-dressed and seated on the front row in a wicker chair, Daisy, Countess of Warwick was a one-time mistress of King Edward VII.
She is pictured at a significant moment in her own life; one that was the subject of almost daily press attention.
During this period, Lady Warwick became actively engaged in politics as a member of the Social Democratic Federation.
However, unlike the Liberal candidate Barclay Heward, who featured in Ellam’s earlier photograph, she was increasingly active in promoting radical socialism ahead of the forthcoming General Election.
As to the photograph’s genesis, a press report in the East Anglian Daily Times and cited in the Essex Naturalist account of the club’s activities provides the background.
On Saturday 8th July 1905 at the invitation of the Earl and Countess of Warwick, “members of the club and many friends, about seventy in all, assembled … for the purpose of inaugurating ‘the Pictorial and Photographic Record of Essex.’”
The brief of the project was “to write the history of the county in pictures.”
East Anglian Times (10th July 1905). From British Newspaper Archive.
The report described how Lady Warwick presided at a luncheon held at Easton Lodge near Dunmow, her husband’s ancestral Essex home.
She first apologised for the absence of the Earl, who was “at Brest on a yachting cruise.”
After lunch, a meeting to discuss the photography project was held “in a commodious double tent amongst trees at the back of the house.”
Following the meeting, the group paid a visit to nearby Bigods Hall, which the Countess had established years earlier as a secondary and agricultural school.
Those present were then entertained to tea by the Principal, Mr. T. Hacking and Mrs. Hacking.
Though the report refers to “about seventy in all” attending the luncheon and meeting held at Easton Lodge, the smaller group pictured in the Bigods Hall photograph perhaps indicates that not everyone made the line-up.
What is particularly noteworthy is the presence of so many women in the picture, making up around half of the group.
At this point in the medium’s history, photography had become a popular and affordable pastime thanks to the advent of Kodak’s ‘you press the button, we do the rest’ range of cameras.
Ellam’s presence too may well have been directly linked to the photographic project being discussed.
Copyrighting the image does though suggest that he recognised that this photograph of the Essex Field Naturalists Club had a long-term value.
What is slightly confusing is that the copyright form completed by Ellam, with this photograph attached and held by the National Archives, is stamped and dated ‘13th March 1905.’
As the weather during the Bigods Hall visit was reported as “gloriously fine,” the dress of those appearing on camera does suggest a July day rather than one in March.
One explanation may be that the 13th March form referred to an earlier occasion.
Armed with a new photograph of the group featuring the media-friendly Lady Warwick, he simply substituted a copy of that taken on 8th July.
Whatever the explanation, the resulting photograph captures a moment in the changing world of Edwardian Britain.
Political elections and their outcomes are a talking point at the moment particularly in England, Canada and Australia where voters have recently gone to the polls.
Down the centuries, press and media coverage of such landmark events has evolved as demonstrated by this photograph.
More about the photograph’s subjects, its location and how it came to be taken shortly.
As to the photographer responsible, the image was created by James Edward Ellam (1857-1920) whose career as a stereographer and later press photographer is a continuing research thread for this blog.
The photograph’s existence is entirely due to the UK National Archives, formerly the Public Record Office.
The Fine Arts Copyright Act of 1862 required that anyone registering a photograph for copyright needed to complete a form with a copy of the image attached though not everyone did as they were required.
Today, those copyright records are stored in sturdy grey archival boxes in the National Archives building at Kew in London.
Each box contains a stack of forms preserved in see-through sleeves.
Fortunately for this researcher, Mr. Ellam’s form dated 27th June 1905 and signed by him together with the photograph it related to were intact.
Helpfully, the National Archives have created a digital record of these copyright forms and their contents.
But the contents of the forms are not always accurately recorded and so can send the researcher down a few dead ends as it did in this case.
On further investigation, what the catalogue listed as ‘Photograph of Barclay Howard Esq and Mrs. Howard walking along High Street, Dunmow’ turned out to have mis-spelt the couple’s surname.
Mr and Mrs. Heward (rather than Howard) were Spencer Barclay Heward (1853-1914) and his wife Lina Emily née Sewell, who had married in 1879.
The reason that James Edward Ellam had taken their photograph on a June day in 1905 was all down to politics.
Mr. Heward was a candidate in the forthcoming United Kingdom General Election that took place over several days in late January and early February 1906.
This wasn’t Heward’s first attempt to become a Member of Parliament.
A retired stockbroker, he had stood unsuccessfully in 1892 as the Liberal candidate for the Epping constituency in Essex.
Stratford Express (16th July 1892). From British Newspaper Archive.
In November 1904, he was again selected to fight the seat for the Liberals in a bid to unseat the same Conservative opponent, Colonel Lockwood.
Ellam’s photograph of Mr. and Mrs. Heward captures the couple striding confidently along the pavement, attracting the attention of various onlookers.
One particular point of interest is the photograph’s location as stated on the copyright form: ‘High Street, Dunmow.’
Whilst working during the week as a press photographer servicing London’s Fleet Street, Ellam lodged at weekends with Henry Bradley and his family at their outfitters business on Dunmow High Street in Essex.
Whether the photoshoot with the Hewards had been pre-arranged or came from Ellam’s quick-thinking, it resulted in an image with topical news value.
There was a growing market for such photos among newspapers and magazines.
These though were early days as far as press photography were concerned and even national newspapers previewing the General Election predominantly used line drawings as illustrations.
London Daily Chronicle (1st January 1906). From British Newspaper Archive.
They were early days too for Ellam, who was operating at this point in his career as a freelance press photographer with an eye to selling his images to multiple customers.
Claiming copyright for his work provided a degree of protection for any financial benefits that might accrue if the photograph was reproduced by the press.
On this occasion though, and despite the Liberal landslide result across the UK, Ellam’s journalistic instinct went unrewarded at the polls.
The Woodford Times (26th January 1906). From British Newspaper Archive.
Also in 1905, Ellam created another photograph aimed at the press that he again copyrighted, which is the subject of the next Pressphotoman blogpost.
The death of Pope Francis aged 88 followed by his funeral over the weekend attracted the focus of the world’s media.
Speculation about who his successor will be is well underway.
By way of marking this latest chapter in papal history, I’m republishing research into an ambitious 3D photographic project featuring one of Pope Francis’s predecessors.
Following a conclave in 1903, Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto was appointed Pope as Pius X.
Within months, the leading stereoscopic photography company Underwood & Underwood sent a team from its London offices to produce what became a popular series of 36 stereocards.
These were published the following year as A Pilgrimage to see the Holy Father through the Stereoscope.
Frontispiece of A Pilgrimage to see the Holy FatherThrough the Stereoscope (1904).
The images, which capture the Pope in relaxed and intimate settings around the Vatican, were reproduced by the press around the world and made available to the public as picture postcards.
Taken together, they highlight the importance of photography more than a century ago as an influential medium of mass communication to a global audience.
Who, it asked, was behind this ambitious photographic enterprise; one that offered 3D views in sets of 12 taken around England and the Isle of Man complete with pocket viewer?
The answer was revealed at the bottom of the verso of the featured cards: ‘W. Tylar, Publisher, Birmingham.’
William Tylar (1859-1929) was born in Lincolnshire and by his early twenties was working as a photographer in Birmingham.
William Tylar (1859-1929). Courtesy of the British Library.
By the 1890s, he had established a thriving business in the Aston district of the city that specialised in inventing and supplying photographic equipment.
A typical example was Tylar’s P.O.P Washer described in 1896 by the British Journal of Photography as “a thoroughly useful and efficacious addition to the amateur’s outfit.”
From British Journal of Photography (3rd April 1896). Courtesy of the British Library.
The following year, Tylar copyrighted several photographs taken in and around Oxford and the River Thames.
This suggests that his “B-P” stereo series may have been just one of his commercial photography spin-offs.
Tylar also had an entrepreneur’s instinct for publicity and “a popular stereoscope” he invented attracted attention from the national press.
The People’s Friend (8th January 1900). From British Newspaper Archive.
This would appear to be the forerunner of a more sophisticated and expensive version of his invention that later accompanied his “B-P” Series of stereo views.
Early in the 20th century, a showcase for William Tylar’s business was published as The Art of Photographic Dodging with its eye-catching front cover advertising Ilford Plates and Papers.
Courtesy of the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
Co-author Richard Penlake will be known to regular readers of this blog as the pen-name of Percy R. Salmon FRPS (1872-1959).
A respected author of several books aimed at amateurs photographers, Salmon was editor of the weekly paper Photographic News between 1901 and 1905.
Rather wonderfully, The Art of Photographic Dodging has been digitised by the Getty Research Institute.
A glimpse inside reveals “Tylar’s tit-bits to tyros turning their troubles to triumphs : tested tips tersely told” alongside nearly 70 pages of advertisements extolling the virtues of his many and varied products.
One of the ads also reveals that sets of 12 “B-P” stereoscopic views cost one shilling and sixpence and that “B-P” stood for ‘Best Popular.’
However, as is sometimes the case with photographers and photographic businesses highlighted by Pressphotoman, Tylar’s fortunes took a downward path.
In 1907, failing health led him to convert his business into a private limited company.
This offered an opportunity to his employees as well as friends and customers to purchase shares in it.
Sadly for him, this idea failed to take flight.
Instead, in June 1908, his company secretary, a Mr. J. T. Roberts, was arrested by police after forging a series of cheques signed by Tylar as the company’s managing director.
Over a six month period, Roberts, a previously trusted employee, drew around £80 (over £8,000 in today’s money) from the company’s bank account. He was jailed for six months with hard labour.
Birmingham Daily Mail (2nd June 1909). From British Newspaper Archive.
In August 1909, a few months after Roberts was imprisoned, a creditors meeting of William Tylar Limited, “photographic equipment manufacturers and dealers,” was held.
Birmingham Daily Mail (October 1909). From British Newspaper Archive.
The meeting heard that Tylar learned of his company secretary’s dishonesty whilst enjoying “a change of air” in Bournemouth suggested by his doctor.
As reported by the Birmingham Daily Mail, the business had failed due to “bad trade, keen competition, and the cost of getting orders” and a liquidator was appointed.
In the face of this set back, Tylar still recorded his occupation in the 1911 Census as a “Factor of Photographic Goods.”
However, a newspaper small ad placedin the same year was perhaps a truer reflection of his position.
Stowmarket Weekly Post (19th January 1911). From British Newspaper Archive.
In 1929, William Tylar, who had settled in Bournemouth, died in hospital in Christchurch, Hampshire aged 71.
A smartly-dressed man is striding confidently across the road without fear of being run over.
To the extreme right, a male cyclist is in conversation with a man on the pavement whilst further down the road, a horse-drawn carriage can be glimpsed.
Closer inspection reveals a horse is enjoying a nosebag though its contents remain unknown.
The third “B-P” Series stereocard reveals the west front of the cathedral at Salisbury.
Taken on a summer’s day complete with trees in full leaf and shadows in the immediate foreground, a figure in the doorway provides a sense of scale.
Thanks to a thoughtful eBay seller, these cards arrived complete with the blue-coloured cardboard envelopes in which they had originally been sold (and presumably stored) in the decades since.
The verso of the box offering ‘No. 21 Salisbury’ revealed that views had been sold in sets of 12 offering a variety of English locations as well as four featuring the Isle of Man.
The presence of three sets of ‘South African Views’ (numbers 13, 15 and 16), including two that were advertised as “all appertaining to the Seat of War,” related to the conflict between the British and the Boers between 1899 and 1902.
This evidence helps pinpoint the dating of all three of the cathedral cards in this post to the turn of the 20th century.
As regular readers will already know, this was a moment when stereoscopic photography was undergoing one of its periodic revivals thanks to American companies like Underwood & Underwood and Keystone View.
To be fully enjoyed, these cards needed a 3D viewer.
To complete their range of products, “B-P” offered a portable pocket stereoscope that, its manufacturers claimed, offered “adjustable focus for all sights.”
An article featuring my research about the architectural photographer Ursula Clark (1940-2000) has just been published by The PhotoHistorian (Spring 2025, no. 201).
It follows a recent talk about Ursula’s photography for the Royal Photographic Society Historical Group.
A YouTube recording is fast approaching 4,000 views and has attracted an audience far beyond the niche one anticipated.
‘Ursula Clark: Architectural Photographer’ for RPS Historical Group. 28th February 2025.
As a result of social media interest and wider publicity, I am now following up various research threads, which I hope to share in future Pressphotoman posts.
Since then, attempts to locate more examples of Theonie’s photography have sadly proved unsuccessful.
However, thanks to her great nephew Simon Burrell, I am able to share a photograph of the woman herself.
Henrietta Theonie Burrell (1860-1934). Courtesy of Simon Burrell.
She is pictured holding her dog Judy, standing in what may be the garden of the Burrell family home at Neville Cottage in the Elswick district of Newcastle.
As to identifying the photographer, it might be the work of her sister Fanny Johanna Bunning or her children Theonie Renee Burrell (1889-1945) or Cedric Ian Burrell (1892-1980).
Collecting carte de visite photographs is a never-ending journey of discovery.
Regular readers will be aware of my research into the studio of W. & D. Downey in South Shields and Newcastle on Tyne during the late-1850s and 1860s before relocating to London.
Their cartes of the great and good are a particular fascination of mine and my collection features not only single portraits, but others from the same sitting.
For example, Richard Cobden (1804-1865) was a Manchester businessman turned politician who became an MP.
He is best-known, together with his parliamentary colleague John Bright (1811-1889), for spearheading a successful campaign to repeal the Corn Laws, which penalised the poor.
In Cobden’s case, the two cartes published by Downey in my collection demonstrate how one man sitting on a chair could be successfully repositioned and reorientated for the camera to provide different images.
In one, he is looking to the left of the operator; in the second, he is looking straight down the lens.
In one, his right arm is draped over the back of the chair; in the second, it’s his left arm.
As for props, the table on the right hand side also reveals how a book, often a visible sign of the sitter’s learning and erudition, was part of one shot, but not the second.
The carte on the left is part of the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London where the two examples it holds of the same card are distinguished by text in the white border at the bottom of the card.
These include the words ‘Copyright,’ ‘W. & D. Downey’ and ‘Mr. Cobden.’
A further two examples in the NPG collection are close-up head-and-shoulders shots taken from the same image where the original negative has been cropped by Downey to produce a more intimate portrait.
Cobden sat for his Downey portrait in the summer of 1863 during a visit to London by the firm as this newspaper advert confirms.
Newcastle Journal (30th July 1863). From British Newspaper Archive.
The Downey portrait of John Bright MP, listed above together with Cobden, also features in my collection and is equally distinguished.
The seller was Kent-born Joseph Haycraft, who had been a printer and later bookseller and stationer in Manchester from the 1840s.
Like many in his trade, the cartomania phenomenon had given a considerable boost to business.
Politicians were among those figures conveyed celebrity status by these affordable photographs.
In the final years of his political career, Richard Cobden was MP for Rochdale, so cartes featuring his distinctive visage would have proved popular sellers in nearby Manchester.
When Cobden died in April 1865, Downey’s various portraits of him gained another lease of life.
Indeed, many previously unissued images may well have been marketed precisely because there was a public appetite to memorialise the late MP.
Downey portraits also featured in press tributes such as this engraving used by the Illustrated London News in its obituary though, as was sometimes the case, the photographer’s work was not credited in the press.
Illustrated London News (16th April 1865). From British Newspaper Archive.
As for Haycraft, he died only a year after Cobden in May 1866.
The following month, an advertisement in the Manchester Courier revealed that his premises at 52 Market Street were “going to be pulled down” and that an auction of his ‘stock in trade’ would take place.
Manchester Courier (16th June 1866). From British Newspaper Archive.
Following the auction, his son Frederick Taylor Haycraft, who had assisted him in the business, took over its running at new premises in nearby Princess Street.
However, the story does not have a happy ending as was the case for many who rode the carte de visite wave.
By the end of the decade, Frederick was listed as a ‘bankrupt bookseller’ by the London press.
A recent road trip to visit family and friends in the South of England offered an ideal opportunity to visit 78 Derngate, Northampton.
Regular readers will recognise the address as the home of WJ Bassett-Lowke (1877-1953), an entrepreneurial model engineer and amateur photographer and film-maker.
A selection of his 3D stereocards bought during an eBay auction featured in a series of Pressphotoman posts during January and February.
78 Derngate, a wedding present from WJ’s father, was remodelled in 1916 by the celebrated architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928).
Indeed, it was his last major architectural commission, so as a photohistorian and lover of all things Mackintosh, my visit to 78 Derngate held a number of attractions.
I wasn’t disappointed.
The original Georgian house sits on a terraced street though it was once on the edge of Northampton rather than close to the town’s busy hospital as it is today.
Front elevation of 78 Derngate, Northampton. 11th March 2025. Author’s photo.
As you approach, number 78’s black front door, featuring Mackintosh’s signature style, immediately marks it out as does the rear elevation complete with balconies.
Rear elevation of 78 Derngate, Northampton. 11th March 2025. Author’s photo.
My arrival coincided with a guided tour of the property that lasted more than an hour, but which flew by in a whirl of information to accompany the visual and design delights of each room.
From 78 Derngate, Northampton Souvenir Guide (78 Derngate Trust, 2005).
The guest bedroom (above) was once occupied by the playwright George Bernard Shaw, a keen photographer himself, whilst the sitting room (below) is almost too dazzling to spend a lot of time in.
From 78 Derngate Northampton Souvenir Guide (78 Derngate Trust, 2005).
There is so much to take in on one visit, but my attention was caught by a display case featuring cameras that WJ wielded at various points.
The serendipity of adding a dozen of his stereocards to my collection, taken between 1900 and 1904 when he was launching the model train business that bore his name, has continued.
In a subsequent eBay transaction with the same seller, I was fortunate enough to secure a further five Bassett-Lowke cards.
In addition, I bought an Underwood & Underwood stereo titled ‘The Children’s Paradise – A German Toy exhibit in the Industrial Arts Building’ taken at the 1900 Paris Exposition.
It was during his visit to Paris that WJ saw the model railway engines built by German companies from Nuremberg that inspired the future direction of Bassett-Lowke Ltd.
My favourite of the latest cards is a stereo of the famous Frauenkirche on the edge of the city’s market square.
It is taken from ‘A Tour of Germany’ that he and his business partner Harry Franklin undertook in April 1900 and is numbered on the verso as ‘35.’
The clock tower shows the time as ten past one and a market stall holder in the foreground appears to be on her way to lunch.
This week (12th March) marks 153 years since the birth of photographer, author and journalist Percy R. Salmon FRPS (1872-1959).
His life and career were celebrated in 2022 in a short film produced by the Royal Photographic Society marking his contribution as a fellow and society member for more than half a century.
Since then, Pressphotoman has continued research into different aspects of PRS’s life in photography and then shared the findings with readers around the anniversary of his birth.
Percy R. Salmon FRPS (1872-1959) by HD Halksworth Wheeler (1878-1937). Courtesy of Stephen Martin.
A recent discovery is that he was a key figure in the arrival in Britain of the Autochrome, the first accessible colour photography process.
This involved coating a glass plate with varnish.
Then with a randomly mixed layer of red, blue and green dyed potato starch, with around five million grains per square inch, painting the glass plate with an orthochromatic emulsion.
A complex programme followed of developing, washing, bleaching, redeveloping, fixing and more washing.
The stipled colour result was soft and subtle and is still regarded today as “the most beautiful of the colour processes” (Pam Roberts, The Royal Photographic Society Collection, 1994, p. 62).
The Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis, patented their Autochrome on 17th December 1903 and publicly unveiled their invention at the Académie des Sciences in Paris at the end of March 1904.
However, it was not until June 1907 that it was released commercially in France (Catlin Langford, Colour Mania: Photographing The World In Autochrome, Thames & Hudson/V&A, 2022, p. 18).
By August, the Autochrome was being excitedly referred to in the British photographic press, which is where Percy R. Salmon comes into the story.
On 5th September, an ‘informal meeting’ about ‘the Autochrome colour-plate’ took place at the Royal Photographic Society in London.
The Morning Post newspaper (7th September 1907) reported that ‘Mr. P.R. Salmon’ was named “among those who showed examples” at the meeting of what it called “that new toy.”
Morning Post (7th September 1907). From British Newspaper Archive.
Also referred to in the report were ‘Mr. J. McIntosh,’ secretary of the RPS (1905-1921) and ‘Mr. Francis T. Beeson,’ who had been an RPS Fellow since 1897.
According to Langford (2022, p.19), “the first [Autochrome] plates arrived in Britain in October 1907, but only in small quantities.”
This would suggest that RPS members attending the ‘informal meeting’ in early September had privileged access to an alternative supply.
In Salmon’s case, this may well have been through contacts he had established in Paris while working as a travelling stereoscopic (3D) photographer for Lévy et ses Fils between 1897 and 1900.
He was also well connected through his years as Editor of Photographic News (1901-1905), a popular weekly newspaper established in Britain in 1858.
Events seems to have moved swiftly as what was described as a ‘Section’ at the annual RPS Exhibition, which opened on 19th September at the New Gallery in Regent Street, London, was devoted to ‘The Autochrome.’
Morning Post (26th September 1907). From British Newspaper Archive.
The exhibition catalogue records that ‘P.R. Salmon’ exhibited a portrait, listed as no. 60.
The Autochrome Section had been “collected and arranged by R. Child Bayley and Thos. K. Grant by invitation from the [RPS] Council,” so Salmon found himself sandwiched between several examples produced by its two organisers.
The exhibition proved very popular and each day (until it closed on 26th October), a selection of the Autochromes on display were “shown on the lantern screen” (Morning Post, 19th September 1907).
By early November, a meeting of the RPS that featured an Autochrome demonstration broke all attendance records (Langford, 2022, p.19).
Efforts to locate Mr. Salmon’s Autochrome portrait from the 1907 Exhibition or any other Autochromes he produced have so far proved unsuccessful.
However, increased research activity into this eye-catching process and its early history suggests that all hope is not lost.
Around 2,000 of Ursula’s images have been digitised by the Historic England Archive from what is the largest of its collections created by a woman photographer.
Update 5th March 2025: Billy Embleton informs me: “That little girl is Ellen Parkin with her Uncle Jimmy Anderson in the burger van in 1965. She identified herself in 2021 when I posted the photo on Facebook. She’s now known as Ellen Przybylska.”
In my talk, I argued that these images echo those of other female photographers working during the same period such as Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen (born 1948) and Tish Murtha (1956-2013).
It would be wonderful to put names to the faces in these photographs and learn more about long ago interactions with a photographer, who clearly had a rapport with flesh-and-blood subjects too.
I first came across her work last year whilst browsing in a second-hand bookshop.
Historic Architecture of Newcastle Upon Tyne (Oriel Press, 1967) was full of striking photographs of a city that I’ve known for the past 40+ years.
From Historic Architecture of Newcastle upon Tyne (Oriel Press, 1967). Author’s Collection.
Reading the book’s credits revealed that, aside from two images, “all other photography by Ursula Clark.”
So who was Ursula Clark and how did she come to take such a huge number of striking photographs?
The answer and the results of a research project that’s occupied me for several months will be shared later this week during a free online talk for the Royal Photographic Society Historical Group.
Through two decades, Allsopp & Clark collaborated with other leading authors on a series of popular architectural history guides.
English Architecture (Oriel Press, 1979).
These featured areas of Britain such as Northumberland and County Durham; cities like Newcastle upon Tyne and Leeds; and countries from England and Scotland to France, Italy and Spain.
To mark the 25th anniversaries of Allsopp & Clark’s deaths in 2000, I am presenting a talk later this month about Oriel Press with particular focus on Ursula Clark’s role as a photographer and photographic editor.
The talk will draw on her archive of 20,000 black-and-white negatives now in the care of Historic England.
The name Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke (1877-1953) was new to me until I came across it recently on a series of 3D stereocards for sale on eBay.
Bassett-Lowke Ltd., the company he co-founded, is known to model and miniature railway enthusiasts in Britain as a by-word for quality.
As a photohistorian though, I wasn’t aware of WJ Bassett-Lowke’s photography.
From Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke by Janet Bassett-Lowke (Rail Romances, Chester, 1999).
However, a dozen of his stereos, now in the Pressphotoman collection, have provided material for this mini-series of pieces about his life around 1900 as a talented young entrepreneur.
WJ’s love of travel, particularly around Europe, was clearly a major influence on his life as illustrated by stereos taken during a trip to Normandy in 1904.
These dark-coloured cards edged in gold are stamped ‘Stereoscopic Photography’ on the left-hand side and ‘WJ Bassett-Lowke, Northampton’ on the right.
The first features a shot taken on board ship, perhaps crossing the English Channel en route to France.
Mont St. Michel has a scaffolding structure visible to the left of frame whilst the Honfleur ‘street scene’ features a small group leant against a wall to the right of frame.
Such excursions with camera in hand provide evidence of both WJ’s sharp eye and attention to detail.
What I didn’t know before researching these pieces is that he also played a pivotal role in the creative life of the celebrated architect and artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928).
During the First World War, Mackintosh was commissioned to re-model a modest Georgian house at 78 Derngate, Northampton that became home to Mr. Bassett-Lowke and his wife Jane.
Their front door hints at the wonders within.
From Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke by Janet Bassett-Lowke (Rail Romances, Chester, 1999).
The result is the only place outside his native Scotland where Mackintosh’s mature architectural and interior style can be seen in their original setting.
You can visit 78 Derngate, which has been renovated and restored in recent years.
To conclude this mini-series, here are two undated stereos that give a flavour of WJ’s consummate skill as a stereographer.
One captures a group of children dancing down the street, possibly St. James in Northampton, accompanied by a barrel organ glimpsed to the extreme left of frame.
They also capture a key moment in the evolution of the Bassett-Lowke company, which had began life producing parts for miniature steam engines by 1899.
The following July, WJ travelled from Northampton to visit L’Exposition de Paris 1900.
As a World’s Fair, it celebrated the achievements of the past century and showcased the latest developments for the one to come.
According to his own account, WJ’s decision to visit was inspired by reports in local newspapers.
These “aroused my curiosity and interest … there was a good collection of mechanical toys and also some Continental scale models to be seen there.”
Armed with his 3D camera, he travelled to Paris with a friend.
Frank Jones, his future brother-in-law whose family ran a Northampton shoe company, was going to look at the Fair’s leather section.
All the major commercial stereoscopic companies produced sets of 3D cards capturing the event in detail.
So it’s interesting to see how an amateur yet skilled stereographer tackled the same task.
The Eiffel Tower built for the 1889 World’s Fair features in three of the four WJ cards shot in Paris that now in the Pressphotoman collection.
This one stamped with its location (left) and date and stereographer credit (right) is captioned on the verso: “Looking towards the Trocadero from the Eiffel Tower.”
The view features an unusual overhead travelling crane made by the Carl Flohr company of Berlin whose logo can be viewed in the centre of shot.
Elsewhere, WJ’s attention was grabbed by miniature model railways with locomotives, coaches, wagons and other accessories, also produced by German companies.
“One of the finest displays was that of … Bing Bros. of Nuremberg,” he wrote later.
It was a business connection that led in time to Bing and other ‘Toymakers of Nuremberg’ supplying a range of model trains to Bassett-Lowke specifically designed for the British market.
These started appearing in the company’s catalogues from 1901.
A visit to Germany to finalise exact details of this production deal may well have prompted ‘A Continental Tour’ undertaken by WJ that May.
Nuremberg was among the locations listed beneath the stereo images of a hotel where WJ perhaps stayed.
The name Bassett-Lowke will be familiar to model and miniature railway enthusiasts in Britain and around the world.
The company co-founded in the late-1890s by Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke (1877-1953) became a by-word for its high-quality products.
Today they’re revered by collectors and enthusiasts.
Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke (1877-1953).
However, I knew nothing of any of this when I came across ‘WJ Bassett-Lowke, Northampton’ stamped on a series of stereocards during a recent eBay trawl.
Curious to learn more, my initial research revealed that ‘WJ’ was an accomplished photographer from his teens.
Delving further into his life story, a fascinating biography published in 1999 by his niece Janet included one sentence on page 35 that stood out.
“Photographs were even taken by WJ in stereograph (3D),” she wrote.
Thanks to a helpful American eBayer, who was selling a large collection of WJ Bassett-Lowke stereocards bought at auction in England, I was able to purchase a dozen dated between 1900 and 1904.
In a short Pressphotoman series over coming weeks, I’ll explore what these cards add to the established narrative about their creator.
From Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke by Janet Bassett-Lowke (Rail Romances, Chester, 1999).
By the time the photograph above was taken, ‘WJ’ was in thrall to photography.
His father ran a firm of engineers, boilermakers, and iron and brass founders in Northampton.
In one of its outbuildings, WJ had the run of a photographic dark room.
As well as an enthusiasm for model engineering and cycling, he shared a passion for photography with his father’s bookkeeper, HFR (Harry Foldar Robert) Franklin.
By 1899, the pair had set up a business making parts for small model engines that grew into the much-loved Bassett-Lowke company.
The following Spring, they undertook ‘A Tour in Germany’ that may have had a model engine purpose.
The earliest two stereocards I bought are dated ‘April 1900’ on the verso and feature both their names on the front of the cards.
It is a scene recognisable today because of the twin towers of the medieval St. Sebaldus Church, here seen partly shrouded in scaffolding.
The church was extensively damaged during the Second World War and has since been restored, so WJ’s stereo has added historical value.
This Germany tour is not mentioned in Janet Bassett-Lowke’s biography of her uncle.
But she does highlight his attendance three months later at the 1900 Paris Exposition as “the most momentous decision in WJ’s life.”
It was while in Paris, she recounts, that he was impressed by the sheer quality of the mechanical toys and continental scale models displayed by German companies.
Nuremberg in particular was widely acknowledged as a centre of excellence for manufacturing model locomotives.
Could it be then that the tour of Germany including Nuremberg was a precursor to what happened in Paris when key business connections were made by WJ and Harry Franklin’s fledgling company?
In my next Pressphotoman post, I’ll explore a number of scenes from the 1900 Paris Exposition as captured by WJ’s 3D camera.
One of the joys of blogwriting is connecting with readers who’ve discovered one of your posts, particularly when several months have passed since it first appeared.
It’s all the more exciting when that reader turns out to be a direct descendent of a subject of your photohistory research.
That was the case recently when I was contacted by Chris Parry whose great great grandfather was the subject of this Pressphotoman post in May 2024.
William Softley Parry (1826-1915) was a leading portrait photographer in Newcastle in the 1850s and 1860s.
But until Chris contacted me, I had never seen a portrait of WS Parry let alone one taken outside his photography business.
William Softley Parry (1826-1915). Courtesy of Chris Parry/South Tyneside Libraries.WS Parry outside his photography business. Courtesy of Chris Parry/South Tyneside Libraries.
What’s particularly interesting about the second image is whether it was taken outside his premises at 44 Newgate Street (1855-1858) or 44 Bigg Market (1858-1864).
The photographs may well have been taken by his wife, Christiana, who ran the shop’s Ladies Department.
I particularly love the examples of their portraiture displayed outside in various sizes and frames.
If you look very closely, you’ll glimpse a small child, possibly a girl, huddled in the doorway to Mr. Parry’s right, but still managing to look towards the camera.
The Parry’s eldest daughter Euphemia died aged 5 in 1862, so if the little girl is her, the location may well be 44 Bigg Market.
Chris Parry has written a Substack post about his fascinating family down the generations and kindly included some of my research about his great great grandfather.
The recently-released film Conclave about the election of a new Pope is being touted as an Oscar contender.
This is largely because of the central performance by Ralph Fiennes for his portrayal of a “deeply-troubled Cardinal … at the centre of a murky Vatican plot” (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian).
The film is the latest Papal subject to attract media attention and also that of this blog.
Last September’s Asia-Pacific tour by Pope Francis prompted a Pressphotoman post about a series of 3D stereoscopic portraits featuring one of his predecessors.
In an echo of the plot of Conclave, the stereos were published in 1904 following the election of Pope Pius X.
Given access to the Vatican, the leading stereoscopic company Underwood & Underwood produced a 36-card set titled A Pilgrimage to see the Holy Father through the Stereoscope.
The Underwood stereographer responsible was James Edward Ellam (1857-1920) whose career as a photojournalist is the subject of ongoing research by this blog.
A recent Pressphotoman acquisition adds another dimension to how these 3D images of Pius X were circulated in various formats and helped form the new Pope’s public image.
Titled “His Holiness Pope Pius X in the Gardens of the Vatican,” the credits on this picture postcard confirm that the image was taken from U&U’s original stereograph.
The ‘sole postcard copyright’ holder for the ‘U.K. & Colonies’ was identified as Knight Brothers of London.
They were certainly in the market for images to publish and sell to a worldwide audience.
The company was formed in 1904 by Watson and George Knight, who had previously worked for another London postcard publisher.
E. Wrench Ltd., launched by teenager John Evelyn Wrench, boomed spectacularly from 1900 as the picture postcard craze took hold.
But by 1906, the firm had crashed and burned amid financial difficulties.
Knight Brothers registered their trademark ‘knight’ in August 1905.
The number ‘1446’ on this postcard indicates that it may have been one of a series of Papal portraits secured from Underwood & Underwood.
Another point of note is that the card was ‘printed in Saxony’ which Wrench had first identified as home to a ‘veritable hotbed of good printers’ (Anthony Byatt, Picture Postcards and their Publishers, 1978).
Like Wrench before them though, Knight Brothers enjoyed short-lived success.
It became a limited company in 1906, but within a couple of years had ceased trading.
The tradition of taking a dip in the sea during the Christmas and New Year holidays is now firmly established in the seasonal calendar.
Each year, social and traditional media are swamped with images of figures dashing into the surf, many in colourful fancy dress outfits, braving the freezing temperatures for charity.
Little more than a century ago, the very idea of such a spectacle being contemplated, never mind taking place, would have seemed fanciful.
I have to thank Geoff Barker, Senior Curator of the State Library of New South Wales, for a recent LinkedIn post about a fellow Australian, who helped change public attitudes to swimwear.
Annette Kellerman (1886-1975) was a professional athlete and later vaudeville and silent film star, who helped popularise the one-piece bathing suit.
I first learned about her whilst researching my doctoral thesis on the influence of stereoscopic 3D photography on press illustration.
Among her many accomplishments, she was the first woman to attempt to swim the English Channel (only officialdom stopped her completing the crossing).
She also took part in a number of highly-publicised river races in Paris and London.
The international media devoted many column inches to reporting her exploits and press photographers followed her every move.
This 1906 report from the Daily Mirror, Britain’s first tabloid newspaper, is typical of the coverage that Annette Kellerman attracted.
Daily Mirror (17th July 1906). From British Newspaper Archive.
The photographs reproduced in half-tone were supplied by Underwood & Underwood (U&U) whose photo agency soon became the largest in the world.
In a link with the Underwood company, the postcard of Miss Kellerman reproduced earlier in this post was published by the firm of Foulsham & Banfield.
Co-founder Frank Foulsham (1873-1939) had begun his photographic career as a stereographer.
He supplied images of politicians and music hall stars to U&U for publication in the press.
In time, Foulsham & Banfield’s name became synonymous with glossy postcard prints featuring a galaxy of music hall and vaudeville stars.
The National Portrait Gallery, London online archive features more images of Annette Kellerman including a number by H. Walter Barnett (1862-1934), a W & D. Downey alumni
Scrolling on my phone the other day (I know, I know …), one of my all-time favourite photographs suddenly appeared.
Originally titled ‘Harlem 1958,’ it was reputedly the first professional shot taken by the legendary photographer Art Kane (1925-1995).
It features nearly 60 famous and not-so-famous jazz musicians gathered outside a brownstone in New York on an August morning.
What caught my attention on social media was a New York Times interactive article about the photograph, of which more shortly.
My own relationship with the image reaches back thirty years.
During the London Jazz Festival, I went to a cinema screening of a new documentary about the photograph and how it came to be created.
Titled ‘A Great Day in Harlem,’ the hour-long film with narration by Quincy Jones told an enthralling story.
I was not alone in loving it and it received an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary.
When the film was released on video (VHS), there was a cut-out form inside the accompanying booklet, offering the chance to own ‘A Great Day in Harlem’ poster.
Mine duly arrived, was framed at a local art gallery run by a couple of jazz enthusiasts and hangs today on my study wall.
Sub-titled ‘A Film by Jean Bach,’ it was only when the film was released on DVD in the noughties that I learned about its producer’s determined efforts to bring her idea to the screen.
Jean Bach (1918-2013) was a radio producer and jazz fan, who tracked down surviving members of the group in the photograph and interviewed them.
As any researcher will agree, many of their recollections, even down to identifying who actually featured in the shot, turned out to be wildly inaccurate.
So it was a joy to discover the New York Times interactive article.
Its angle was that saxophonist Sonny Rollins, now aged 94, is the only survivor from that Great Day in Harlem photograph.
The name of John Hunter Rutherford (1826-1890) lives on in a number of educational institutions.
An evangelical preacher from the Scottish Borders, he came to Newcastle on Tyne in 1850.
Among his many achievements as an educationalist, he is best known for setting up a series of elementary schools in the surrounding area.
Rutherford College named after him gave birth to what today is Northumbria University.
When Dr. Rutherford died suddenly, his reputation was such that 5,000 people took part in his funeral procession.
Newcastle Daily Chronicle (28th March 1890). From British Newspaper Archive.
In addition, the Newcastle WeeklyChronicle estimated that more 100,000 lined the processional route.
This line drawing of him in later life accompanied the newspaper’s three-column report of the occasion.
Newcastle Weekly Chronicle (28th March 1890). From British Newspaper Archive.
However, in his younger days, a recent addition to the Pressphotoman collection reveals that he posed for his portrait with leading Newcastle photographers W. & D. Downey.
The slogan ‘Patronized By Her Majesty’ was used by the company before being replaced by ‘Photographers To Her Majesty’ in the middle of the decade.
This information and the lack of Downey branding on the front of the carte allows it to be dated c. 1862-1866.
At that point, Dr. Rutherford was in his late-30s and in the midst of his studies as a medical doctor.
A surprising twist to this blogpost is that his death occurred only a few doors away from where the Downey carte portrait was taken.
As part of its funeral report, the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle published a letter from Dr. Rutherford’s son John sent from 6 Eldon Square, the family home.
It indicates the esteem in which his father was held.
Newcastle Weekly Chronicle (28th March 1890). From British Newspaper Archive.
Given this, the Downey carte de visite of John Hunter Rutherford as a younger man making his way in the world seems all the more poignant.
It was taken during a visit to Newcastle on Tyne in October 1862 when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Prior to a lavish banquet in the city’s Town Hall, Mr. Gladstone together with his wife toured several Newcastle locations.
