Sepia Saturday 170: The Gamekeeper

I trust that Sepia Saturday readers will forgive my contribution this week having little in common with the photo prompt, except in the sense of two men loitering around a doorway. Actually there's not even a doorway in my photograph, although the sharp-eyed will note that there used to be one.

This cabinet portrait is the first photograph in an album given to me several years ago by Jack Armstrong, which is the subject of an ongoing (albeit not very recent) series of Photo-Sleuth articles devoted to documenting, researching and conserving old photograph albums:

• Researching an album from Cleveland, Ohio - Introduction
• Researching an album: (1) A digital photographic and scanned record
• Researching an album: (2) Documenting the album and photographs

Unidentified men outside house
Cabinet card by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne (Jack Armstrong Album)
The cabinet mount is glossy green card with no printed indication of the photographer or the location, which is unfortunate. Based on a geographical analysis conducted of the contents of the album - due to appear as the next article in the series mentioned above, in due course - and careful scrutiny of the building's brickwork style by fellow Sepian Nigel Aspdin, it seems likely that it was taken somewhere in the English Midlands, probably in north-east Staffordshire or southern Derbyshire.


Both men stand with their left hands on their hips and are wearing trousers, jacket, waistcoat and flat caps, superficially very similar, but on closer examination a number of differences are apparent setting them well apart. On the left, the slightly older, moustachioed man has a nicely cut jacket with matching waistcoat, a cravate and what appears to be a pair of check Tweed trousers (perhaps even the Prince of Wales check, commissioned first by Edward VII). His shoes are highly polished, his flat cap (possibly also made of Tweed) sits at a slight angle and he carries a cane in his right hand.


The more hirsute man on the right, however, has a thicker jacket and waistcoat to protect from him from the elements, and with plenty of pockets, well-worn, faded and creased working trousers tucked into calf-length gaiters, which in turn cover the upper parts of a pair of clean, but slightly duller working boots with thick soles. His flat cap, like the rest of his clothes, is unpatterned and rather utitlitarian, covering his hair and with the peak horizontally set above his eyes. His only concession to flair is a spotted cravate, just visible beneath a roughly trimmed beard.


Gamekeepers and dogs at Wemmergill, undated, probably c1900s
Image © Freda Longstaff and courtesy of Lunedale Heritage Image Archive
It occurred to me that the man on the left was probably a landowner, while the other, probably his employee, is most likely a gamekeeper. A dog - possibly a spaniel, although I'm no expert on breeds - the one accessory that a gamekeeper could not do without, sits patiently at his feet. Searching for images of Victorian and Edwardian gamekeepers on the net produced a brace of similar examples, including the group above, complete with a very similar breed of dog, but I remembered that I have another in my collection of images contributed to the archive for Derbyshire Photographers.


Unidentified gamekeeper
Carte de visite by Thomas Roberts of Albert Street, Derby
Image © and courtesy of John Bradley
This full length portrait from the early 1860s is almost certainly of a gamekeeper with his shotgun, sadly without a spaniel, but wearing similar working clothing except for a flat cap, replaced by a fairly low-crowned, practical top hat. His gaiters are almost identical to those worn by our putative gamekeeper in the first image. Unfortunately the subject this one is likewise not identified, leaving us to assume that he was employed on an estate somewhere near Derby.

Thomas Roberts, Derby's first resident photographer, operated studios in Victoria Street, Oakes' Yard, St James' Lane and Albert Street from 1843 intermittently until 1876. His studio was situated in Albert Street in the latter part of this period, from c.1862 onwards, giving us an earliest date for the portrait.


Unidentified subject with gun and dog, c.1865-1867
Carte de visite by Disdéri & Co, 70-72 Brook Street, Hanover Square W.
Finally I include an image that I've had on file for a while, having found it on eBay (although it was too pricey for me to consider purchasing). The carte de visite was produced by, and presumably taken at, the Westminster branch studio of renowned photographer Disdéri, who operated from this particular address (70,71,72 Brook Street) for a relatively short period of three years, providing a narrow date range for the portrait. Disdéri is credited with the introduction, in 1854, and later popularisation of the carte de visite format.

The young man pictured sitting rather unceremoniously on an what appears to be an upturned tub or half-barrel has all the trappings of a gamekeeper, including stout shoes, shoulder patches, a double-barrelled shotgun and a dutiful dog at his feet.