These included the Literary & Philosophical Society, St. Nicholas Church (now the Anglican cathedral), the Castle and Old Norman Keep, and Central Exchange reading room.
According to the Newcastle Courant (10th October 1862): “The next move was to the studio of Mr. Downey, photographer, Eldon Square, where [Gladstone] sat for a portrait, which, our readers will, no doubt, by and by have an opportunity of inspecting.”
The verso of the resulting carte, with its seller’s stamp (bottom left) for ‘A. Mansell,’ a photograph and bookseller in Gloucester, illustrates the subsequent nationwide appeal of this one shilling photograph.
A copyright form for Downey’s carte of Gladstone was lodged several months later in July 1863.
This gap between the sitting and publication perhaps indicated a delay in securing the politician’s agreement to the photograph being put on general sale.
Indeed, Gladstone was a popular carte subject.
During the period 1862-1870, he was second only to members of the Royal Family with more than 50 registered copyrights for his photographic portrait.
It was only when Disraeli succeeded Lord Derby as Prime Minister in 1868 that Downey secured a sitting with Gladstone’s political adversary.
On 3rd October 1868, the Newcastle Journal reported: “Our townsmen, Messrs. Downey, have had the honour of photographing the Right Hon. B. Disraeli during their sojourn at Balmoral.”
Queen Victoria’s diary records that he stayed at her Scottish home for 10 days during the second half of September.
As Downey busied themselves with the latest round of royal portraits, they also took the opportunity to photograph the Queen’s new Prime Minister.
It well illustrates how Downey set up the shot, allowing for a variety of framings that were used to produce different sized versions.
Later ennobled by Queen Victoria as Lord Beaconsfield, his death in 1881 allowed firms like Downey to re-issue its archive of Disraeli portraits to new customers
The carte that recently joined my collection with the company’s later ‘London & Newcastle’ branding falls into that category.
The prominent seller’s stamp for ‘Pawson & Brailsford,’ publishers and stationers in Sheffield, shows that the wider photographic trade was also keen to exploit such commercial opportunities.
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Interesting to see how the Victorians liked portraits of their Prime Ministers and probably thus treated them with due respect. How times have changed!
Few today would want a portrait of recent Prime Ministers – except perhaps for darts’ practice!!! – and even the present Prime Minister and cabinet have reportedly removed portraits of certain recent Prime Ministers or senior Cabinet ministers from Government offices.
The singer-songwriter Nick Drake, who died 50 years ago today, was immortalised not only by his music.
Keith Morris (1938-2005) took many of the images inextricably linked with Nick and helped create his public persona.
Long ago, I was fortunate to meet and interview Keith.
Published tomorrow, material from that encounter features in volume 2 of The Island Book of Records 1969-70 (Manchester University Press, £85).
As the title suggests, this ongoing LP-sized series chronicles every release, both albums and singles, by the seminal Island label.
Volume 1 published last year covered the years 1959 to 1968.
In 432 beautifully illustrated pages, Volume 2 looks at the next two years.
Famous names like Traffic, Free, Fairport Convention, Jethro Tull, King Crimson, John and Beverley Martyn and Cat Stevens amongst many other acts were all on the Island roster.
Nick Drake’s debut album Five Leaves Left (1969), released while he was still a student at Cambridge University, features one of Keith Morris’s best-known photographs on the rear sleeve.
Rear sleeve of Nick Drake’s Five Leaves Left. From The Island Book of Records 1969-70 (Manchester University Press).
Described by its creator as “the famous wall shot,” it is now part of the National Portrait Gallery collection in London.
That and a number of Keith’s other celebrated portrait photographs can be viewed online.
One fact about Keith’s photography revealed by Neil Storey with Jayne Gould, the team behind the Island Book of Records project, was that during the shoot for Five Leaves Left, he was working with an unfamiliar camera.
Instead of his usual Nikon, he used a borrowed Pentax.
By way of tribute to both Keith and Nick, here’s a longform piece about their successful working relationship.
The man looking back at me had certainly made a good choice of photographer to capture his likeness.
H. S. Mendelssohn was one of Newcastle’s leading portrait studios during the 1870s and, later in his career, went on to photograph members of the British royal family.
Many of his Newcastle clientele came from well-to-do families, suggesting that our subject might be a person of means and status.
Arms folded and wearing a stylish jacket, the young man looked relaxed and at ease with the world, his eyes radiating a degree of self-confidence.
As regular readers might expect, the carte verso contained helpful clues.
An unknown hand, possibly Mr. Mendelssohn’s own, had recorded the man’s identity: ‘Edward H. M. Elliot, Esq. 82nd Reg. Aged 25. 1878.’
Armed with this information, it did not take long to track down Edward Hay Mackenzie Elliot (1852-1920)
He was a career soldier who made his mark on history at various points in his life.
Born in India, Edward’s father was the celebrated Scottish naturalist Sir Walter Elliot (1803-1887).
Schooling in England concluded at Harrow where skill on the football field led to him representing Scotland in two unofficial international matches against England staged in 1871 and 1872 (‘E. Elliot’ named bottom right-hand corner below).
Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Cheronicle (18th November 1871). From British Newspaper Archive.
That sporting prowess resurfaced between 1897 and 1903 when Edward played cricket for the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club) in four matches against county opposition.
When he sat in front of HS Mendelssohn’s studio camera in 1878 as a 25 year-old, his career in the Army was already well underway.
Promoted to Lieutenant in the 82nd Regiment of Foot, he later reached the rank of Captain before serving as ADC (aide-de-camp) to Lord Glasgow when Governor of New Zealand between 1894 and 1899.
The Army and Navy Gazette (13th January 1894). From British Newspaper Archive.
Despite retiring on full pay, Edward rejoined his former colleagues during the South African War of 1899-1902 before later returning to the Scottish family home at Wolfelee in Roxburghshire, which he had inherited.
In 1905, Edward, by now a Major in his early fifties, married Miss Edith Margaret Crawford, the 30 year-old daughter of a Surrey clergyman.
As the Surrey Mirror & County Post newspaper reported of the occasion: “The presents were numerous and costly.”
After their honeymoon in The Hague, the couple returned to live at Wolfelee.
If newspaper reports are to be relied upon, Major Elliot’s later years seem to have been characterised by brushes with the law.
In September 1910, the Hawick News reported that he had “forfeited a pledge of 30s [shillings] by non-appearance to a charge of disorderly conduct on Tower Knowe [Hawick] on Sunday morning.”
By 1913, by which time Edward and his wife had sold Wolfelee and moved to Herefordshire, he was again making headlines.
Returning to Newcastle on Tyne where he had been photographed by H.S. Mendelssohn, he was summoned to appear in court.
A Daily Citizen front-page court story was headlined ‘Major Who Hated Pigs: Fine For Disturbing Railway Dining Car.’
The report described an incident on a train journey from London to Edinburgh.
The Daily Citizen (29th November 1913). From British Newspaper Archive.
The death of Edward Hay Mackenzie Elliot in December 1920 at the Middlesex Hospital in London was marked by a notice to his creditors in the London Gazette.
His estate amounted to £3258, around £220,000 in today’s money.
Looking at a rather severe portrait taken later in Edward’s eventful life, that by H.S. Mendelssohn photograph of his younger self is all the more poignant.
A colourful stamp-sized poster with the Newcastle skyline in the background left me wondering how this event was captured visually by photographers and film-makers.
Historical pageants in Britain during the 20th century offered communities up and down the country the chance to dress up, party and celebrate our national history.
Newcastle had previously hosted Northumbrian Pageants in 1923 and 1925.
The 1931 event had a wider geographical focus with participants from across the North of England.
At the time, the region was affected by the low morale and high unemployment that marked the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Deciding something must be done to address this state of affairs, the Women’s Committee of the Northern Counties Area of the National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations organised a pageant and industrial fair.
Among its key figures was Irene Ward, who went on to be elected as Conservative MP for Wallsend (1931-1945) and Tynemouth (1950-1974).
According to press adverts, the event involved 6,000 performers, a 100-piece orchestra and 500-strong chorus with the promise of “Gorgeous Costumes. Beautiful Spectacles. Stately Dances.”
Northern Weekly Gazette, 18th July 1931. From British Newspaper Archive.
Audiences estimated at more than 120,000 attended the pageant, which proved so successful that two additional performances were staged making 10 in total.
It was also restaged indoors at the city’s Empire Theatre in November 1932.
Photographically, Stuart, a long-established Newcastle firm based at the YMCA Buildings in Blackett Street were on hand to record the pageant’s sequence of Episodes.
Black and white images were then reproduced in a series of ‘Monarch’ postcards published by another Newcastle firm, R. Johnston & Sons with its printing works in neighbouring Gateshead.
As an example of what the crowds witnessed, Episode 5 featuring ‘The Marriage of Princess Margaret to James IV, AD 1503’ was portrayed in a series of general views and close-ups.
Centre-stage playing Princess Margaret was The Honourable Mrs. S. R. Vereker (1896-1972) of Hamsterley Hall, Durham.
Her aristocratic pedigree as one of the organisers connected her to a famous moment in Newcastle history.
Bessy Vereker (neé Surtees) was a descendant of Bessie Surtees whose elopement in 1772 with John Scott, later Earl of Eldon and Lord Chancellor of England, is the stuff of local legend.
Engraving based on an oil painting by Wilson Hepple.
Bessie Surtees House where the elopement took place still stands a stone’s throw from the River Tyne waterfront and is in the care of Historic England.
Following her marriage in 1921 to the Hon. Mr. Standish Robert Vereker, later Viscount Gort, Bessy became a regular client of leading photography studios in London.
Stylish portraits of her by both Bassano and Lafayette feature in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.
At the Newcastle and the North Historical Pageant, a beautiful outfit created for her in the role of Princess Margaret (plus accompanying hound) combined to produce a striking image.
It also caught the attention of the press.
The Sphere was among the illustrated papers that featured her in a photo spread titled “Women of Fashion and Fashions of Women.”
The Sphere (18th July 1931). From British Newspaper Archive.
Perhaps most impressive of all was the footage created by a group from the Newcastle and District Amateur Cinematographers Association.
Sadly, given the eye-catching nature and design of the spectacle, Kodachrome 16mm colour film was not introduced to the market until 1935.
In total, 15 minutes of black-and-white footage was edited together and can be viewed on the British Film Institute website.
Episode 5 featuring the Hon. Mrs. S. R. Vereker as Princess Margaret begins at around 8′ 40″. It’s well worth a watch.
This post has been informed by the ‘Historical Pageants in Britain’ website, which includes detailed descriptions of similar pageants staged across the country.
Paul Frecker’s recently published book Cartomania: Photography & Celebrity in the Nineteenth Century (September Publishing) is a veritable feast for collectors of cartes de visite.
Cartomania: Photography & Celebrity in the Nineteenth Century by Paul Frecker. (September Publishing (2024), £40).
It’s the culmination of more than two decades working as a specialist photography dealer.
In particular, it showcases Paul’s collection of the palm-of-the-hand-sized cards that reached peak popularity during the 1860s.
More modest in size, my own collection started amid ongoing research into the photography firm of W. & D. Downey of South Shields, Newcastle on Tyne and later London.
The company’s story, achievements and several examples of their cartes feature in Paul’s book, which I’m thoroughly enjoying reading.
One early Downey carte that I obtained several months ago via a well-known auction site continues to intrigue me.
It features a woman in full riding habit and hat sat side-saddle on her horse with a smartly-dressed groom in attendance.
This striking example of the carte format prompted questions in my mind as to who it featured and when and where the photograph was taken.
Looking for clues, what appear to be footprints in the snow in the foreground suggest a winter’s day.
Shadows are cast onto the building in the background.
The low sun has also brought to life the horse’s coat, indicating that its groom had worked extra hard to prepare his charge for the camera.
As to who the carte features and when and where the photograph was taken, further research produced a helpful press report.
In May 1861 under the headline “The Photographic Art,” the North & South Shields Gazette printed an article about Downey’s activities.
It described how “the Messrs Downey” had just added “a series of local portraits” to “their photographs of illustrious men and legislators.”
Among those “local portraits” were the Lord Bishop of Durham, Henry Montagu Villiers, and his family, who had “honoured them [Downey] with sittings at Auckland Castle.”
A previous Pressphotoman post (1st July 2024) revealed that the photoshoot for the carte below featuring the Lord Bishop of Durham took place in late-1860.
Among other “local portraits’ credited to Downey were several featuring Sir Edward Blackett and his family “taken at Matfen Hall.”
The Blacketts were a long-established Northumberland family and Matfen Hall near Corbridge, built in the early 1830s, was their stately home.
Today it’s a luxury hotel, spa and golf estate.
But it was the newspaper article’s next sentence that offered a tantalising clue as to the identity of Downey’s woman on horseback.
It continued: “Let us add, as exemplified in the case of one of Sir Edward’s daughters and one of the honourable Misses Villiers [my italics] that the artists have exhibited much felicity in their management of a figure on horseback.”
This information helped narrow the field of likely candidates.
Looking at other sources, the 1861 Census records Sir Edward Blackett in residence at Matfen Hall with his daughters Louisa, Anna Maria and Georgiana Emma, who were all in their twenties.
As to the Villiers family, they were not at Auckland Castle when the census was taken, but at their London residence – 30 Cavendish Place, Marylebone not far from Oxford Street.
It listed the bishop together with his wife Amelia Maria Villiers and three of their daughters.
At the time, Gertrude, Mary and Evelyn Villiers were 17, 14 and 8 respectively though they had an elder sister Amy, who would have been 19.
Given this information, I was pleased to come across a further piece of evidence that points firmly in the direction of a member of the Villiers family being the Downey woman on horseback.
The collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London includes three horseback portraits featuring the ‘Hons. Mrs. Villiers.’
They are all by the celebrated portrait photographer Camille Silvy, who is a significant presence in Paul Frecker’s book Cartomania mentioned at the start of this post.
All three Silvy horseback portraits are dated 1860.
Given the physical similarity to the woman on horseback in Downey’s carte, might the ‘Hon. Mrs. Villiers’ (above) be the mother of “one of the honourable Misses Villiers?’
So it was perhaps written in the stars that the reverse view, an ‘Interior of Fingal’s Cave, Staffa,’ by the same G. W. Wilson of Aberdeen has now joined my collection.
To establish its provenance, I again consulted Roger Taylor’s authoritative study George Washington Wilson (1823-1893): Artist and Photographer (London Stereoscopic Company, 2018).
The title, listed as ‘No. 68,’ is included in ‘Wilson’s 1863 List of Stereoscopic and Album Views.’
Again, the verso featured the view’s title and number plus the stereographer’s credit.
Again, it uses blue coloured paper to stop the stereocard from curling.
The first thing that strikes the viewer is the technical challenge facing the stereographer in capturing this spectacular scene from the inside out.
Presumably, Wilson used all the available natural light to illuminate the vast space.
As in ‘Fingal’s Cave, Staffa,’ he positioned a human figure at the entrance to give a sense of scale.
Detail from ‘Interior of Fingal’s Cave, Staffa’ by G. W. Wilson, Aberdeen.
Though the card is the same size, the two albumen paper prints are slightly smaller, suggesting that Wilson may have used a different camera.
An added bonus for the photohistorian is the presence on this card’s verso of a seller’s stamp, that of ‘Andrew Elliot, Bookseller & Stationer, 15 Princes Street, Edinburgh.’
Seller’s stamp on verso of ‘Interior of Fingal’s Cave, Staffa’ by G. W. Wilson.
Trade directories reveal that his business began operating from one of the city’s most famous locations in the late-1850s.
Elliot’s shop, directly opposite Edinburgh’s Waverley railway station, offered easy access to visiting tourists, who were Wilson’s intended market for such stereos.
Andrew Elliot, who died in 1921 aged 92, was a significant figure in the history of Scottish photography.
A noted collector, his calotypes by pioneering Scottish photographers David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson were used to illustrate the first monograph about their partnership published in 1928.
Elliot’s family subsequently bequeathed his remarkable photography collection to the National Galleries of Scotland in 1950.
The card was the work of the celebrated stereographer George Washington Wilson of Aberdeen (1823-1893).
What I wasn’t able to confirm until I got home is that the card was as old as I thought it was.
My reference source was Roger Taylor’s George Washington Wilson: Artist and Photographer (1823-93) published in 2018 by the London Stereoscopic Company.
There on page 100, ‘Fingal’s Cave, Staffa’ was reproduced as plate 7.2 in a chapter about the stereographer’s output during the year 1859.
According to Taylor, it was among “topographical studies of Scottish studies intended exclusively for the tourist market.”
Wilson’s intention, he added, was to “carry a gleam of sunshine into many a home.”
The natural architecture of Fingal’s Cave had fascinated visitors since its discovery in the 1770s.
Map of Scotland featuring Staffa on the west coast.
According to contemporary critics, Wilson’s stereo of the location apparently caught the grandeur and spirit of the place.
It prompted one reviewer to remark: “The celebrity of this picturesque cavern would alone insure a large demand for a good illustration of it.
“But even if it were altogether unknown, such a one as we have before us would, of itself, be enough to render it celebrated henceforth.”
A chronological listing of Wilson photographs reveals that though stereographed by him in 1859, ‘No. 17’ was not reviewed by the British Journal of Photography until September 1861.
That said, the card now in my collection has aged remarkably well and is a wonderful 3D image.
It also opens up the possibility that George Washington Wilson will join Underwood & Underwood and Excelsior Stereoscopic Tours of Burnley as 3D photography companies I collect.
Last week’s post about the violin prodigy Marie Hall (1884-1956) was the latest resulting from a research dive into the numerous photographic postcards of her.
It was a real pleasure to identify one such postcard, sent to her younger sister Eveline, as Marie’s career was becoming a whirl of international engagements.
This latest post looks at the months immediately following her London concert debut in February 1903, aged 18, and how her public image was shaped by photography.
A number of portrait studios moved swiftly to produce images of the British teenager whose performance had caused such a sensation.
At this point, photographs were a newly attractive medium, both to illustrated papers and to postcard producers with an instinct for what the public wanted to buy.
In Marie Hall, they had a hot property.
Among the first to photograph the new star was the illustrious studio of Bassano.
Based at 25 Old Bond Street in London’s West End, it had been operating since the 1870s.
Their portrait presents the young woman in a typical violinist’s pose, playing alongside what appears to be an elaborately carved music stand.
This image was published as a postcard in various sizes by the Rotary Photographic Company Ltd of West Drayton, Middlesex.
Also quick off the mark was the Newcastle on Tyne photographer Mrs. Henrietta Theonie Burrell (1860-1934), who initially triggered my interest in Marie Hall postcards.
A few weeks after the violinist’s London debut, Mrs. Burrell took advantage of a rapturously-received concert appearance in Marie’s native Tyneside.
By early April, the photographer had registered copyright forms for three different portraits of the wunderkind.
In due course, it was again the Rotary Photographic Company, who published them as a series of ‘real photo’ postcards.
The portraits are less formal and capture a different sense of the young woman’s style, even though she is wearing the same concert dress as in the Bassano portrait.
They were the work of Lena Connell (1875-1949), who learned her craft in the photography business run by her father.
Unusually for the time, her own studio employed female staff and photographed both male and female clients.
The Vote (7th May 1910). From British Newspaper Archive.
Today Lena Connell is best-known for her wonderful portraits of suffragettes involved with the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) of which she was a member.
Speaking to The Vote newspaper in 1910, she recalled how “Miss Marie Hall was at the beginning of her career and the photo I did of her then is still her favourite.”