H.R.H. Albert Edward, Prince of Wales
(Left) Detail from portrait by Abdullah Freres, Constantinople, c1868
(Right) Carte de visite portrait by Sergei Levitsky, c1870
Images © The Royal Collection and The Di Rocco Wieler Private Collection
His face looked to me rather familiar, and I wondered if he was a young Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, later to become King Edward VII. Certainly he looks very similar to these two portraits of him taken in the late 1860s.


Carte de visite portraits of H.R.H. Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh
by (Top) James Russell & Sons, Chichester, 1866 (Lower left) S.B. Barnard, Cape Town, August 1867 (Lower right) Johnstone, O'Shannessy & Co., Melbourne, 1867-1868
Images © and courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery
However, while searching for images of the young Prince in the right time frame (1865-1867) I came across several of his younger brother, Prince Alfred, from May 1866 the Duke of Edinburgh and later the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. During the period in question he was serving as a Captain in the Royal Navy, in command of the frigate HMS Galatea, and sailed on a voyage around the world from January 1867 until June 1871, interrupted by a trip back to England after a failed assassination attempt in Sydney, Australia.

The National Portrait Gallery has a number of portraits of Prince Alfred, including the four above taken in various studios from 1866 to 1868. It is these portraits that have convinced me that the Disderi CDV is indeed of Prince Alfred, not really masquerading as a gamekeeper, but ready to go out for a spot of pheasant shooting.

To end this addition to my intermittent series of Victorian portraits depicting occupations, I'll leave you with a description of an encounter with a gamekeeper and his dog.

She was watching a brown spaniel that had run out of a side-path, and was looking towards them with a lifted nose, making a soft fluffy bark. A man with a gun strode swiftly, softly out after the dog, facing their way as if about to attack them; then stopped instead, saluted, and was turning downhill. It was only the new game-keeper, but he had frightened Connie, he seemed to emerge with such a swift menace ... He was a man in dark green velveteens and gaiters ... the old style, with a red face and red moustache and distant eyes. He was going quickly downhill. 'Mellors!' called Clifford.

D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover

References

Archival Gamekeepers, from Archival Clothing.

Andre Adolphe Eugene Disderi (1819-1889), from the photoLondon database.

Hirsch, Robert (2009) The Carte de Visite and the Photo Album (Chapter 4.5), in Seizing the Light: A Social History of Photography, Second edition, McGraw-Hill, reproduced on Luminous Lint.

Biography of and Photographs by Disdéri on Luminous Lint.

Sepia Saturday 73: An early daguerreotype of a Derby couple?

Three years ago David Lamb sent me these scans of what turned out to be the first, and as yet only, daguerreotype portrait from a Derby photographer that I have seen. It also happens to be one of the nicest early portraits of a couple that I've come across. The manner in which the daguerreotypist has seated and captured his subjects not just touching, but with their shoulders overlapping, the subtle tinting with which he has embellished the delicate surface of the copper plate, and despite their direct gaze into the cameras lens, give a warmth and intimacy that you don't often see in early portraits. To see what I mean, head over to the Library of Congress's large collection of daguerreotypes: of the 767 displayed online, only about twenty feature couples, including family groups, and I could only find one or two which even approach the feeling of familiarity of David's family portrait.


That the photographic medium is a thin copper sheet (measuring 65 x 80 mm or 2½" x 3¼" which is a 1/6th-plate) becomes evident when one turns it over, also revealing what are presumably fingerprints, possibly of the person who prepared and processed the photographic plate.


The copper photographic plate is housed behind a brass matte or finisher and a sheet of glass, all within a wooden case which has a patterned embossed leatherette-style finish. The presence of a catch on the right hand side indicates that, in spite of it not appearing to be damaged, only half of the case survives. The cover would have been of similar shape, probably lined internally with silk or velvet, and possibly with a maker's mark.


The main reason that the images have been laguishing in my email inbox for so long is that I was really in need of some extra clues to help me proceed with its evaluation. My knowledge of clothing styles, particularly in the 1840s and 1850s, when the daguerreotype was at its most popular in the United Kingdom, is meagre. From what I can tell, the narrow lapels on the man's coat, together with her lace collar, neck brooch and wide sleeves, suggest that it was taken in the 1840s rather than the 1850s, but I can't be any more precise than that. If any readers can tell me more about the clothing, I'd be most grateful.


There is a mark stamped into the front of the plate, in the top right hand corner: "NP: 40" appears from the list of daguerreotype plate marks on the Historic Camera web site, to refer to a French firm operating "c.1840," but I've been able to find out nothing further about the company, how long it was operating, etc. Many of the English daguerreotypists imported their plates from France, so this does not preclude the plate from having been exposed in England. I understand that the number "40" referred to the purity of the plate, i.e. 1 part silver to 40 parts copper.


Timeline of Early Derby Photographers 1843-1863
(click image for a more detailed version)
© 2011 Brett Payne
As described in David Simkin's piece on early Derby photographers on my web site, and shown in the diagrammatic timeline (above), initial attempts by John Johnson and Thomas Roberts to operate daguerreotype studios in Derby between July 1843 and September 1845 were hampered by Richard Beard's financially restrictive and rigidly enforced patent agreements. No records of any further daguerreotypes taken in Derby have been found, until Marcus Guttenberg paid a brief visit in September 1852.

The expiry of Beard's country-wide patent in August 1853, and the almost coincident invention of the collodion positive process by Frederick Scott Archer, resulted in an explosion in photographer numbers in Derby from 1854 onwards. From a total of two practitioners at the end of that year, the number had ballooned to nine by the end of the decade, but there is no indication that any of them used the daguerreotype process. From advertisements in newspapers and trade directories of the time, the evidence points rather to calotypes, albumen prints and collodion positives being the media of choice in the 1850s and, after the popularisation of cartes de visite in the early 1860s, a rapid conversion to that format by about 1863.

However, it would be dangerous to assume from this data that Derby residents were unable to have their portraits captured by daguerreotype between late 1845 and mid-1852. As shown by an 1843 advertisement in The Derby Mercury, the successive occupants of the Bromley House portrait studio in nearby Nottingham, which operated almost continuously from late 1841 through the 1840s and 1850s, were not slow to look for potential customers in neighbouring towns. Nottingham was only a short train trip, or coach ride, away.

It's always important to record and investigate the provenance of a photograph. David wrote:

This photo was in a box that my father shoved at me, to see if I was interested. Since most of the photos were of my mother's family - and since this couple bears no resemblance to any of the photos of have for my father's (Scottish) side - it would seem most likely that this couple are connected to my mother. Many of the photos were of the Holmes family, so I suspect this one is too.

Ancestors of Reuben Holmes (1855-1929) & Ellen Alton (1856-1937)
Click image for a readable version
David has written about his Holmes family from Derby on his web page, from which - together with a little research of my own - I was able to extract sufficent details to draw up a chart showing the first two generations of ancestors of Reuben Holmes (1855-1929) and his wife Ellen Alton (1856-1937). I should point out that my deductions differ slightly from David's, in that I have a different set of maternal grandparents for Reuben.

There are seven different couples who could conceivably be the subjects of the portrait, as follows:

(A) John HOLMES (1826-1895) + Elizabeth HAWORTH (1829-1890)
(B) William ALTON (1826-1897) + Grace SHAW (1816-1897)
(C) Grace SHAW (1816-1897) + George GREAVES (d.1849)
(D) William HOLMES (c1807-1885) + Sarah TWIGG (1803-1856)
(E) James HAWORTH (d. bef 1841) + Mary SLATER (c1788-1841)
(F) Thomas ALTON (1790-1872) + Hannah TIMPERLEY (c1791-1875)
(G) John SHAW (1773-c1850s) + Sarah (c1771-c1850s)

The couple look to me to be in their late 30s or early to mid-40s. If one assumes the broadest possible date for the daguerreotype, i.e. that it was taken some time in the 1840s or 1850s, then the parents of both Reuben and Ellen (A & B) can be ruled out as being too young. Ellen's mother and her first husband (C) could have visited a studio prior to 1849, but she would have been in her late 20s or early 30s, again too young. Both of Reuben's maternal grandparents (E) died before the photographic studios were first established. Ellen's paternal grandparents (F), although still alive till the 1870s, would already have been in their 50s by the time daguerreotypes were available. Her maternal grandparents (G), who died in the 1850s, would have been even older.