In the words of the writer: “Miss Connell showed me a photo of Miss Hall … her eyes with that curious half-frightened, half-determined look in them, looming out of the picture.”
This series of portraits was also published as postcards by another of London’s leading firms, J. Beagles & Co. Ltd.
Lena’s images of the violinist also proved popular with the illustrated press, who used them in conjunction with news stories and concert reviews.
But, as in this example, Lena was not always credited for her work as was the experience of many portrait photographers, both male and female.
The Bystander (4th May 1904). From British Newspaper Archive.
Whether the photographer took it upon herself to fight for due recognition, the recently-launched tabloid Daily Mirror didn’t make the same error.
It correctly credited ‘Lena Connell’ when a re-sized halftone version of the same portrait appeared to mark Marie’s 21st birthday in April 1905.
Daily Mirror (8th April 1905). From British Newspaper Archive.
This reflected a new trend whereby such photographic portraits entered the libraries of newspapers and magazines and appeared alongside subsequent stories as stock shots.
Lena’s working relationship with Marie Hall continued and this fine credited portrait alongside her younger sister Eveline was published by the popular weekly Black & White magazine in 1906.
Do you know of other Marie Hall portraits by Lena Connell?
A selection of Lena Connell’s photographs feature in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.
For further reading, her career is the subject of Colleen Denney’s 2021 book The Suffrage Photography of Lena Connell: Creating a Cult of Great Women Leaders in Britain, 1908-1914 (McFarland Press: Jefferson, North Carolina).
The Golden Age of Postcards lasted two decades from around 1900 and was partly fuelled by the work of portrait photographers.
One popular subject was the celebrated violinist Marie Hall (1884-1956), who emerged as a rising star of classical music just as the photographic postcard made its mark.
During a lengthy career, Miss Hall was photographed by many of the leading studios and photographers, invariably incorporating her violin in their portraits.
These included early portraits taken in March 1903 by Mrs. Henrietta Theonie Burrell of Newcastle on Tyne.
It was issued by The Philco Publishing Company (derived from Philip Cohen & Company) of Holborn Place, London, W.C.
However, rather than the striking photograph of which more shortly, it was the handwriting on the ‘communication’ and ‘address’ side of this postcard that really excited me.
It pointed towards the identity of its sender … as Marie Hall herself.
The connection to the violinist was underlined by the text, which read: “Just arrived back after rehearsal. I am playing with Mr. Wertheim this time.”
So who was Mr. Wertheim and was he likely to have played a part in Marie Hall’s musical life?
The answer was an emphatic ‘yes.’
From 1904, Siegfried Wertheim was principal viola with the Queen’s Hall Orchestra led by Henry Wood.
It was with Wood conducting the same Queen’s Hall Orchestra that Marie Hall made her London debut in 1903 performing concertos by Paganini and Tchaikovsky.
Given this musical pedigree, a collaboration between Miss Hall and Mr. Wertheim performing duet repertoire for violin and viola would have been a definite crowd pleaser.
The postcard’s addressee – ‘Miss E. Gall’ – even offered a wordplay (‘you’ve got a gall’) directed at Marie’s sister, Eveline, a talented harpist.
As the postcard featured Marie herself, there was clearly no need for her to sign it.
Whilst the card’s postmark of ‘Ipswich’ is legible, the date and time it was sent are not.
More certainty can be attached to the provenance of the Philco postcard, the identity of its photographer and the occasion on which it was taken.
A credit in tiny letters etched into the bottom left-hand corner of the negative provided a clue. It reads ‘Dinham.’
Within a few weeks, Marie Hall attracted top billing in a newspaper ad placed by J.C. Dinham & Sons for their “Latest Copyright Portraits.”
Ad from Torquay Times (3rd March 1905). From British Newspaper Archive.
The presence in the ad of other leading classical music performers such as violinist Jan Kubelik (1880-1940), who coincidentally mentored Marie Hall, and contralto Clara Butt (1872-1936) suggests Mr. Dinham had both a good ear and a good eye.
Whether he intended to copyright his Marie Hall scoop, he doesn’t seem to have got round to completing the paperwork as no records exist in the National Archives.
Despite this, his postcard portrait of Miss Marie Hall for Philco Publishing appeared in both landscape and portrait sizes.
The latter full-length version shows off her eye-catching outfit to even better effect.
A second ‘Marie Hall’ post next week explores how the violinist’s image was shaped by another celebrated female photographer best-known for portraying suffragettes.
Auty & Ruddock was a partnership between two of North East England’s finest late-Victorian photographers.
Matthew Auty (1850-1895) was a tobacconist, who turned his hobby into an award-winning photography business specialising in landscapes.
Richard Emerson Ruddock (1863-1931) featured in my recent Pressphotoman series on portrait photographers, who trained with royal warrant holders W. & D. Downey.
Auty & Ruddock’s partnership using premises at 20 Front Street, Tynemouth, a short train journey from Newcastle-on-Tyne, was short-lived.
It lasted from the late-1880s to March 1892 when the dissolution of their partnership was announced in the regional press.
Six months later, Ruddock set up his own portrait studio in Newcastle, leaving Auty to run the Tynemouth business as a solo enterprise.
In recent months, I’ve been on the look-out for photographic products bearing ‘Auty & Ruddock’ branding such as cabinet cards and cartes-de-visite.
With a large dose of serendipity, a beautifully embossed book of postcard-sized photographs, printed in Germany and titled ‘Tynemouth’ appeared on a well-known auction site.
The reference to ‘A. & R. have the largest and best lighted Studio in the north on the ground floor’ promoted its facilities for portraiture in which Mr. Ruddock specialised.
However, the ‘Tynemouth’ book of ‘views’ points to it being the work of his partner, Mr. Auty.
His landscape photography had attracted ‘prize medals’ at competitions across the UK and in Europe.
As a pocket-sized book that folds up neatly, its design is particularly effective in displaying the ‘views’ as a sequence or tour.
The featured ‘Tynemouth’ locations are ones that remain popular today and would be familiar to anyone visiting on a day-trip or staying in the area on holiday.
It begins with ‘Long Sands,’ a majestic sweep of beach overlooked (from left to right) by the Tynemouth Aquarium and Winter Garden (1878), Beaconsfield House (1882) and the Grade 1 listed St. George’s Church (1884).
The curved pier complete with a lighthouse at its tip was regularly damaged by storms during the 1890s and was later replaced by a straightened version, which survives today.
‘Tynemouth From The Pier,’ complete with the remains of an older land-based lighthouse (right of frame), offers the reverse perspective.
The tour continues northwards via ‘Table Rocks’ to ‘Whitley Sands,’ better known today as Whitley Bay, where the tourist invasion of the 20th century was still in its infancy.
Other ‘views’ in the photobook feature South Shields Pier, South Shields Sands and Marsden Rock.
Looking at this book of ‘views, the significance of the Auty & Ruddock partnership is how both photographers were later well-placed to exploit what followed: the golden age of postcards.
Though Matthew Auty died in 1895, the firm that bore his name continued to operate well into the 20th century.
Its ‘Auty series’ of postcards could be posted to family and friends with a ‘wish you were here’ message on the reverse.
Ruddock Ltd of Newcastle on Tyne transitioned from portraiture and, by 1904, it claimed to be the largest postcard publisher in the North of England.
As their ‘Tynemouth’ collaboration illustrates, the legacy of both Matthew Auty and Richard E. Ruddock is celebrated in the high-quality photographic products they left behind.
Last Spring, an exhibition titled Vein by the contemporary artist Matilda Bevan was staged at The Granary, Berwick upon Tweed.
It drew its inspiration from the Northumberland landscape and the work of the British artist and writer Thomas Hennell (1903-1945).
Alongside the exhibition, Jessica Kilburn presented a talk featuring material from her lavishly illustrated book about Hennell published in 2021.
Thomas Hennell: The Land and the Mind by Jessica Kilburn (Pimpernel Press, 2021).
Hennell’s art and life story were new to me and it’s been a real pleasure to discover more about him.
One unexpected revelation came in the chapter titled ‘A War Artist in Iceland,’ which pointed to a surprising connection with our family.
Hennell arrived in Iceland in the summer of 1943 by which point the British garrison including our Dad, Gunner Peter Barber, had been relieved by American troops.
It was this Hennell watercolour dated 1st August 1943 and its accompanying text that made me do a double-take.
‘American Troops Playing Horseshoe and Peg (Barnyard Golf), Skipton Camp, Reykjavik’ by Thomas Hennell (1903-1945). Watercolour. Imperial War Museum, London.
The accompanying text read: “Hennell shows the Nissen huts of Camp Skipton, built as barracks by the 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division in 1940 …”
From his military service record, I knew Dad served in Iceland between July 1940 and September 1942 as a member of 69th Royal Artillery field regiment, part of the 49th Division.
The West Riding of Yorkshire was where the division’s troops were recruited from, hence ‘Camp Skipton’ named after a town in the county.
Then the penny dropped.
I had previously seen Nissen huts like those in Hennell’s painting in Dad’s battered wartime photograph album.
Earlier this summer, I wrote about its ‘Germany’ pages to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day and the Normandy landings.
Designed to accommodate 24 men, the Nissen hut with its distinctive corrugated iron shell was designed during the First World War and billed as ‘cool in summer and warm in winter.’
Keeping warm must have been a challenge.
Indeed, Thomas Hennell described conditions during a visit he made to northern Iceland in September 1943 as “violently cold.”
This snapshot, possibly taken by Dad, suggests that the barracks were far from luxurious and privacy would have been at a premium.
As a photohistorian, the backs of photographs are invariably of equal interest to the fronts and so it proved with the ‘Iceland’ section of Dad’s album.
For more than two years, he and his colleagues were based at Akureyri on the northern Icelandic coast from where a photographer named E. Sigurgeirsson operated.
His stamp features on the verso of a small number of the album’s images, which portray Icelandic scenes including the fishing port of Akureyri, a key base for the allies.
Sadly, further information about ‘E. Sigurgeirsson’ has proved impossible to track down though postcards bearing his name occasionally surface on Ebay.
As a war artist, Thomas Hennell survived the Normandy landings, but disappeared in Java in October 1945 and was presumed dead.
Dad was one of the lucky ones who survived the hostilities, and his wartime photograph album continues to speak down the decades.
The Asia-Pacific Tour currently being undertaken by Pope Francis is attracting a great deal of media attention.
Over the course of 12 days (2nd-13th September 2024), the 87 year-old pontiff is visiting Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Singapore.
This news photo (below) from the start of the tour attracted my attention as it well illustrates the continuing influence of stereoscopic 3D photography on today’s visual media.
Pope Francis is greeted after his arrival at Soekarno Hatta International Airport, Jakarta, 3rd September 2024. Photo by TIZIANA FABI/AFP via Getty Images.
Shot between two lines of soldiers with the Pope in the distance, its use of different planes along the length of the red carpet and then up the aircraft steps would work perfectly if taken in three dimensions.
The fact that it was published in 2D without any comment underlines a factor in press and website illustration dating back to the turn of the 20th century.
At that point, newspapers and magazines first adopted half-tone printing.
This enabled a variety of publications to re-produce real photographs rather than using line drawings or engravings.
One of the leading players in servicing this demand was Underwood & Underwood of New York & London whose role was the subject of my 2021 doctoral thesis (see ‘Writings.’)
As 3D photographers, Underwood stereographed news events, which they then sold to customers in box sets.
In addition, the company offered prints taken from one-half of a stereo pair for publication by newspapers and magazines.
In time, Underwood’s press photos agency became the biggest in the world.
One of the company’s best-selling sets of 3D photos, published in 1904, was titled A Pilgrimage to see the Holy Father through the Stereoscope.
It featured 36 stereos and a guidebook with maps to shepherd the ‘pilgrim’ from location to location.
Within months of Pope Pius X’s election in the summer of 1903, Underwood sent a team from its London office led by the company’s European manager Eldon R. Ross.
As revealed by copyright forms in the National Archives at Kew (COPY 1/467/107-115), Underwood stereographer James Edward Ellam (1857-1920) took a number of the key images.
These included the new Pope in his pontifical robes in the Vatican’s Throne Room.
In recent months, two of Ellam’s papal stereos have joined my collection, both of which appeared as press photos in the then popular weekly illustrated paper The Sphere.
In the first, numbered ’24’ in Underwood’s stereo set, ‘the Holy Father’ is pictured ‘blessing humble pilgrims.’
Despite previously having used the standing version, The Sphere used a print of the sitting version in the following week’s issue.
From The Sphere (12th December 1903). From British Newspaper Archive.
As Pope Francis continues his Asia-Pacific Tour, the world’s media will no doubt continue to follow his every move.
This media attention replicates a phenomenon that saw the day-to-day activities of one of his predecessors being viewed for the first time in 3D, generating similar public interest.
Visiting bookshops to browse through shelves of new or second-hand titles has long been a favourite pastime.
During trips away with more time to spare, it’s a particular pleasure, on the look-out for that next ‘holiday read.’
During a recent visit to Prince Edward Island on Canada’s east coast, my eye was caught by a book featuring a familiar image.
Front cover of Final Photo by Harvey Sawler (2024, iImagine).
The ‘Final Photo’ referred to in the title was taken on 22nd November 1963.
Captured only hours after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, it features Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson being sworn in as JFK’s successor.
What I didn’t know was the name of the man behind the camera.
From the book, I learned it was Cecil W. Stoughton (1920-2008), the first official White House photographer.
In that capacity, he was present aboard Air Force One to record the moment when LBJ became the 36th President of the United States.
Right-hand raised amidst still visibly-shocked witnesses, Johnson was flanked by his wife Lady Bird and JFK’s widow Jackie, her outfit still spotted with blood from events earlier that day.
Final Photo explores Stoughton’s career and how a working relationship with the Kennedys offered him unprecedented photographic access to America’s First Family.
Cecil W. Stoughton showing John F. Kennedy Junior one of his cameras. Credit: Photographer unknown.
Reading the author’s Foreword, the 70-page book is clearly a passion project, privately published in 2024 and dedicated ‘For the Stoughton Family.’
The reason I came across it in Prince Edward Island, in the ‘Local Interest’ section of the bookshop I was browsing in, was that the author lives there.
As the photographer’s ‘authorized biographer,’ Harvey Sawler recounts how he (and his then non-fiction literary agent) pitched a project to publishers to mark the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination.
In a story that might strike a chord with writers and creatives everywhere, the idea did see the light of day, but not in the form originally envisaged.
Portrait of Camelot: A Thousand Days in the Kennedy White House (Abrams, New York) is a sumptuous 350-page hard-cover, coffee-table book published in 2010.
To my surprise, I was able to snap up a second-hand copy complete with dvd for just a few pounds on my return to the UK from holiday.
Portrait of Camelot showcases a selection of the 8,000 colour and black-and-white pictures taken by Stoughton during the Kennedy presidency plus a dvd of ‘Never-Before-Seen Kennedy Film Footage’ set to well-chosen jazz and dance band music.
However, as the book’s front cover reveals, it was Richard Reeves, a ‘noted author and presidential historian’ assigned to the project by the publisher, who was credited as the author.
Harvey Sawler was credited as secondary author.
Reflecting that billing, Sawler’s contribution to Portrait of Camelot, a short essay titled ‘Cecil W. Stoughton: The President’s Photographer,’ was relegated to two pages illustrated by a single photo towards the back.
In Final Photo, he reflects how the resulting book “re-celebrated Stoughton’s mass of work, but unfortunately and sadly, left Stoughton’s story sitting on my desktop.”
Often, as this blog illustrates, the versos or backs of photographs can provide a wealth of additional information about the subject captured on camera.
That was the case recently with a series of cartes-de-visites that emerged during research on the celebrated portrait photographer HS Mendelssohn (1847-1908).
A Jewish refugee, his early years in Newcastle on Tyne involved photographing well-connected clients for the firm of W. & D. Downey.
That apprenticeship was followed by a brief partnership operating as ‘Downey & Mendelssohn’ before setting up a studio in his own name at 17 Oxford Street in the heart of the city.
The design of cartes-de-visites, both front and back, can assist researchers in dating a photographer’s work and informed my earlier blogpost.
But one of the cards from his studio produced an unexpected twist.
It featured a young boy wearing a smart suit staring intently at the camera.
Turning the card over, handwritten details on the verso revealed that his young life had been cut short.
Using these brief details, a newspaper search produced a notice published in the Newcastle Journal identifying who the young boy was.
Newcastle Journal (3rd October 1874). From British Newspaper Archive.
Fast approaching his 12th birthday, Gibson Blenkinsop Youll lived with his father, a Newcastle solicitor, his mother, two younger sisters, and two domestic servants in the house where he died.
The cause of his premature death was not given, however child mortality in industrial cities such as Newcastle in Victorian times was far higher than today.
Looking at Gibson’s portrait photograph, I reflected on the long-term impact such a tragedy must have had on his family and how they fared subsequently.
The answer was a testament to human resilience.
Gibson’s father, John Gibson Youll, continued with his legal career in Newcastle, working as a partner in the firm of Chartres and Youll.
Politically ambitious, he first served as a Town Councillor, then Alderman, Sheriff and Deputy Mayor, before being appointed Clerk of the Peace in 1890.
In this prestigious role, he oversaw Newcastle’s courts and trade organisations for 25 years.
Mr. Youll’s celebrity was reflected in his appearance in a newspaper feature devoted to ‘Familiar Figures in Newcastle’ illustrated by a fine double-column line drawing.
From Newcastle Weekly Chronicle (2nd September 1899). From British Newspaper Archive.
As to the Youll family, they moved following Gibson’s death to the Newcastle suburb of Jesmond.
Three more sons, Harold, Chartres and Geoffrey, were born and all later joined the legal profession.
Harold and Chartres worked as solicitors in the family firm whilst Geoffrey was a barrister.
Like their late elder brother, Ethel and Maude Youll were also photographed as children by HS Mendelssohn in his Newcastle studio.
At this point in the 1870s, he was establishing a reputation, and both portraits demonstrate his ability to capture the girls’ personalities and characters.
The use of a sofa arm for Ethel to lean on and a pile of cushions on which Maude sits reflect the techniques needed to engage a young child having their photograph taken.
The Youll family’s patronage also indicated their trust in HS Mendelssohn’s skills as a portraitist.
As the two Youll girls became young women, their status in Newcastle society attracted the attention of the press.
In September 1892, Miss Ethel Youll married Mr. Mortimer Ash with younger sister Maude as one of her bridesmaids.
Under the headline ‘Fashionable Wedding at Jesmond,’ the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle described how “the bride wore a white satin gown trimmed with lace and orange blossom and Limerick lace veil.”
Of particular note was that the bridegroom was from another Newcastle – that in New South Wales, Australia.
Public records reveal that Mort and Ethel Ash later lived in London and had three sons before her death in Surrey in 1935 at the age of 67.
Meanwhile, Maude lived with her brothers at the family home in Newcastle until the deaths of their parents.
First, their mother Frances passed away in 1909 followed six years later by their father.
John Gibson Youll’s passing, aged 78, was widely reported in the national press and marked by fulsome obituaries in the Newcastle papers.
One described how “he was for many years identified with the public life of the city, and was held in high esteem.”
From Newcastle Daily Journal (27th March 1915). From British Newspaper Archive.
His photograph, reproduced as a half-tone by the Newcastle Daily Journal, was credited to ‘Bacon’ whose photographic studio and later camera shop in the city thrived well into the 20th century.
One report of Mr. Youll’s funeral listed dozens and dozens of mourners by name, though in the midst of the First World War, Mort and Ethel’s son Beresford “was unable to attend the funeral because of his military duties.”