The only candidates remaining are Reuben's paternal grandparents William HOLMES and Sarah TWIGG. Born in 1803, she was slightly older than her husband, and would have been in her early 40s when John Johnson and Thomas Roberts operated Derby's first photographic studio in Victoria Street. William Holmes was a coachman for much of his life, settling in Derby in the late 1830s. The fact that he is also described as a gardener in some census records suggests to me that he may have worked for a member of the landed gentry, rather than on a coach which ferried paying passengers between towns. It is quite conceivable that his employer paid for this portrait, as even a 1/6th-plate daguerreotype in the 1840s was an expensive item. Thomas Roberts advertises his "small size, two sitters on same plate" with "case, glass and mat inclusive" for £1 6s. in 1844. Using average earnings, the following estimator gives an equivalent value of over £1000 today. Looking at it from slightly different point of view, a coachman might expect to earn between 1 and 2 pounds a week in the 1840s.

However, as I've pointed out previously, they could alternatively have visited a studio further afield, perhaps in Nottingham. It is also woth reiterating that David has not completely ruled out the portrait being from another branch of his family, just suggested that it is unlikely. The possibilities are of course endless, the probabilities much less so.

Alan Burnett's prompt for this week's Sepia Saturday, for which this article is a submission, features an aged couple holding hands, photographed in Sweden in 1932. I hunted through my own collection for a similar shot that I felt would be appropriate, but the only image I could find was an ambrotype that I presented in a previous article (here). Searching further afield yielded similarly few early images of couples holding hands, which I suppose is understandable considering it was not generally considered an appropriate pose amongst most Victorian photographers. Would Mr and Mrs Samuelsson, of Stigåsa, Småland, Sweden have been bold enough to hold hands (and what enormous hands they are!) when they visited the photographer's studio at the time of their presumed wedding around 1890-ish, or did old age bring with it a good deal more daring?

Head off to Sepia Saturday now for a browse, and see how many more daring couples you can find.

References

Coe, Brian (1976) The Birth of Photography: The story of the formative years, 1800-1900, London: Spring Books, 144p, ISBN 0600562964.

Heathcote, Bernard V. & Heathcote, Pauline F. (2001) Pioneers of Photography in Nottinghamshire 1841-1910, Nottinghamshire County Council, 62p, ISBN 0902751387.

Payne, Brett (2008) Thomas Roberts (1804-1885), one of Derby's first photographers, Photo-Sleuth, 18 May 2008.

Simkin, David (2004) The First Derby Daguerreotypists, 1842-1844, on Derbyshire Photographers & Photographic Studios.

Victorian Society, from Census Helper: Victorian Life.

Locating Derby's first photographic studio in Victoria Street

While researching the career of early Derby photographer Thomas Roberts, featured in a previous Photo-Sleuth article, I was keen to find out whether the building which housed his first studio still existed. Roberts had taken over the premises used for the same purpose a few months earlier by Derby's pioneer daguerreotypist John Johnson, advertised as being the "rooms adjoining the Athenaeum," in Victoria Street. Derby resident and keen fellow photo-sleuther, Nigel Aspdin, offered to go and photograph the area for me.


The northern side of Victoria Street, Derby, April 2008
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin
Although the weather did its best to thwart Nigel's attempts, as it started to hail while he was taking the first shots, he did a great job. The white walled building on the right hand side of the photo is the Athenaeum, referred to in Roberts' advert. To the immediate right of the Athenaeum (not shown in this photo) is the building housing the Royal Hotel, which was already in existence by 1843. The phrases "next the Athenaeum" and "adjoining the Athenaeum" used in Roberts' adverts must therefore mean immediately to the left of the Athenaeum building.


The entrance to the Derby Tramways Office, April 2008
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin
The brick building to the left of the Athenaeum, in the centre of the photograph, is currently occupied, at least on the ground floor, by a Post Office. It was built as the Victoria Street Tramways Office in 1904, to a design by Alexander MacPherson "in the Tudor style made popular during the Arts and Crafts movement," and served as the central terminus for the Derby Tramways Company for three decades. [Source: Wikepedia]


I am very grateful to Ann Hunt for this rather nice image of a coloured postcard of Victoria Street, Derby, produced from a photograph which was taken looking in an easterly direction towards the intersection with St. Peter's Street. The newly built Tramways Office (the postcard has a postmark dated 17 April 1907) and the Athenaeum are on the left. The postcard also features several horse drawn carts and carriages, two of Derby's electrified trams and even a motor car.

As the current Tramways building only appeared on this spot in 1904, I deduced that if I could find a photograph of this part of town prior to the turn of the century, it might show the building which housed Thomas Roberts' old photographic studio. However, further investigations revealed a far more complicated story.


Culverting over the old Markeaton Brook, on Victoria Street at the site of the old St Peter's Bridge, during road renovations in July 2004
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin
In 1839, soon after that portion of the Markeaton Brook between St Peter's Bridge and St James' Lane had been culverted over to form a wide street, Brookside (see photo above), the Derby Athenaeum Company erected a building over some 245 feet of street frontage towards the Cornmarket and Brookside. The stated intention at the time was to include "a Post Office, an Hotel, & an Edifice for various Public Objects, to be called The Athenaeum." [The Derby Mercury, dated 15 Nov 1837] In fact, the Derby Town and County Museum and Natural History Society were moved into the building in late 1840, into "a room ... extending nearly the whole length of the building." [The Derby Mercury, dated 13 Feb 1839 & 9 Dec 1840] Brookside was subsequently renamed Victoria Street, for obvious reasons, in August 1839 [The Derby Mercury, dated 21 Aug 1839].


The Athenaeum, Royal Hotel & Post Office, and The Derby & Derbyshire Banking Company
Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin
The print of the engraving depicted in the image shown above, which currently graces the wall of the Aspdin home, unfortunately appears to be undated. However, it is probably a fairly accurate depiction of how the Athenaeum and Royal Hotel looked soon after they were built. Both are still clearly recognisable in a more recent photograph by Andy Savage.


This photograph of a "horse bus in Victoria Street about 1880, with the Athenaeum Club behind and the porch of the Royal Hotel on the right" by an unidentified photographer, was reproduced in Harry Butterton's Victorian Derby: A Portrait of Life in a 19th-century Manufacturing Town (publ. 2006, Breedon Books, ISBN 978-1859835333). If this photograph really was taken c. 1880, and unfortunately there are few clues to help date it, then we can say that the 1904 Tramways Office was preceded by a similar multi-storey brick building. The engraving shown above, almost certainly produced before the turn of the century, and perhaps substantially before then, clearly depicts a three-storey building immediately to the left of the Athenaeum, which must have preceded the 1904 Tramways office.


An Ordnance Survey map of this part of Derby, a portion of which is included in the image above, shows the buildings extant in 1881. The building situated on the corner of Victoria Street and St James' Street, marked as the "General Post Office," was built in 1869, shortly after the widening of what was then called St James' Lane had taken place in 1867 and 1868 [The Derby Mercury, dated 1 Jan 1868 & 7 Apr 1869]. To the right of the GPO is the Post Office Hotel & Restaurant, which was built c. 1875, to replace an older building housing the Spotted Horse Inn. Immediately to the right of the hotel is an alley leading to an internal yard. Between the alley and the Athenaeum are the two buildings which must have preceded the 1904 Tramways Office.


Victoria Street, Derby (North Side), 1891
Image from Kelly's 1891 Trade Directory
© and courtesy of the Derbyshire Family History Society
Clues to the identities of these two buildings can be found in contemporary trade directory listings. The extract shown above is from the 1891 edition of Kelly's, while that shown below is from an edition a decade earlier.


Victoria Street, Derby (North Side), 1881
Image from Kelly's 1881 Trade Directory
© and courtesy of the University of Leicester's Historical Directories
In 1881 the left-hand building was occupied by John Thomas Sarsfield, a cork cutter, but by 1891 the Derby Tramways Company Limited had taken it over, and were using it as a manager's office and waiting room. Samuel Whitaker (later S.W. & Sons), an accountant, was at number 4, the building on the right, and he was secretary of the Derbyshire Permanent Building, Investment & Land Society.


Victoria Street, Derby (North Side), 1874
Image from Wright's 1874 Trade Directory
© and courtesy of the University of Leicester's Historical Directories
The listing for Victoria street in Wright's 1874 trade directory shows Mr. Whitaker and the Derbyshire Building Society at number 4, while another cork cutter, Mrs. Jemima Willisford, was living at 4A, presumably the left-hand building.