From Newcastle Daily Journal (30th March 1915). From British Newspaper Archive.
Following their father’s death, Maude and Harold Youll as the eldest surviving children were appointed executors of his will.
As a prosperous and successful solicitor, J. Gibson Youll’s estate was valued at nearly £15,000 (more than £1.9 million today).
Like her elder sister, Maude Youll too got married, later settling in the West Country where she died in 1955 at the age of 85.
The loss of Gibson, the Youll’s eldest child, was one that must have stayed with members of his family throughout their lives.
Years after his death, the young boy still featured in public records such as the 1911 Census, which his father completed and signed.
Asked to record the number of children born during the Youll’s marriage, he recored the figure ‘1’ in the extreme right-hand column for ‘Children who have Died.’
Extract from 1911 Census for Beechwood, Clayton Road, Newcastle. From My Ancestry.
Had it not been for HS Mendelssohn’s surviving carte-de-visite, this chapter in one family’s visual history might have been lost completely.
Instead, the details captured on its verso poignantly record Gibson Blenkinsop Youll’s death 150 years ago, his features immortalised in a fine portrait photograph.
Last month’s post about ‘Mrs. Burrell’ (8th July 2024) has prompted further research into the photographic portraits she produced of the celebrated British violinist Marie Hall.
Whilst searching for the third, in which the violinist appears minus her instrument, I came across the image above reformatted (below) as a ‘book postcard.’
The original portrait has been unceremoniously edited to remove much of Marie Hall’s right arm, half of the violin’s fretboard and a few of her fingers.
Despite this unsympathetic treatment, the ‘book postcard’ format (in the shape of a bookmark, hence the name) proved popular.
Thanks to photo postcards, fans of Edwardian stage and music hall performers could obtain an affordable souvenir portrait of their idols.
The ‘book postcard’ offered customers a slimmer and cheaper option, but its reduced size came with certain restrictions.
The sender could write their name (and address if desired) on the left-hand side of the card, but postal regulations forbade the inclusion of any message or additional text.
This was a drawback highlighted by one Marie Hall fan in a postcard posted in Newcastle on Tyne on 14th November 1903.
Signing herself as ‘C.H.’, ‘Carry’ went straight to the point on the front of the card to her female sendee in Redcar.
“I thought you would like this better than a small one this time,” she wrote, suggesting that a book postcard version of the violinist had been sent previously.
In the space ‘used for communication’ on the card’s verso, she continued: “This girl is shortly coming to N/C to perform in the Town Hall. She is a splendid player on the violin. I expect you will have heard about her.”
The concert referred to took place at Newcastle Town Hall a few weeks later on Monday 8th February 1904.
Newcastle Daily Chronicle (27th January 1904). From British Newspaper Archive.
For the concert, Miss Marie Hall was accompanied by the Queen’s Hall Orchestra conducted by Henry J. Wood, best known today as the founder of what became the BBC Proms.
A review of the concert (Newcastle Weekly Chronicle, 13th February 1904) reveals that the teenage violinist played Paganini’s Concerto in D and the Rondo Capriccioso by Saint-Saens.
The reviewer concluded that the concert was “an immense success, the applause being loud and long in each instance.”
Given her tangible enthusiasm, perhaps ‘Carry’ was able to attend the Newcastle concert in person, armed with a Marie Hall postcard and obtain an autograph afterwards at the stage door.
The current issue of Stereo World, a publication of the National Stereoscopic Association in the United States, features an article showcasing original research that first appeared on this blog.
Stereo World (July/August 2024).
‘Excelsior Stereoscopic Tours of Burnley’ explores the story behind a 3D company established in the Lancashire mill town by Milford Elsworth Wright (1861-1918), a former Underwood & Underwood salesman.
The article includes a total of nine stereocards from my collection, which can be free-viewed within the text, and explores the relationship between Wright and the Underwood company.
My thanks to Stereo World editor John Dennis and his NSA colleagues.
Back cover of Stereo World (July/August 2024) featuring ‘Courtyard Chums, Berne, Switzerland’ by Excelsior Stereoscopic Tours.
The success of W. & D. Downey of South Shields, Newcastle on Tyne and London was built upon its ability to recruit and train the right photographers.
As demonstrated by this mini-series profiling Downey luminaries, an association with the company, as royal warrant holders to Queen Victoria, proved useful when selling their own products.
Our final subject also used the verso of his cartes-de-visite to announce that he was ‘formerly with Messrs. W. & D. Downey, London.’
Given Downey’s origins in the North East of England, R. E. Ruddock’s credentials were impeccable.
Born in Bishopwearmouth, Sunderland in 1863, Richard Emerson Ruddock was part of a media family.
His father, also Richard, was a newspaper reporter and later executive with the Newcastle Chronicle for nearly half a century.
By the time he was 18, Ruddock junior was living in the Elswick district of Newcastle, working as an ‘artist and photographer.’
Given his father’s position, an opportunity to work for ‘W. & D. Downey, London’ may well have emerged through family contacts.
Though details of his assignments are not known, a period of employment at Downey’s studio in Ebury Street, Belgravia during the 1880s would have provided invaluable experience.
By the end of the decade, R.E. Ruddock had returned to the North East and formed a partnership with another Tyneside photographer, Matthew Auty (1850-1895).
‘Auty & Ruddock’ operated from the seaside resort of Tynemouth where the Ruddock family including wife Alice and a son, also named Richard, made their home.
However, in March 1892, the ‘Auty & Ruddock’ business partnership was dissolved and six months later, R.E. Ruddock launched his own portrait studio in nearby Newcastle.
The opening of the Grand Studio in Goldsmiths Hall ‘at the corner of Blackett Street and Pilgrim Street’ was supported by an advertising campaign in the local press.
This included a double-column advertisement in a number of newspapers including the Newcastle Daily Chronicle.
Newcastle Daily Chronicle (6th September 1892). From British Newspaper Archive.
The ad went on to include a detailed description of the new studio and its facilities.
One press report described it as ‘an establishment which, for luxury and artistic refinement, excels anything of the kind either in the provinces or in London itself.’
The high-quality theme extended to the design of Ruddock’s products including silver-etched cartes-de-visite.
At some point during the 1890s, ‘R.E. Ruddock’ became ‘Ruddock Ltd’ and extended its range to include portraits mounted within embossed cardboard frames.
Despite the fact that photographic portraits credited to ‘Ruddock Ltd’ still appeared as illustrations in the Newcastle press, the business was in financial difficulties.
By November, its liquidation was announced and the ‘Grand Studio’ and its high-quality contents including a ‘stock of picture postcards’ were sold by auction, presumably to realise assets and pay off creditors.
Newcastle Daily Chronicle (19th November 1906). From the British Newspaper Archive.
Whatever the reputational damage caused by this business failure, R.E. Ruddock was not yet finished with photography. Far from it.
Within a short time, he took over the long-established studio of ‘Abel Lewis’ on Whiteladies Road in the Clifton district of Bristol.
Lewis, a long-serving member of the Royal Photographic Society, established his award-winning photography studio in the 1860s, first in the Isle of Man and then in Bristol.
Following the Ruddock take-over, photographs credited to ‘Ruddock Ltd, Clifton’ were soon appearing in local newspapers suggesting access to a wider photographic and press network.
However, the death in 1908 of Richard Ruddock senior prompted his son’s return to Newcastle where he was among the funeral’s chief mourners.
Mr. R.E. Ruddock’s Bristol studio continued to operate and in 1912, he opened a ‘New Photographic Studio’ further along Whiteladies Road.
The press article announcing this news also found space to highlight its proprietor’s connection ‘for many years’ to ‘W. & D. Downey, the well-known firm of court photographers.’
Clifton and Redland Free Press (15th March 1912). From British Newspaper Archive.
However, two years later, the same paper reported: ‘We understand that Mr. Frank Holmes has acquired the goodwill and business of Mr. R. E. Ruddock (late Abel Lewis).’
That August, as the First World War broke out, Ruddock emigrated to the United States where he was then joined by his wife Alice and other family members, settling in Seattle, Washington.
US citizenship followed in 1921 where he continued working as a photographer.
His death a decade later, aged 68 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, was marked by a short newspaper obituaryaccompanied by a poorly reproduced halftone photograph.
The Tribune, Scranton, Pennsylvania(23rd November 1931). From Newspapers.com by MyAncestry.
The paper reported that Ruddock, a widower, died of pneumonia, had ‘been employed at J.B. Schreiver’s [photographic] studio during the past several years’ and ‘was well-known in the city.’
Like his fellow Downey luminaries H.S. Mendelssohn and John Edwards, who featured earlier in this mini-series, a handful of Ruddock’s portraits feature in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.
The value of having worked for W. & D. Downey whether on Tyneside or in London seems to have held all our subjects in good stead during their subsequent careers in photography.
If you can add any information to each of the four photographers profiled or if you know of examples of their work, please use the comments box at the bottom of this blogpost or any of the blogposts below.
Our third subject is someone who Messrs. Mendelssohn and Edwards are likely to have known during their years with Downey.
James Herriott was born in 1846 in Blaydon, a town on the Tyne, a few miles across the river from Newcastle.
By his mid-twenties, he was married with a baby daughter and living in nearby Gateshead.
But he had already made valuable connections in the photographic business.
During his teens, he was apprenticed to Mawson & Swan of Newcastle on Tyne, who supplied firms like W. & D. Downey with the latest photographic equipment and chemicals.
Given this background, it’s perhaps unsurprising that James Herriott’s own career in photography was soon underway in Gateshead.
The 1871 census recorded his ‘rank, profession or occupation’ as ‘photographic artist,’ and the following year, a newspaper advertisement described him as a ‘portrait and landscape photographer.’
Advertisement from Gateshead Observer (1st June 1872). From British Newspaper Archive.
In terms of portraits, he offered customers ‘cartes de visite enlarged to life size and finished in colours.’
Whether his business hit financial or other difficulties, a notice published in the Newcastle Journal in April 1875 signalled a change of direction.
After closing for alterations, the notice stated, the business would re-open ‘under the named management of Downey and Herriott’ and ‘they will be prepared to do the highest class of work in the Art.’
The named ‘Mr. Downey, late of Oxford Street, Newcastle’ was photographer John Downey (1823-1906), elder brother of William and Daniel.
As described in part 1 of this mini-series, John Downey was previously in partnership for two years (1872-73) with Hayman Seleg (H.S.) Mendelssohn, another Downey apprentice.
The Downey & Herriott partnership though appears to have been even more short-lived.
Within a year or so, James Herriott was again advertising his Gateshead business, now with a second studio address in the centre of Newcastle.
Meanwhile, John Downey had set up ‘J & C. Downey, Photo Artists’ with his eldest son Cornelius at a separate address in Gateshead.
Downey & Herriott portraits are hard to track down, however, this cabinet card is unusual in that it shows the name ‘Downey’ crossed out on both front and the verso.
One explanation might be that card stock printed for the Downey & Herriott partnership was later used by James Herriott alone, perhaps because finances were still tight.
It’s also noticeable that both Downey & Herriott and Downey & Mendelssohn used the same distinctive orange-coloured card for their products.
Herriott’s involvement with the Downey photographic empire points to a long-running relationship.
It was one that perhaps began in the late-1860s following his Mawson & Swan apprenticeship and before opening his own Gateshead studio.
In a 1920s newspaper interview recalling ‘the days of his apprenticeship to W. and D. Downey,’ he recalled assisting ‘Mr. Downey’ in photographing both Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) on separate occasions.
Another memory of a Downey assignment involved photographing Prince Albert (known as Eddy) and Prince George (the future George V) ‘while learning to splice rope’ during naval training aboard HMS Britannia.
In May 1878, the resulting photograph credited to ‘Messrs. Downey’ was reproduced as an engraving by the Illustrated London News.
Supplement to Illustrated London News (25th May 1878). From British Newspaper Archive.
The dating of 1878, at a point when James Herriott was running his own photographic business, reinforces the idea that he was a trusted Downey associate.
Within a few years though, the Tyneside chapter of his life came to an end.
In March 1882, the Berwick Advertiser listed ‘James Herriott, photographer’ among ‘incomers’ to Berwick on Tweed.
This move together with his wife Martha and their four children might be explained by James’s parents originating from Berwick, the northernmost town in England, where James had become a Freeman at the age of 21.
Resuming his photography, he opened a studio in the town’s Castlegate offering a range of portraits.
The verso of his products also took the opportunity to highlight his professional link to ‘Messrs. W. &. D. Downey, Photographers to the Queen, London.’
The absence of company records means it is difficult to identify individual Downey photographers as their names rarely appeared in print alongside their work.
Researching John Edwards life and career in photography is further complicated by his name being so commonplace.
Fortunately, he features in the 1881 census which recorded that he was born in the ‘East Indies,’ that he was a ‘photographer,’ and that he was 67 years old.
At that point, he was living with his wife Harriet together with a servant in London’s Kensington district.
In that same year, 1881, an advertisement in the London press highlighted ‘Mr. John Edwards’ photographic portrait studio near Hyde Park Corner, a well-known London landmark.
The Morning Post (11th June 1881). From British Newspaper Archive.
Given the reference to ‘for many years,’ it seems reasonable to conclude that Edwards employment as Downey’s ‘principal photographer’ covered the early decades of the company’s history.
This was a period from 1860 to 1880 during which it consolidated its base in the North East of England and established a London studio on Ebury Street in Belgravia.
It would also point to John Edwards photographing key Downey clients from royalty to celebrities, working alongside co-founders William and Daniel Downey and a growing team of staff.
His own studio at 1 Park Side, Hyde Park Corner attracted the sort of well-to-do individuals and families that he would have been well used to photographing.
A cabinet card, recently added to the Pressphotoman collection, well illustrates his studio’s appeal to a particular class of customer.
Helpfully, the verso featured the names and ages of those appearing before his studio camera in 1884.
Mrs. Laura Hoare is pictured with her children Geoffrey, aged 5, two year-old Lionel and Richard, aged 10 months.
All three took their mother’s maiden name as their middle name, which is also recorded in pencil on the verso.
The daughter of a baronet, Laura Lennard had married William Hoare in 1878.
Educated at Eton and Cambridge University, William was a partner in both Hoare’s Bank and a family brewery business, which included a chain of more than 100 public houses.
Label for Hoare & Co’s Imperial Ale.
The couple went on to have four children including a daughter Mary, whose ‘personal occupation’ is recorded in the 1911 census as ‘poultry keeper.’
However, one of the boys who featured in the 1884 cabinet card, like many of his generation, pre-deceased both his parents.
Their youngest son Richard was killed in 1916 whilst serving as a captain during the First World War.
When Laura died in 1929 aged 78, the press report of her funeral recorded both Geoffrey and Lionel as being Lieutenant Colonels, perhaps indicating military careers rather than banking or brewing.
Their father, who was absent from the family photo created by John Edwards, had died in 1925.
The former Downey principal photographer continued to portray London’s leading families for posterity.
He also supplied images to the illustrated press as the halftone revolution enabled photographic reproduction.
By the mid-1890s, his studio at 1 Park Side shared its address with three other businesses – a waterproofers, an undertakers, and an auctioneer – reflecting that a golden era of portrait photography was nearing its end.
Extract from 1895 Street Directory. From My Ancestry
Shortly before his death, John Edwards’ business including its negatives was taken over by yet another Downey graduate, the celebrated Australian photographer H. Walter Barnett (1862-1934).
However, ‘John Edwards’ portraits continued to appear in newspapers as stock images.
A small number of other portraits credited to John Edwards (1813-1898) feature in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.
If you have any further details of John Edwards biography or know other examples of his photography, please use the comments box below.
In part 3 of this mini-series, how a Mawson & Swan apprentice in Newcastle on Tyne became a trusted Downey assistant, photographing Queen Victoria and the future Edward VII and George V.
Research into the photographic firm W. & D. Downey of South Shields, Newcastle upon Tyne and London is regularly published on this blog.
A number of photographers who worked for the Downey brothers, William (1829-1915) and Daniel (1831-1881), later went on to enjoy successful careers of their own.
Over coming weeks, a Pressphotoman mini-series will share new research on a selection of Downey luminaries.
When the celebrated portrait photographer Hayman Seleg (H.S.) Mendelssohn died in 1908, aged 59, a brief obituary in the Royal Photographic Society Journal described how his career began.
Born in 1847 in Germany and raised in Poland, “… political reasons obliged him to leave that country, and he settled at Newcastle-on-Tyne where he commenced his photographic career.”
It went on: “After serving with Mr. D. Downey for some time, he went into business for himself.”
This passing reference to Daniel Downey points to an apprenticeship with the company’s Eldon Square studio in the late 1860s.
W. & D. Downey’s Newcastle on Tyne studio was located in Eldon Square. Courtesy of Private Collection, Zurich.
Married with two very young children, the transition to life in a different country must have been unimaginably hard.
The Mendelssohns were one of only 160 Jewish families living in Newcastle at that time.
By 1871, they were sharing a house with jeweller Simon Falk and his family in Blandford Street, a short walk from the city’s railway station.
Evidently, employment with W. & D. Downey proved life-changing.
In the 1871 census, Mr. Mendelssohn’s stated ‘trade or profession’ was ‘photographer.’
He then formed a business partnership with another of the Downey brothers, John (1823-1906), who was also a photographer.
In late-January 1872, the firm of Downey & Mendelssohn opened for business in premises at 111 Northumberland Street.
Interestingly, this was the address that W. & D. Downey used when it opened its first studio in Newcastle on Tyne a decade earlier.
Advertisements placed by Downey & Mendelssohn in the Newcastle press offered a range of services.
These included ‘photographs taken of any animate or inanimate object’ and ‘Rembrandt portraits taken to perfection,’ however conventional portraits were their stock-in-trade.
Another notable detail was the addition of the term ‘Photo Artists’ in line with an array of competitors in the city, adding ‘sepia, oil or water colors [sic]’ to their products.
Within 12 months, their studio moved a short distance from 111 Northumberland Street (left of map below) to 17 Oxford Street (bottom right).
Studio moved from Northumberland Street (left) to nearby Oxford Street (bottom right). From John Tallis map of Newcastle on Tyne (1854).
The firm also adopted a distinctive orange-coloured card for presenting its products.
In December 1873, Downey & Mendelssohn’s two-year long partnership came to an end, and ‘H. S. Mendelssohn, Photo Artists’ became sole proprietor of 17 Oxford Street.
By this point, he was an active participant in the photographic life of the city.
This 1874 newspaper advertisement promoted an exhibition of his portraits using the carbon print process invented in Newcastle by (Sir) Joseph Swan.
Newcastle Daily Journal (15th October 1874). From British Newspaper Archive.
However, the adjoining ‘Notice’ hints at a form of intimidation that could be viewed as anti-semitic, which he was willing to confront publicly.
From this point, H.S. Mendelssohn’s career went from strength to strength.
He opened a further studio in nearby Sunderland in 1881 and the following year, his business expanded to London where his growing reputation attracted prestigious clients.
Queen Victoria’s diary entry for 20th December 1883, made at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, recorded: “A new photographer, named Mendelssohn, has taken lovely photographs of [Victoria’s grandchildren] Daisy [Margaret of Connaught] and little Arthur [Duke of Connaught].”
Whether W. & D. Downey’s royal warrant to Her Majesty (1879) played a part, it proved to be the first of many royal commissions.
H.S. Mendelssohn’s career is celebrated in various collections including the National Portrait Gallery, London where he is credited with 70 portraits.