Victoria Street, looking east, taken by Richard Keene in 1870
Image © Derby Museums & Art Gallery Ref. DBYMU.L138, in Keene's Derby, edited by Maxwell Craven
This photograph looking eastwards down Victoria Street, with the Athenaeum building on the left, was taken by Richard Keene, and appears in Maxwell Craven's excellent book, "Keene's Derby" (publ. 1993 by Breedon Books, ISBN 1-873626-60-6). Craven dates the photograph as having been taken prior to the demolition of Thorntree House, shown in the centre of the photo, in 1870. The existence of the single-storey offices of the Derbyshire Building Society, immediately to the left of the Athenaeum, lets us pinpoint the date of the photograph even more accurately. The Society, although it had been created in 1859, only moved to the offices at 4 Victoria Street from 14 Irongate in early 1870, as shown in an advertisement in The Derby Mercury dated 23 March 1870.

Harrod & Co.'s 1870 Directory of Derbyshire (Historical Directories), probably compiled in late 1869, shows a solicitor Charles Thomas Reynolds Dewe, Esq. at number 4 Victoria Street. He presumably used the offices which would be taken over by Whitaker the following year. Similar listings in Harrison's 1860 and White's 1857 directories show that Dewe had occupied the premises for at least 13 years. Searching through advertisements in The Derby Mercury show that he moved there from Irongate in 1846 or early 1847.


This portion of an 1852 map of Derby shows the layout of Victoria Street prior to the redevelopment of St James' Lane in the mid-1860s. While the topography of St James' Lane and the western end of Victoria Street are substantially different from that shown in the later 1881 map, the buildings at 4 and 4A do not appear to be significantly different, apart from the absence of a building at the back of 4A, in the yard to the right of the alley. The photographs taken by Keene in 1870 and an unidentified photographer c. 1880 (see above), however, suggests that single-storey building had been replaced by the 1880s.

Samuel Bagshaw's 1846 History, Gazetteer and Directory of Derbyshire shows a dentist, Henry Jordan, operating from number 4 Victoria street. It appears from adverts in The Derby Mercury that he was at this address from at least May 1845, initially sharing the premises with J.T. Hassall, Dispensing Chemist & Star Life Assurance Officer, who had been there since at least late October 1844. It seems likely, therefore, that Roberts shared the rooms with Hassall and Jordan.


Detail of 1870 photograph of Victoria Street by Richard Keene (see above)
Was the building occupied by The Derbyshire Permanent Building Investment and Land Society (the name is almost visible on the lower sign, to the right of the door) at number 4 Victoria Street in 1870 is the same one that was used for Derby's first photographic studio? Unless evidence can be found that some building took place on this site between 1844 and 1870, it seems likely. I would appreciate hearing from any readers who might be able to add to the story. (Email)

Thomas Roberts (1804-1885), one of Derby's first photographers

The American daguerreotypist John Johnson (1831-1871) briefly operated a studio in Victoria Street, Derby for a few weeks during the summer of 1843, under license from the patent holder Richard Beard [Source: A Faithful Likeness - The First Photographic Portrait Studios in the British Isles, 1841 to 1855, by Bernard & Pauline Heathcote, self publ. 2002]. However, it was Derby stationer and bookseller Thomas Roberts (1804-1885) who appears to have made the first attempt at operating a permanent photographic studio in the town. Roberts was born in Derby in 1804 and, after his marriage there in 1829, worked there as a printer. He and his wife Harriet had six children between then and 1844. The census of June 1841 [Source: Indexed census enumerators' images from Ancestry] shows him living in St James' Lane, Derby St Peter, and still described as a printer.

After Johnson had moved on to Blackpool by September 1843, the first contemporary evidence of a photographer working in Derby is an advertisement which appeared in The Derby Mercury [Source: The British Library, courtesy of Gale Databases] on 28 February 1844.


This announced that "proprietors of [the] photographic establishment, Victoria Street, Derby," unfortunately unnamed, would be "reducing the prices of their portraits, so as to place them within the reach of all ..." and included a list of these prices. It seems likely, however, that this was Thomas Roberts, as a very similar advertisement appeared in The Derby Mercury just over three months later on 5 June 1844, with prices further reduced, and this time providing his name.