This cabinet card featuring the actress Miss Ellen Terry taken in 1883 demonstrates his skills and how far he had travelled since arriving in Newcastle on Tyne as a refugee fleeing persecution.
Miss Ellen Terry by H.S. Mendelssohn. National Portrait Gallery, London. NPG Ax5571.
In the next post in this mini-series, how Downey’s principal photographer in the 1860s and 1870s used that calling card to attract clients to his own successful portrait studio.
What particularly caught my attention was the photographer’s credit scratched into the bottom right-hand corner of the plate.
Photo credit for ‘Mrs. Burrell, Newcastle on Tyne.’
It read: ‘Mrs. Burrell, Newcastle on Tyne.’
A new name to me in the pantheon of Tyneside photographers, I wondered who ‘Mrs. Burrell’ was.
Using the British Newspaper Archive plus census and other public records, a fascinating biography emerges.
Born in Newcastle in 1860, Henrietta Theonie Bunning was the third child of a mechanical engineer and a German-born mother.
Known as Theonie, she was in her mid-twenties when she married William Sleigh Burrell, a chemical manure manufacturer. The couple then had two children.
The 1891 Census found the Burrell family living in the Elswick district of Newcastle with a cook, housemaid and nurse.
Their home, Neville Cottage, was previously the Bunning family residence where, a decade earlier, Theonie lived with her parents.
It was also the address that she later used professionally.
What is evident from press reports covering the late 1890s to 1920 is that Theonie was an accomplished artist.
For example, in November 1898, the Newcastle Daily Chronicle reported on an exhibition in Newcastle by the Bewick Club, of which Theonie was a member.
Newcastle Daily Chronicle (2nd November 1898). From British Newspaper Archive.
Named after Thomas Bewick, the legendary Northumbrian wood engraver, the club was founded in 1884 with the primary aim of promoting the interests of professional artists.
The paper’s detailed report highlighted ‘a clever study of a child in pastel’ by ‘Miss [sic] H. Theonie Burrell.’
As to when Theonie’s career as an artist began, her ‘profession or occupation’ is not listed in any census before 1911.
However, the 1901 Census does offer a glimpse into her wider artistic life.
It records ‘Mrs. Burrell,’ her two young children and elder sister Fanny staying in the Tyneside seaside resort of Cullercoats, then home to a well-established artists’ colony.
Cullercoats c. late 1890s. Courtesy of Newcastle City Library.
Further afield, Theonie established a national reputation with artists’ organisations including the Society of Miniaturists.
Also, between 1906 and 1920, watercolour portraits credited to ‘Mrs. H. Theonie Burrell’ regularly featured in the Royal Academy’s prestigious Summer Exhibitions.
But what of her work as a photographer?
Mrs. Burrell’s photographic portraits of Marie Hall were published at a point at which the young violinist’s career was taking off.
Born in Newcastle on Tyne in 1884, she came from a musical family in which her father was a professional harpist in the city.
Marie was aged 10 when she made her public concert debut at Newcastle Town Hall before leaving the city to study violin in Birmingham, London and Prague.
She returned to Newcastle in March 1903 as an 18 year-old for a concert that was the talk of Tyneside.
To mark the occasion, the Newcastle Daily Chronicle devoted a half-page column to reviewing her concert and used a line drawing illustration.
“There has seldom been in Newcastle a musical event so interesting as the appearance last night at the Town Hall of Miss Marie Hall.” Newcastle Daily Chronicle (11th March 1903). From British Newspaper Archive.
Such was her growing fame that the Rotary Photographic Company spotted a commercial opportunity.
Its ‘real photograph’ postcards offered celebrities a conveniently-sized format that could be signed for fans at stage doors and following public appearances.
As to how and where Mrs. Burrell’s photographs of the teenage violinist were taken, their painted backdrop suggests a studio location.
Or it may have been at Newcastle Town Hall as the photo shoot seems to have taken place shortly after her concert appearance there.
Three weeks later on 2nd April 1903, ‘Henrietta Theonie Burrell (Mrs.), Neville Cottage, Newcastle on Tyne’ registered the copyright of three cabinet-size photographs of ‘Miss Marie Hall’ (COPY1/460/372-374).
However, the slightly mystifying aspect of researching this story is that it has yielded hardly any further physical trace of Mrs. Burrell’s photography.
Copyright records held at the National Archives feature only one other ‘Mrs. Burrell’ photograph, namely a face-on portrait of a man named ‘John Cunningham’ registered in December 1904.
The 1911 Census listed her ‘trade or profession’ as ‘photographer and artist’ and in 1916, Ward’s trade directory featured a listing complete with telephone number.
Extract from Ward’s Directory 1916.
All of which leaves a number of unresolved questions, which future research may help answer.
Henrietta Theonie Burrell died in 1934 in Norton-on-Tees, County Durham aged 74.
If you know the wherabouts of any of her photographic or artistic portraits, the comments box below would welcome any information.
A coda to this blogpost involves Miss Marie Hall whose established place in the history of classical music involves one of the most popular pieces in the repertoire.
In 1920, she was the first performer and dedicatee of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending, a moment recreated in a 2012 BBC documentary about the piece.
Performance of The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams from BBC tv documentary (2012).
Collectors on the hunt for a particular item or object will be familiar with the daily visit to online auction sites.
This involves entering a few well-chosen words into a search engine and hoping that a ‘new’ or ‘recently added’ result appears.
Even when this happens, the item description often suggests little to indicate that the seller is offering what you are looking for.
This was the case recently when a ‘Victorian Gentlemen’ appeared in a trawl for cartes-de-visites produced by W. & D. Downey during their early years in South Shields.
Initially, the card’s dirty and stained verso looked unpromising.
The NPG’s portrait matched my ‘Victorian Gentleman’ in almost every detail except that his top hat was placed on a cloth-covered table nearby.
Removing the top hat allowed the light to fall on his face producing, to my eyes, a more detailed and pleasing portrait.
Which of the two portraits was taken first is hard to tell.
In the NPG version, the bishop is using his cane for support rather than leaning on the table, so perhaps this came later in the shoot when (minus his top hat) he felt (and looked) more relaxed.
Another interesting feature of these portraits is that they are slightly smaller than other Downey cartes-de-visites of the period.
Both measure 3 and 5/8 inches (rather than 4 inches) by 2 and 3/8 inches.
The accuracy of the NPG’s dating of ‘around 1860’ is supported by the Bishop of Durham’s installation in September of that year.
By December, a lengthy article about W. & D. Downey in the North & South Shields Gazette titled ‘Photography in South Shields’ described how “the portrait of the Lord Bishop of Durham has also been taken by Messrs. Downey.”
Whether or not these portraits were made available to the public, they soon had an added commercial value.
In August 1861, the national press reported the death of Henry Montagu Villiers “whose health has long been in a precarious state … in his 48th year.”
A fortnight later, his funeral was held in Bishop Auckland when, according to the Brighton Gazette, “the shops of the town were closed, as were also the principal shops in the city of Durham.
“And the bells of the cathedral in Durham and of the churches of Newcastle, Shields, Sunderland and other towns, tolled solemnly during the course of the day.”
As a photohistorian, much of my time in recent years has been spent in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries.
So my latest second-hand book purchase might, at first glance, seem a little off kilter.
The Photography Year Book 1967 showcases more than 170 images, both colour and black-and-white, featured in Photography magazine during the previous 12 months.
Photography Year Book 1967 Edited by Derek Stevens and Richard Gee, Fountain Press Ltd.
Photography billed itself as ‘Britain’s best photo magazine’ thanks to ‘the world’s best photographers.’
Judging by the contents of its Year Book 1967, this seems a justifiable claim.
As its index reveals, my copy is minus its original colour cover.
In the mid-60s, Barbara Parkins became a household name thanks to Peyton Place, a hit US tv show of the era.
Being a photography magazine aimed at practitioners, the accompanying ‘Front Cover’ text featured ‘technical data & notes’ about the photograph of her (here in black and white) and its creation.
Illustrated description of ‘Front Cover.’ Photography Year Book 1967.
Viewed from 2024, what is predictable about the Photography Year Book1967, is that the featured contributors, both professional and amateur, are overwhelmingly male.
It’s an editorial approach repeated in its choice of five ‘star photographers.’
They were Jesper Hom, David Moore, Choi Min Shik, Bert Stern and Robert Lebeck, all of whose work you will find today in collections and galleries around the world.
Amidst all the admittedly wonderful photographs are eye-catching trade advertisements for assorted cameras and photographic equipment.
Many employ a 60s psychedelic vibe.
Advertisement from Photography Year Book 1967.Advertisement from Photography Year Book 1967.
My favourite though, promoting Ferrania 3M colour film, calls on a tried-and-tested photographic formula.
This Friday (21st June) is Stereoscopy Day, the third annual global celebration of stereoscopic 3D.
Organised by Denis Pellerin and Rebecca Sharpe, co-curators of the Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy, Stereoscopy Day marks 186 years since Sir Charles Wheatstone first presented the stereoscope and his theory of binocular vision to the world.
It was more than a decade ago when I first became aware of Wheatstone’s discovery.
Studying for a Masters degree in Photographic History & Research at De Montfort University, Leicester, I was fortunate enough to attend a presentation by Brian May, Denis Pellerin and Paula Fleming about their book ‘Diableries: Stereoscopic Adventures in Hell.’
‘Diableries’ originally published in 2013.
For the first time, I heard terms like ‘stereocard,’ ‘stereoscope’ and ‘view’ and learned about the fascination that 3D held for the Victorians.
As it turned out, the presentation proved both inspirational and pertinent.
A few months later, my Masters research project took shape … and a professional stereographer, Percy R. Salmon FRPS (1872-1959), was at its heart.
2022 film celebrating the 150th birthday of Percy R. Salmon FRPS (1872-1959).
But there was only one problem.
However hard I tried, I could not see in 3D.
The reason lay in my ‘lazy’ right eye, diagnosed when I was 7 during a school medical.
My astigmatism has meant wearing glasses ever since.
Then one day, when I had almost given up all hope of seeing in 3D, I looked at a stereocard through a hand-held stereoscope for the umpteenth time – and the two images fused into one.
I could see the promised 3D ‘view.’
My first hand-held stereocard viewer, ‘The Perfecscope’ c. 1895.
Since then, stereoscopy has transformed my life, leading to a doctorate that investigated 3D’s influence on early press photography (see ‘Writings’).
It’s also improved my eye-sight, prompting my optician to wonder how this was possible given I am getting older.
What started as a handful of stereocards is now a growing collection.
It largely features the Underwood & Underwood company (1880s-1920s); plus Excelsior Stereoscopic Tours of Burnley, Lancashire; press stereographer James Edward Ellam (1857-1920); plus early stereos by W. & D. Downey and amateurs like Edward and Eliza Charlton, all featured elsewhere on this blog.
If you haven’t tried stereoscopy before, hunt down a few cards on Ebay and purchase an ‘Owl’ viewer designed by Brian May.
The arrival of the carte de visite format in the late 1850s was enthusiastically embraced by public figures such as Guthrie, who features in commercially available cards produced by several companies.
Downey’s version, which so impressed me, dates from the early 1870s towards the end of Guthrie’s life.
At that point, the company’s London studio at 61 Ebury Street off Eaton Square ‘opened occasionally,’ according to press adverts.
This ties in with the proviso stated on the verso that ‘portraits taken by appointment.’
As Downey’s business expanded from its Newcastle upon Tyne base to the capital, it encountered a number of accomplished competitors.
Founded in 1863, Elliott & Fry went on to establish itself as ‘one of the most important in the history of studio portraiture in London,’ according to the National Portrait Gallery, London website.
Its own carte de visite of Thomas Guthrie, also produced in the early 1870s, is in a similar style to Downey’s, perhaps suggesting that they kept an eye on each other’s products.
Guthrie’s death in February 1873 generated national newspaper headlines, and such carte de visites offered customers an affordable keepsake of a respected figure.
Given a choice, which of these Guthrie portraits would you have bought and why?
Following D-Day, his last artillery regiment reached its ultimate objective in April 1945, and Dad was then based in Germany until his ‘demob’ the following February.
It’s only in the decades since his death that I’ve discovered details of Dad’s war service, culminating in D-Day and the events that followed.
Two regimental histories proved invaluable.
‘Mike Target’ by John Mercer (The Book Guild, 1990) vividly describes the build-up to 6th June 1944.
Dad and his fellow West Yorkshiremen in 185 Field Regiment, R.A., were due to land in Normandy on D +7.
Cover of Mike Target by John Mercer (The Book Guild, 1990).
Following anxious days aboard a ship anchored off the French coast and night-time visits from the Luftwaffe, the regiment finally disembarked on D +13.
As to his part in the Normandy campaign, Dad only ever recounted one incident that illustrated the random nature of warfare.
It happened to him during a shift change from one field gun crew to another.
Within seconds of handing over his place to a colleague, Dad’s replacement was killed by incoming fire.
By the end of 1944, numbers in his regiment were so low that he and his fellow survivors were dispersed to other artillery units.
The story of his subsequent spell with the 94th (Dorset & Hants) Field Regiment, R.A., is re-told by Peter Whately-Smith in a regimental history published in 1948.
Once hostilities ended, the author describes how the “small pretty village” of Burgdorf, 15 miles north-east of the city of Hanover, became the regimental base from mid-May 1945.
There, Dad and his colleagues were “engaged in rounding up and disarming German troops … and combing large areas of countryside for enemy weapons and warlike stores.”
Then “began a period of hard grinding work. Guards, guards and more guards, escort parties, security patrols.”
Burgdorf was “unscathed by war” and that fact is reflected in the handful of photographs that form the ‘Germany’ section of Dad’s war-time photo album.
In stark contrast to images usually associated with war-time, its black-and-white shots capture the peace that had been so hard won.
In one, a building features with a jeep parked to the left of the entrance, possibly the regimental HQ.
The third photo features a manicured grass lawn and planted border, perhaps fronting one of the buildings featured earlier, surrounded by trees in full leaf.
His Soldier’s Release Book records that he had been “employed in the Quarter-Masters Department as clerks store manager.”
This was a testimonial that helped prepare him for life after the forces, and in 1947, he secured a clerk’s job in civvy street with a Leeds-based soap manufacturer.
The verso of the ‘at work’ snapshot bears the stamp of the branded photo paper used – ‘Agfa Lupex’ – and the photo shop in Burgdorf that produced the resulting print.
Best of all, it shows Dad with a smile on his face.
It was one that must have reflected how he felt after the ordeal of an arduous campaign that began on D-Day and a global conflict that consumed nearly seven years of his young adult life.
In the 1860s, Newcastle upon Tyne’s Eldon Square was home to two rival commercial photography firms.
As described in parts 1 and 2 of this mini-series of blogposts, W. & D. Downey had a studio at no. 9 whilst W.S. Parry run by William Softley Parry and his wife Christiana were their neighbours at no. 17.
However, photography in one of the city’s most prestigious locations may not have been limited to companies competing for business.
Two stereoscopic ‘3D’ cards recently arrived in the Pressphotoman collection that raise the possibility of other Eldon Square residents being active photographers.
The couple involved were Edward and Eliza Charlton, who married in 1842 uniting two of the region’s prominent Roman Catholic families.
By 1851, the Charltons were living at no. 7 Eldon Square with a ‘groom, cook, house maid and lady’s maid’ and were still there a decade later.
Dr. Edward Charlton was a well-respected medical figure in Newcastle upon Tyne, who had also established a reputation as a ‘scholar, scientist and antiquary.’
Edward Charlton MD (1814-1874) Courtesy of John Edwards.
He was a member and later vice-president of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne known as the Lit & Phil.
In that capacity, it is likely his path would have crossed those of William and Daniel Downey and William Softley Parry.
Both the Downeys and Parry were regular exhibitors of their photography at the Lit & Phil’s Conversaziones whilst Dr. Edward Charlton presented several lectures during his three decades of involvement with the society.
As to Eliza Charlton, Edward’s wife, she was from a prosperous family in the Northumberland town of Hexham, 20 miles west of Newcastle.
Eliza Janet Charlton nee Kirsopp (1816-1862) Courtesy of John Edwards.
There, her father James Gibson Kirsopp (1775-1836) built a magnificant Georgian mansion on the Spital Estate that today is a Grade 1 listed building and home to Hexham Golf Club.
Spital Estate House. From Hexham Golf Club website.
It is from Hexham that evidence has emerged of the Charlton’s involvement in photography.
The first stereo linked to the couple is titled ‘The Chapter House, Hexham Abbey Church.’
As to its location, Battle Hill is one of the town’s historic principal streets, offering access to nearby Hexham Abbey.
The specific dating – ‘Sept. 28th 1861 – suggests that Edward, if he was the photographer responsible, took the stereo at that location on that particular date.
The second stereo is titled ‘Hexham Abbey Church’ and is another effectively composed three-dimensional shot.
Lines of hazel poles in the foreground lead the eye up the garden path to the historic abbey building in the distance.
On the verso, it is credited with the same location – ‘Battle Hill’ – and the same month and year – ‘September 1861’ – but in this case, the name ‘Eliza Charlton’ appears.
If Eliza was the person responsible for creating the stereo, she clearly was a talented photographer with an eye for 3D.
Sadly, like Christiana Parry in part 2, Eliza died prematurely, in her case in May 1862 at the age of 46 at the Charlton’s home, no.7 Eldon Square.
Further research is required to fully confirm that Edward and Eliza Charlton were indeed the couple responsible for taking these stereos.
But their discovery brings forward two more images of Hexham Abbey Church shortly after its east end had undergone rebuilding works.
Interestingly, the person responsible for the works was John Dobson, who designed Newcastle upon Tyne’s Eldon Square thirty years earlier and the subject of this blogpost mini-series.
If you missed parts 1 and 2, check out the links below.
At no. 9 (on the right of facing terrace above), W. & D. Downey opened a new studio in March 1862, consolidating a growing reputation for supplying high-quality portraits.
Other leading photographers in the city such as P.M. Laws, E. Sawyer, R. Turner, G.C. Warren and T. Worden provided the Downey brothers, William and Daniel, with stiff competition.
But in 1864, when W.S. Parry moved his long-established studio to no. 17 Eldon Square, a new chapter in Newcastle’s photo wars began.
William Softley Parry was born in 1826 across the River Tyne from Newcastle in Gateshead.
By the late-1840s, he was in business as a window glass merchant in Grainger Street, Newcastle, enjoying the new medium of photography as a hobby.
Initially, he produced paper calotypes which he exhibited at the Annual Conversaziones of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne (founded 1793), known as the ‘Lit & Phil.’
By 1855, following the invention of the wet collodion process which used glass plates, Parry opened his ‘Photographic Institution’ at 44 Newgate Street (‘nearly opposite St. John’s Lane’).
Press adverts promised ‘female attendance for ladies’ indicating that his wife Christiana was involved in producing the studio’s photographic portraits ‘on paper and glass.’
Three years later, the Parry’s business relocated to 44 Bigg Market (‘4th door N.W. of Grainger Street’) and glowing reviews from the national press helped promote its wares.
Advert from North & South Shields Gazette, 15th July 1858. From British Newspaper Archive.
The new fashion of carte de visite portraits attracted a wide variety of clients and offered an affordable opportunity to dress up and look your best.
Then in March 1864 with business evidently booming, an opportunity arose to relocate to the more prestigious surroundings of Eldon Square a few doors down from W. & D. Downey.
According to a notice placed in the Newcastle Courant, no. 17, described as an ‘eligible freehold dwelling house with Coach House and Stable,’ was ‘to be sold by auction.’
Advertisement from Newcastle Courant, 14th March 1864. From British Newspaper Archive.
Within a few months, ‘The Eldon Portrait Rooms, 17 Eldon Square, Conducted by Mr. & Mrs. W. S. Parry and Assistants’ were open for business.
Advert from Newcastle Daily Journal, 20th July 1864. From British Newspaper Archive.
The Parry’s arrival cemented Eldon Square’s status as a place to go if you were having your photo portrait taken.
The fact that W. & D. Downey at no. 9 were the Parry’s neighbours and photographic competitors was reflected in subtle changes to their business offer.
For instance, when Downey’s offered a new series of stereoscopic views of Newcastle, Parry raided his photographic archive to advertise ‘local views, and others of general interest … taken from eight to sixteen years ago.’
In the drive for valuable custom, both studios placed almost daily front-page adverts in the Newcastle press.
Downey invariably occupied the top of the left-hand column whilst Parry took a prominent position on the right-hand side of the page.
Then, on 11th July 1868, the Newcastle Daily Journal reported the death of Christiana Parry.
In her late 30s, she had died at no. 17 the previous day though no cause of death was given.
It was the latest tragedy to befall the Parry family whose ‘eldest surviving daughter’ Euphemia died in 1862 aged five.
A fortnight after ‘the lamented death of his wife,’ William announced in a press ad that he was resuming business and that the Ladies’ Department would be run by her assistant for the past three years, Miss Lizzie Elliot.
Advert from Newcastle Daily Journal, 24th July 1868. From British Newspaper Archive.
Improvements to the studio in Eldon Square followed.
However, in June 1871, no. 17 was put ‘up for sale’ and William revealed that he would ‘shortly leave for the South.’
The following month, a two-day sale of ‘household furniture and effects’ and ‘the apparatus and working plant of the Photographic Department’ was held at his home.
After leaving Newcastle, W.S. Parry ran at least two photography businesses, one in Berkshire during the 1870s and another in Birmingham in the 1880s.
However, by the time of his death in 1915, his reputation as a pioneering photographer was long forgotten.
Even the Newcastle Journal, which celebrated his many photographic achievements during the Eldon Square years, headlined its report of an inquest into his death: ‘Blown Over By The Wind: An Old Man’s Sad Death At Middlesbrough.’
Despite this, William Softley Parry’s work as a pioneering photographer is chronicled in two respected accounts of the medium’s early years.
Notably John Werge’s History of Photography (1890) and, more recently, Roger Taylor’s Impressed By Light: British Photography from Paper Negatives, 1840-1860 (2007).
What they confirm is that W. S. Parry’s Newcastle years were both influential and productive and helped put the city on the map as a centre of photographic innovation.
Next time in the final part of this mini-series, new Pressphotoman research explores if an amateur husband-and-wife photography team were also living in Eldon Square at the turn of the 1860s.
This photograph taken in the 1860s shows its terrace of grand houses designed by architects John Dobson and Thomas Oliver and built by Richard Grainger between 1825 and 1831 (Pevsner and Richmond).
Over the next few weeks, Pressphotoman will shine a spotlight on particular houses, exploring their contribution to photography’s growing popularity during the medium’s early decades.
To launch this mini-series, 9 Eldon Square will be an address familiar to regular readers of this blog as the long-time home of commercial photography firm W. & D. Downey.
For new readers, brothers William and Daniel Downey started in business in their native South Shields around 1856, opening a studio in Newcastle upon Tyne at 111 Northumberland Street in the autumn of 1861.
Within six months, the Downey’s had moved studios again and secured a prime location in Eldon Square, one of the city’s most fashionable addresses.
As the census reveals, its residents were typically medical practitioners, dental surgeons, lawyers and well-connected ladies and gentlemen of means with the necessary domestic staff to maintain such a lifestyle.
Research into how no. 9 became home to W. & D. Downey reveals a tragic tale played out in the columns of the local press.
On 7th June 1861, the Newcastle Courant reported an inquest into the death of Richard Downing Esq., a 63 year-old surgeon dentist.
London-born, he had lived with his ‘landed proprietor’ father in Eldon Square since it was built, first at no. 17, then at no. 9.
Under the headline ‘Distressing Suicide,’ the paper reported how Mr. Downing had been in a depressed state of mind during the previous fortnight.
After going upstairs to his bedroom after dinner, his younger sister Jane “heard something fall heavily in the deceased’s room.
“She entered the apartment, and then saw Mr. Downing laying on his back with a deep and large gash in his throat and in a state of insensibility.”
A servant was despatched to bring Dr. De May, “the family medical man,” who lived at no. 15, accompanied by Dr. Heath.
The newspaper account continued: “The deceased was unhappily beyond the reach of medical skill, and within five or six minutes after the arrival of the professional gentleman he expired.”
The nature of Downing’s depression was not disclosed, but he had ended a business partnership with his father and brother in March 1860, and the following month, 9 Eldon Square was put up for ‘sale by auction.’
A year later though, as recorded by the 1861 census, Richard Downing, his sister Jane and a house servant and maid servant were still in residence.
Following Downing’s death, efforts to put his affairs in order moved at speed.
Within a fortnight, an auction of his ‘household furniture and other effects’ took place at no. 9.
Ad for sale of ‘household furniture and effects’ at 9 Eldon Square. Daily Chronicle, 19th June 1861. From British Newspaper Archive.
By August, the house was again on the property market, this time ‘to be let and entered upon immediately,’ suggesting no. 9 was empty and that Downing’s sister and domestic staff had moved out.
Ad from Newcastle Daily Journal, 19th August 1861. From British Newspaper Archive.
Described as a ‘desirable dwelling house’ complete with Coach House, the same ad appeared regularly in the local press for several months.
Attempts to find a suitable tenant may have been hampered in part by the property’s association with Mr. Downing’s death.
Eventually in March 1862, Downey’s used one of its regular ads in the Newcastle papers to announce that no. 9 had new occupants.
Newcastle Daily Journal, 1st March 1862. From British Newspaper Archive.
From a commercial point of view, the timing could not have been better.
Two months earlier, Downey’s had taken a series of photographs in the aftermath of the Hartley Pit Disaster, 15 miles away, which claimed the lives of more than 200 men and boys.
Using its entrepreneurial instincts, the company sent copies to Queen Victoria, enabling it to re-brand its products with a new logo advertising both its royal patronage and new Newcastle address.
The move signalled the start of a highly successful chapter in the history of W. & D. Downey and 9 Eldon Square became a go-to destination for those in the region and beyond wanting a photographic portrait in the latest style.
In the next blogpost in this mini-series, a rival commercial photographer moves into Eldon Square, signalling a battle for customers that lasted into the 1870s.
One of the intriguing aspects of photography’s commercialisation in the middle of the 19th century is its impact on the established medium of art.
It’s a collision that continues to fascinate researchers who spend time investigating the 1850s and 1860s.
The new invention of photography offered an affordable alternative at a time when artists still dominated the portraiture market.
A figure who epitomises the emergence of the ‘Photo Artist’ is the subject of this blogpost.
Pressphotoman first came across Edward Sawyer (1828-1902) during research into the early days of W. & D. Downey of South Shields, Newcastle upon Tyne and London.
After touring Northumberland and Durham in a horse-drawn van christened “Downey’s Crystal Place Portrait Gallery,” brothers William (1829-1915) and Daniel (1831-1881) were rapidly expanding their business.
North & South Shields Gazette, 11th April 1857. From British Newspaper Archive.
Shortly after this advert’s appearance in April 1857, Downey’s announced they had secured a “First Class Artist for Colouring Photographs” adding that “Photography Like Nature Needs A Handmaid.”
Edward Sawyer, a native of neighbouring North Shields across the River Tyne, had established a local reputation for his artistic skills.
With Sawyer on the payroll, Downey again used the columns of the North & South Shields Gazette (8th July 1857), this time to report a “royal” commission.
“Mr. Moffet of the Queen’s Head Inn, North Shields, has just had painted, at the Photographic Establishment of Messrs. W and D. Downey, South Shields, by their artist, Mr. Edward Sawyers [sic], a beautiful full-length portrait of her Majesty.”
This royal likeness of Queen Victoria, the paper informed its readers, had been placed by the landlord “in front of his house on the Tynemouth Road.”
Whether this portrait was an up-market hand-painted pub sign, it was followed by a recognisably photographic assignment.
Downey’s had produced “a fine negative” of the Mayor of South Shields “sitting in the civic chair in his official robes.”
Some of the copies taken from this were then “coloured in oil in a superior style by Messrs. Downey’s artist” (North & South Shields Gazette, 29th July 1857).
This was highly-skilled work and early photographic portrait studios successfully combined the new and established forms of visual media.
How long Edward Sawyer worked for the Downey brothers is not known, but the 1861 Census recorded he was living in Sunderland with his wife and young family and that his occupation was “portrait painter and photographic colourist.”
By then, his commissions had moved into another league as demonstrated by this portrait dated by various sources to 1862.
It features John Clayton (1792-1890), the then long-serving town clerk of Newcastle upon Tyne and a man who is widely credited with saving Hadrian’s Wall.
In the background of the portrait can be glimpsed prominent Newcastle landmarks including Grey’s Monument, the Theatre Royal and Grey Street itself.
Because of his background, it’s possible that Sawyer used a photograph of his illustrious client as the basis for the portrait .
Around this time, the artist set up his own business at 40 Grey Street, arguably the city’s most prestigious address.
By the spring of 1863, E. Sawyer & Co had moved to 95 Clayton Street, a neighbouring Newcastle thoroughfare named after the subject of the portrait above.
Advertisement from Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 28th April 1863. From British Newspaper Archive.
As this newspaper advertisement confirms, Sawyer’s company was offering its services as both “photographers and portrait painters” whilst offering customers the opportunity to view “Six First-class Life Size Photographs of Local Celebrities.”
As demonstrated by the carte de visite from which this company logo is taken,’ E. Sawyer & Co’ produced affordable photographic portraits such as this one in a style that appealed to a range of customers.
The dividing line between portraits produced by photography and those produced by art is difficult to pinpoint.
But as far as Edward Sawyer was concerned, the marriage between photography and art produced a successful business empire.
By the 1870s, Sawyer senior was joined in running his ‘Photo Art Studios’ business on Barras Bridge, Newcastle by his eldest son Lyddell (1856-1927) and other Sawyer siblings.
Known as ‘Lyd,’ Lyddell Sawyer’s international reputation as an art photographer and member of the Linked Ring means that he is better known today than his father.
If you are interested in the Sawyer dynasty and, in particular, viewing examples of Lyddell Sawyer’s art photography, I can recommend ‘Don’t look at the Camera’ by Geoff Lowe published in 2017.
In the meantime, Pressphotoman’s research into the early years of Edward Sawyer’s career and his working relationship with the Downey brothers continues.
Since it was published last month, ‘100 Photographs From the Collections of the National Trust’ has been on Pressphotoman’s shopping list.
Front cover of ‘100 Photographs …’ (National Trust Cultural Heritage Publishing 2024).
The book features images taken from the NT’s collections of more than half a million photographic objects held at its properties in England and Wales.
National Curator of Photography Anna Sparham had the (un)enviable task of choosing the featured images, which are accompanied by illuminating background texts.
‘100 Photographs’ takes a chronological approach, introducing us to lesser-known or overlooked names behind the camera and giving many images their public debut.
Safe to say, the book is a veritable treasure trove for photohistorians and those interested in how the medium has reflected and continues to reflect the world around us.
My copy was purchased during a holiday visit to Kedleston Hall near Derby, a National Trust property whose photographic collection is amongst those reflected in the 100 chosen images.
When he married in 1861, Gibson’s stated profession was ‘photographer’ and he soon established his own business in Hexham offering portraits and local views.
Advertisement from Hexham Courant, 14th September 1864. From British Newspaper Archive.
One of the gems of Hexham is its abbey, a building dating back to the late 12th century that is well worth a visit.
Gibson was well aware of the abbey’s appeal and this carte de visite dating from the early years of his career captures the magnificence of one of its transepts.
Yevonde: Life and Colour at Newcastle’s Laing Art Gallery closes later this week, offering a last chance to view these eye-catching portrait photographs in the flesh.
Exterior of Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne. 12th April 2024. Author’s photograph.
Pressphotoman reviewed the exhibition when it opened in the North East last November after a highly-successful launch at the newly-refurbished National Portrait Gallery in London.
A few days ago, the exhibition’s curator Clare Freestone was at the Laing to present an illustrated talk about Yevonde’s career in photography and explain how the show came into being.
Among several highlights and behind-the-scenes revelations was a video clip from a 1973 Thames Television programme presented by David Frost on the theme of octogenarians.
Then aged 80 and among the show’s youngest participants, Yevonde was briefly interviewed by the celebrated presenter about three of her famous colour portraits.
These included one of the writer George Bernard Shaw taken in 1937 and which the studio audience immediately recognised as a familar face by shouting out his name in unison.
Two stills taken from the Frost programme featured in Ronald M. Callender’s article ‘Mrs Middleton: The Remarkable Lady” (The PhotoHistorian No. 195 / Spring 2023, p. 19).
So it was revelatory to hear Yevonde’s speaking voice for the first time and get a brief glimpse of her sense of humour and engaging personality in action.
Rights issues don’t allow the clip or any visuals to be reproduced here, but Clare’s talk was further proof that such events accompanying exhibitions are well worth seeking out for ‘exclusives.’
Yevonde: Life and Colour at the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne closes on Saturday (20th April 2024).
A recent online talk by contemporary wet plate photographer Tony Richards for the Royal Photographic Society’s Historical Group happened at a timely moment.
His presentation (‘Contemporary Wet Plate Collodion Photography’ / 2nd April 2024) coincided with the arrival in my collection of a second-hand book titled Photographic Recipes and Formulae.
Photographic Recipes and Formulae published in 1907.
As its title suggests, the book published in 1907 informs photographers about the basic principles of chemistry integral to taking photographs from the medium’s earliest days.
Its contents page (annotated ‘Croydon Library’ in an unknown hand) lists a total of ten sections starting with “Developers for Plates and Films” and working its way through various photographic processes.
Contents page of Photographic Recipes and Formulae (1907).
Though traditional methods are an area of interest to photohistorians, mine in this particular book was prompted by a detail on its frontispiece: that of the credit ‘Compiled by Richard Penlake.’
Frontispiece of Photographic Receipes and Formulae (1907).
As regular readers of the Pressphotoman blog will be aware, ‘Richard Penlake’ was a pen-name used by the photographer and author Percy R. Salmon FRPS (1872-1959).
In its catalogue, the British Library lists six titles credited to Richard Penlake, but this particular one seems to have escaped the Deposit Library system and has now been added to our growing family collection of his publications.
This is slightly surprising as the BL catalogue does include a Richard Penlake title, Trick Photography, by the same publisher, Marshall, Brookes & Chalkley, Ltd., of Harp Alley, Farringdon Street, London, EC, that appeared the previous year (1906).
Indeed, an advertisement for Trick Photography billed as “an amusing and instructive book” appears on the flyleaf of Photographic Recipes & Formulae.
Advertisement for Trick Photography from flyleaf of Photographic Recipes & Formulae (1907).
This flurry of activity occurred at a point in Percy R. Salmon’s career when he had recently stepped down after five years as Editor of Photographic News, a weekly trade paper.
Instead, he was working as a freelance author producing articles and mass market handbooks aimed at amateur photographers.
It was a change that culminated in several popular titles including All About Photography (1925) published in multiple editions by Ward, Lock & Co., into the 1950s.
According to William C. Darrah’s ‘The World of Stereographs’ (1977, p. 187), twelve tissues illustrating the life of Jesus were published in France in the late 1860s.
He states that these paintings were copied as stereographs and then repeatedly reproduced as views in the decades that followed.
Darrah also adds that “great quantities of these were sold in the United States until 1915.”
The set in my collection features 24 scenes published by Underwood & Underwood (U&U) starting with ‘The Nativity’ and ending with ‘The Ascension.’
They came into my collection almost by accident, arriving unadvertised together with a wooden U&U ‘Perfecscope’ viewer that I purchased several years ago when my interest in stereoscopic photography was starting.
If you know more about the ‘Life of Christ’ stereo set and have seen examples produced by other publishers, please use the comments box below.
One of the joys of photo collecting is looking for clues that may help confirm the provenance of an image.
Last week’s blogpost about portraits of Mrs. Susan Davidson of Ridley Hall, Northumberland – one taken in Paris by Alexandre Ken and another by W. & D. Downey of South Shields – suggested further research questions.
What immediately caught my eye in both portraits was the distinctive armchair.
Such pieces of furniture were used to provide physical support to the standing “sitter” whilst the camera plate was being exposed and to avoid any blurring.
In addition, the floor covering in the immediate foreground of both photographs has a common pattern and design.
This evidence suggested that the same studio props were used by Downey for both portraits and (possibly) the same location too.
Armed with this information, I reviewed my collection of newspaper cuttings about Downey’s activities during its formative years.
According to the North & South Shields Gazette (6th September 1860), “Mr. J.A. Roebuck, Esq., MP” was amongst “the noblemen and gentlemen” photographed during Downey’s “first professional visit to London.”
To underline this, the National Portrait Gallery, London has another cdv of Mr. Roebuck attributed to Downey in its collection.
Visibly from the same London sitting, the MP’s cane is leant against the backdrop whilst his top hat sits nearby on a small table.
As previously described, the same armchair and floor covering are on view.
The NPG dates its Roebuck cdv as “early 1860s” and its location as “unknown place (photographers’ studio).”
Where this “unknown place” was located is difficult to say, though it may have been a space borrowed for the occasion.
Afterwards, the Downey brothers, William and Downey, returned to the North-East of England and, by Christmas 1860, were displaying portraits from their London visit in the South Shields premises that were their base.
By the following Spring, their Roebuck portrait was among a fresh range of carte-de-visite being sold to the public, permission having been obtained from some of their London sitters.
In contrast, Mrs. Davidson’s portrait, though possessing many physical similarities in style and presentation, appears to have involved a more private arrangement.
As her later Parisien portrait by Alexandre Ken suggests, she was clearly attuned to the latest trends in portrait photography.
Evidence obtained for this blogpost suggests that she may have taken advantage of Downey’s presence in London in September 1860 to make her own statement about image and status.
Celebrations marking International Women’s Day earlier this month revealed an intriguing French portrait photograph from the 1860s.
In Britain, the National Trust shone a spotlight on Susan Davidson (1796-1877) calling her a “Victorian Wonder Woman.”
Mrs. Davidson’s crowning achievement is Allen Banks and Staward Gorge, a woodland estate in rural Northumberland to which she devoted more than three decades of her life.
To celebrate International Women’s Day, the NT’s Allen Banks and Staward Gorge page on Facebook posted this photograph of Mrs. Davidson.
It was captioned with her full married name, Susan Hussey Elizabeth Davidson, together with the credit “A. Ken. Phot.”
Alexandre Ken (1828-1874) was a photographer with a studio in the Monmartre district of Paris, suggesting a visit by Mrs. Davidson to the French capital to have her portrait taken.
She was not alone. Ken’s portraits of British society figures and aristocracy feature in the National Portrait Gallery, London, and he is described as being “active in the 1860s and 1870s.”
His image of Mrs. Davidson caught my attention as I had previously come across a portrait in a similar style during my ongoing research into the photography firm of W. & D. Downey.
Titled “Mrs. Davidson of Ridley Hall,” the credit in the bottom left cited “W. & D. Downey, South Shields” as the photographer.
This information enables the portrait to be dated prior to October 1861 when the Downey brothers, William and Daniel, first opened a studio in neighbouring Newcastle upon Tyne.
Both images successfully capture a woman, then in her sixties, who was evidently a force of nature, shaping and managing the large Ridley Hall estate.
Tomorrow (12th March) marks the 152nd anniversary of the birth of photographer and author Percy R. Salmon FRPS (1872-1959).
In 2022, with the support of the Royal Photographic Society, a short video about his life and career was produced to mark his 150th.
For more than six decades, Mr. Salmon was both a member and fellow of the RPS, sharing his knowledge and expertise through the medium of books, illustrated lantern slide lectures and articles.
2022 video produced by the Royal Photographic Society about Percy R. Salmon FRPS (1872-1959).
During his lifetime, several eminent photographers turned their lenses on Mr. Salmon as a subject.
Among them was H.D. (Henry Donald) Halksworth Wheeler FRPS (1878-1937) known professionally as Halksworth Wheeler.
His studio in Folkestone, Kent produced this signed print of Mr. Salmon, probably during the 1920s.
Due to its age, the image has slightly oxidised, but it is still possible to enjoy the artful pictorialist style that Halksworth Wheeler brought to his photography.
The men’s paths are likely to have crossed as active members of the RPS including the society’s annual exhibitions which featured their work in both 1908 and 1914.
Halksworth Wheeler’s eminence as a photographer is more widely reflected in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Over the weekend, a trip to the Glasshouse International Centre for Music (formerly Sage Gateshead) had a welcome photographic spin-off.
It offered an opportunity to look at Newcastle from across the River Tyne and see how much has changed since a stereographer captured the same scene in the 1860s.
Here’s that stereo from my collection. There is no identifying photographer or company credit on either front or verso.
From left to right, they are the Castle Keep with its crenellated battlements, the Greek Doric order Moot Hall opened as a courthouse in 1812 and St. Nicholas’ Church with its distinctive lantern tower.
On the quayside, a masted sailing ship is tied up alongside various smaller craft.
A dock crane is visible to the left and groups of people are huddled together amid wooden huts and stalls to the right.
The stereo, though difficult to date precisely, is similar in style and presentation to that of the Stephenson Memorial (unveiled in 1862) featured in a recent Pressphotoman blogpost (5th February 2024).
By way of comparison, here is a location photograph taken over the weekend from roughly the same position using a Samsung Galaxy phone.
View of Newcastle-upon-Tyne from the Glasshouse, Gateshead. Author’s photo. 2nd March 2024.
Still visible between the towers of the Tyne Bridge (opened in 1928) is St. Nicholas Church (now Cathedral), whilst the Castle Keep can also be glimpsed between the road and the curve of the metal girders above.
The Moot Hall, now a grade 1 listed building, is obscured by the bridge structure.
Down on the quayside, the sailing ships may have gone, but the buildings with their curved architectural sweep and topped by a white roof rotunda remain intact from the 1860s.
Much of the quayside area was devastated by a huge fire in 1854, so it is interesting to see buildings that survived, captured photographically around 160 years apart.
A new exhibition has just opened at the Photographers’ Gallery in London celebrating the career of photojournalist Bert Hardy (1913-1995).
Hardy is best-known for his work with the ground-breaking Picture Post and for images that still appear in newspapers, magazines and online.
What is exciting about the Photographers’ Gallery exhibition is that it offers an opportunity to see a range of photographs drawn from his entire career.
Promo video for “Bert Hardy: Photojournalism in War and Peace” at the Photographers’ Gallery, London.
One of the first Pressphotoman blogposts (15th December 2022) concerned The Picture Post Album, a copy picked up for a few pounds in a second-hand bookshop.
Published to mark the 50th anniversary of the paper’s founding, two of Hardy’s best-known shots were deployed front and back.
“Blackpool, 14th July 1951” by Bert Hardy. Hulton Archive/Getty Images.“The Forgotten Gorbals” by Bert Hardy. Hulton Archive/Getty Images.
Like a songwriter being asked in every interview about one or two of their hits, I wonder if Hardy ever tired of talking about those ‘classic’ shots of the women on Blackpool seafront and the young boys in Glasgow’s Gorbals?
The exhibition website features less well-known examples of his work, and anyone interested in photojournalism and social history will want to see the show in person before it closes on 2nd June 2024.
Fifty years ago tomorrow (20th February 1974), the Carpenters appeared at the Liverpool Empire during the British leg of their World Tour.
As a piece of music trivia, the significance of this anniversary lies only in the fact that it was my first pop/rock concert.
Memories of the occasion are sadly vague, though I do remember the support act was a Las Vegas-style comedy duo improbably named Skiles and Henderson.
Also, that I found myself in the front stalls thanks to a schoolfriend with a connection in the theatre’s box office.
As a result, I was within touching distance of Karen, Richard and their slick band of musicians as they celebrated “The Singles 1969-1973” reaching number 1 in the UK album chart.
What I didn’t realise until researching this blogpost was that a moment from their Liverpool visit had been captured by a local press photographer.
Backstage, Stephen Shakeshaft from the Liverpool Echo took this engaging photo of the brother-and sister duo.
Their casual but smart clothes suggest a photo shoot before they took to the stage for shows scheduled at 6.30pm and 8.30pm.
In the half century since, my answer to the question “what was your first pop/rock concert” has become a badge of pride.
The Carpenters music has stood the test of time and is a staple of radio and streaming around the globe.
Karen’s death in 1983 at the age of 32 is a tragedy that forms the backdrop to Lucy O’Brien’s latest book, “Lead Sister: The Story of Karen Carpenter.”
Recently published in paperback (Nine Eight Books £10.99), O’Brien seeks to capture what was special about a woman whose eating disorder has long overshadowed the story of “one of the greatest singers in popular music.”
Interestingly, the front cover of the book features an artist’s impression of Karen drumming while she sings, but nowhere among its 350+ pages will you find any photographs.
A sequence of images that captured her physical deterioration as the years went by would seem ill-judged in this context and undermine its focus on other neglected aspects of her life.
Looking at the press photo of the smiling couple taken backstage at the Liverpool Empire 50 years ago, I’m reminded how lucky I was to see the Carpenters at the top of their game.
A new exhibition opened over the weekend at Belsay Hall in Northumberland featuring work by the Turner Prize-nominated artist Ingrid Pollard.
“There is Light in the Fissures” features tree stumps and lumps of stone that form installations and interventions in Belsay’s spectacular Greek Revival house and quarry gardens.
Belsay was the brainchild of Sir Charles Miles Lambert Monck (1779-1867), who was a Whig MP during the early 19th century and also served as a magistrate.
Now in the care of English Heritage, the property that Monck shaped to mirror his own artistic vision has inspired Ingrid Pollard in her role as EH’s first visual art fellow.
Monck’s role in the creation of Belsay is celebrated on the English Heritage website in the “History of Belsay” section.
There, it uses this uncredited portrait photograph captioned “Sir Charles Monck in 1865 at the age of 86.”
“Sir Charles Monck in 1865 at the age of 86.” Taken from the English Heritage website for Belsay Hall, Castle and Gardens.
The website entry goes on: “He refused to have his portrait painted, but was interested in ‘the new medium of photography.’”
Given Monck’s enthusiasm, I wondered if it was possible to identify the photographer responsible for his portrait.
My research revealed a small ad placed in the Newcastle Daily Journal by “W. & D. Downey, Photographers, 9 Eldon Square, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.”
There “Sir Chas. M.L. Monck, Bart” featured amongst a list of well-known names in its forthcoming “Series of Portraits of Eminent Men.”
Small ad placed by W. & D. Downey for its “Series of Portraits of Eminent Men” including Sir Charles Monck. From British Newspaper Archive.
However, the ad’s dating of “March 4, 1862” in the bottom line did not align with the 1865 date given by English Heritage on its Belsay Hall website.
So was this a reference to the same Monck portrait?
Confirmation that it is one and the same comes from this 1908 reproduction of an engraving of Downey’s photograph of Monck that I recently added to my collection.
The same engraving features in the collection of the British Museum where it is attributed to Joseph Brown (1809-1887) “after a photograph by Downey” and dated to 1862 when it first appeared in Baily’s Magazine.
Preparations are well underway in the UK for events during 2025 to mark the 200th anniversary of railway passenger travel.
On 27th September 1825, the Stockton & Darlington Railway opened with passengers being pulled in carriages behind a steam locomotive designed by George Stephenson (1781-1848).
In his native North East of England, Stephenson’s achievements as inventor and engineer are memorialised in various buildings and plaques.
Perhaps the best-known is the Stephenson Memorial in the heart of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
It can be viewed today as you leave the city’s Central Station and is within a stone’s throw of the pioneering engineering works that bore Stephenson’s name.
When the statue was unveiled to the public in October 1862, photographers were on hand to record the moment for posterity.
At the base of the statue, the Newcastle Daily Journal identified three of the city’s photography firms together with their equipment, observing “Messrs. Downey, Warren and Laws – pursuing their peaceful and interesting vocation.”
The photograph below taken from an elevated position can be attributed to W. & D. Downey, who advertised prints for sale in various sizes the following day.
Another view of the Stephenson Memorial comes from this stereocard, which I recently added to my collection and which bears evidence of its age and frequent handling in a stereoscope.
The lamp standard (right of frame) is viewable in the Downey image above, though the metal railings appear to have replaced the wooden palisade that originally surrounded the statue.
Whilst there is no photographer’s stamp or credit, the verso does feature a slightly-faded sticker for “Allan” whose Newcastle business sold stereocards and carte-de-visites during this period.
After a week in which the health of King Charles III has hit the headlines, an article in the latest issue of The PhotoHistorian (No. 197/Winter 2023) sheds light on earlier media relationships with the monarchy.
In an essay titled “Photographers to Her Majesty,” Roger Taylor provides a fascinating insight into the relationship between photographers and Queen Victoria.
He describes how a system of Royal Warrants granted to approved companies proved difficult to enforce and, as a result, was widely abused.
Warrants were issued on the principle that “the tradesman must have supplied, on a regular basis, goods or services ordered and paid for by a department of the Royal Household.”
However, many businesses, not only photographers, falsely claimed royal patronage and displayed the royal arms without permission.
In reality, only 51 photography firms were granted Royal Warrants in the years 1849 to 1900, some on more than one occasion.
As a result, those operating without a warrant with its privileged access to royal personages faced a number of challenges to create photographs featuring the Queen and members of her family.
These are well described in an 1899 article written by PR Salmon, FRPS (1872-1959), details of whose life and career feature elsewhere on this website.
At the time, he was working as a travelling stereoscopic photographer for the 3D company Lévy et ses Fils of Paris, and filing reports as a journalist to the British press and trade papers.
In “With Queen and Camera at Cimiez” (British Journal of Photography, 21st April 1899), Salmon (using the pen-name ‘Richard Penlake’) described his attempts to photograph Queen Victoria during her annual visit to the South of France.
The brief from his French employer was to “stay one week and get what was possible,” however this proved a less than straightforward assignment.
To begin with, security was tight with sentries posted in the grounds and inside the Hotel Regina where the Queen was based.
According to Salmon’s account, photographers were more in fear of “Monsieur Paoli and his large corps of plain clothes officials, which includes some of the sharpest men from the detective force of Paris.”
Their modus operandi included wearing disguises and giving off an air of noncholant disinterest until anyone with a camera started behaving suspiciously.
Using a 7.5″ x 5″ (stereoscopic) hand camera, Salmon was advised by the Queen’s Courier in “a nicely worded letter” that photography was strictly forbidden in the Royal apartments and in the grounds.
Despite this, thanks to a permit obtained from the hotel manager, he was able to photograph in its grounds, where he had observed guests and visitors moving about freely.
This meant, he states: “I was able to add considerably to my stock of pictures, and, moreover, could get an excellent ‘pitch’ when the Queen left the hotel for her afternoon drives.”
Whilst PR Salmon was relying on his wits and ingenuity to obtain a royal photo, research for this piece has revealed that another stereographer was present during that week in Cimiez.
The difference between the two men was that the other was a Royal Warrant holder.
Edinburgh-born AL (Alexander Lamont) Henderson (1838-1907) ran a successful portrait photography business in the second half of the 19th century.
As revealed by this carte-de-visite verso, ‘A.L. Henderson’ operated studios at two locations in London endorsed by his impeccable royal credentials.
As a Royal Warrant holder, Henderson was also able to take advantage of other opportunities that arose from his privileged position.
In 1897, 3D giants Underwood & Underwood published his stereo of “Her Majesty Queen Victoria at Breakfast …” issued to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.
The image had actually been taken two years earlier during the Queen’s annual South of France sojourn, but was re-branded “in the 60th year of her reign” to cash in on the Jubilee celebrations.
Like PR Salmon, AL Henderson was photographically active during Queen Victoria’s stay at Cimiez during April 1899.
This news photo was published in London by the Penny Illustrated Paper and credited to “AL Henderson, Photographer Royal.”
Penny Illustrated Paper (22nd April 1899). From the British Newspaper Archive.
Though the photo did not feature the Queen herself, the accompanying report bore evidence of Henderson’s inside knowledge of the Royal Household.
It named the kilted attendants as Sandy Rankin and Willie Brown, who had been in the Queen’s service for 18 years and 5 years respectively, and Mr. Bullen, the groom, who had clocked up 17 years.
The donkey pulling the carriage was named as Zora, “an Egyptian, but born at Windsor,” whilst Turin, the small white dog (sat in the carriage) was a Pomeranian from Italy, and the collie, Rob Roy, (by the wall) was called Roy for short.
As Salmon was also working as a journalist and knew Henderson through their photographic activities, it maybe that the pair collaborated on the Penny Illustrated Paper report.
To conclude, photographs featuring photographers themselves tend to be the exception, so I was pleased to come across these images of AL Henderson and PR Salmon that were new to me.
Fleet Street titles led by the tabloid Daily Mirror had begun to employ their own staff photographers, but also relied upon agencies to meet the growing demand for illustrative material of all types.
Standard practice at the time was to credit the agency who supplied a news photo rather than its photographer.
As a result, identifying early press photographers and linking them to the images they produced is challenging for researchers.
One such figure that this blog has identified and who “had been associated with the London News Agency Photos, Ltd, for many years” was James Edward Ellam (1857-1920).
James’s speciality was stereoscopic or 3D photography whereby a single print taken from one half of a stereo negative was produced for press use.
This had been his approach since operating as an amateur stereographer in Yorkshire covering news events such as rail crashes.
Stereo of “Scotch Express” crash scene, Northallerton by J.E. Ellam, October 1894. Courtesy of Stephanie Richardson.
During September 2023, a Pressphotoman blogpost-a-day series explored 30 recently-discovered stereos that can be attributed to James Edward Ellam.
Many bear examples of his distinctive handwriting captured on copyright forms he filled out and which are held by the National Archives at Kew.
So you can imagine my excitement when a leading auction site recently offered two stereos branded “London News Agency Photos, Limited, Stereoscopic Photographers, 46, Fleet Street, E.C.”
Not only that, but both were captioned in James’s handwriting.
Reference to the “Battle of Malplaquet 1709” pointed to these stereos being taken during an event staged in June and July 1910 in the grounds of Fulham Palace, London.
The Army Pageant featured around 5,000 performers and The Times estimated that its 21 shows were witnessed by 100,000 people, though it incurred huge financial loses.
According to the Historical Pageants in Britain website, the event “featured a disparate selection of episodes that illustrated the development of military conflict and the British armed forces.”
One of these episodes was the Battle of Malplaquet during the War of the Spanish Succession.
In September 1709, an Anglo-Dutch-Austrian army of 100,000 men led by the Duke of Marlborough defeated a 90,000-strong French force at Malplaquet on the France/Belgium border.
The Army Pageant programme described how “Lottum’s blue-coated Prussians enter, followed by guns, and then Schulemberg’s white-coated Austrians.”
Looking at James’s stereos, they seemed to be from this part of the event, captured as a sequence by his 3D camera.
Given this, did the stereographer and his photo agency employer succeed in placing any prints from this assignment with Fleet Street’s illustrated newspapers?
Certainly, media interest in the event was considerable and publications including The Sphere, The Graphic and The Sketch captured the visual spectacle in page upon page of captioned photos.
But it was from a 4-page photo spread in the Illustrated London News (25th June 1910) that an interesting possibility emerged.
On a page headlined “Great Battles Re-Fought: From Malplaquet to Badajos,” one photo (top left, figure 1) was captioned “The Battle of Malplaquet … English troops capturing a French gun.”
“Great Battles Re-Fought: From Malplaquet to Badajos,” Illustrated London News (25th June 1910). From British Newspaper Archive.
At the bottom of the page, credits for the photographs were attributed to three agencies; “Sport and General, L.N.A., and Illustrations General.”
Was it possible then that James, working for London News Agency Photos (L.N.A.), was responsible for a photo credited to the agency and published by the Illustrated London News?
Placing one half of his stereo (left) alongside the Battle of Malplaquet photo (right) highlights both the clarity of the 3D image and the poorer quality of the half-tone photo.
However, what is noticeable is that the same line of trees is visible in the background of both shots.
Part of a stereo (left) and news photo from ILN (right), possibly by JE Ellam.
This visual evidence suggests that both shots were the work of a camera operator using the same position.
By placing James at the Army Pageant with his stereoscopic camera, is it also possible to credit him with other photographs used by the Illustrated London News in the same issue?
In a further full-page photo spread headlined “The Art of War: From the Brythons to the Conqueror,” London News Agency Photos (L.N.A.) was among four agencies credited with supplying the 8 images on view.
“The Art of War: From the Brythons to the Conqueror,” Illustrated London News (25th June 1910). From British Newspaper Archive.
Deciding which of the 8 was taken by James is impossible, though some of the shots do appear to have been composed with 3D in mind.
Another interesting point arising from this research is that London News Agency Photos promoted itself as being “stereoscopic photographers.”
By 1910, stereoscopic photography companies like Underwood & Underwood were already big players in the press photo market.
Indeed, James had worked for the Underwood company for several years prior to joining London News Agency Photos, so perhaps his new employer was hoping to secure a share of a growing market.
Tomorrow (16th January) marks the anniversary of the Hartley Pit Disaster in SE Northumberland, which claimed the lives of more than two hundred men and boys in 1862.
Photographically, the ‘catastrophe’ was recorded by the Newcastle firm of W. & D. Downey, who sent a selection of images taken at the pithead to Queen Victoria.
The firm’s celebrated photographs of William Coulson and his team of sinkers, who led the rescue efforts, plus mine owner Charles Carr and pit manager Joseph Humble now feature in the Royal Collection.
Twelve months ago, this blog presented new evidence raising doubts about the accepted dating of Downey’s Hartley photographs.
A few weeks after publishing this research, I was fortunate enough to see and handle a set of carte-de-visite published by Downey in the aftermath of the disaster.
They form part of the Mining Institute Collection housed at the Common Room in Newcastle and include images in addition to those sent to Queen Victoria.
These cdvs were included in my 2023 talk for the Royal Photographic Society’s Historical Group about the early years of the Downey company in the north-east of England.
You can view them at 31′ 30″ in the ‘1862’ section of the talk which includes a more detailed look at Downey’s photography of the Hartley Pit Disaster.
‘W. & D. Downey, Photographers: The Road to Balmoral’ for the Royal Photographic Society Historical Group. 15th March 2023.
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