It seems likely from the wording of the February 1844 advert that it had already been open for some months, perhaps even since Johnson's departure. This is supported by a claim on a mid-1860s carte de visite (see below) produced by Roberts of an 1843 date of establishment of the business.


View Larger Map
He did not take the portraits in his bookshop, which was situated at number 3 St James' Lane, but set up a studio in the same premises around the corner that had been occupied by Johnson in the summer of 1843. When he advertised again in The Derby Mercury on 25 September and 30 October 1844, he boasted that he was now "the sole proprietor of the patent for the taking of photographic likenesses in Derbyshire," and had "taken the rooms next the Athenaeum, Victoria Street, Derby ... near the Royal Hotel." The exact location of the studio will be dealt with in a susequent article.


In May the following year, Roberts was still taking portraits of the "nobility, clergy, gentry, and the public in general." His advert in The Derby Mercury on 28 May 1845, however, appears to give mixed messages.


He has a rather nice engraving of a photographer with a distinguished client in his stylishly furnished studio, and states that he had recently renovated his rooms, "with the latest improvements, and in a style not to be surpassed by any in the kingdom." However, the statement that the studio would be "open for a short time only" suggests that he might have been reconsidering the viability of the business.


Indeed, a few months later on 10 September 1845, Roberts inserted what is likely to have been his last advertisement for his daguerreotype studio in The Derby Mercury.


He stated that he would be "declining the photographic business," but would continue taking portraits at the Mechanics' Institution, Wardwick for a further fortnight until the 29th September. He would obviously relinquish his lease on the rooms on Victoria street from 13 September, but intended to "continue to carry on his newspaper, periodical, and bookselling business as usual, in St. James' Lane, Corn-market," which he obviously found far more remunerative.

This was a common experience of early daguerreotypists, who obtained licenses from Richard Beard (the sole patentee of the daguerreotype process in England and Wales) under conditions which would often prove financially disastrous. The agreements usually involved a high initial payment to Beard, followed by the remission to him of a large proportion of the proceeds of the business. Beard himself had made huge profits from a chain of studios in London, where there was a ready supply of wealthy clientele. [Source: Richard Beard (1801-1885) in A History of Photography by Robert Leggatt] The licensees, however, found it far more difficult to find as many customers in the provinces, particularly under such restrictive financial arrangements.

In the case of Edward Holland, who purchased a license to use the daguerreotype process in certain specific parts of Yorkshire and Derbyshire, including Buxton and Bakewell, in November 1842, the financial arrangements amounted to a license fee of £500 and 15% of all his takings from the sale of daguerreotype portraits. As a result, Holland was forced to abandon his photographic career in July 1843, before he had even reached Derbyshire. [Source: The First Derby Daguerrotypists, 1842-1844 by David Simkin] Although there is no direct evidence to support this, it seems likely that Roberts experienced similar difficulties, hence preferring to concentrate on his bookselling business.

The patent rights of Beard's British Patent No 8194 expired on 14th August 1853. At around the same time the wet collodion process, invented by Frederick Scott Archer (1813-1857) in 1848, but popularised in the early 1850s, and most importantly patent-free, resulted in an explosion of photographic activity all over the United Kingdom, including Derbyshire. A number of photographers, including James Brennan, Edmund Stowe, Richard Smith, William Seville, James Wilson and E.N. Charles, established themselves in Derby in 1854 and 1855. Kelly & Co.'s Post Office Directory of Derbyshire & Nottinghamshire for 1855 (from the University of Leicester's Historical Directories), presumably compiled in late 1854, shows only Brennen and Stowe working as photographists in Derby.

Thomas Roberts is listed as a bookseller & news agent at 3 St. James' Lane in the same directory, so it is likely that he only returned to the photographic trade in 1855 or 1856. Certainly by 1857, when Francis White & Co.'s History, Gazetteer and Directory of the County of Derby (transcribed and presented online by Neil Wilson) was compiled, in addition to his newsagency in St James' Lane, he was operating as a photographic artist in Oake's Yard (between Green Lane and St Peter's Street), presumably offering ambrotype portraits. Harrison's 1860 trade directory and the census of 7 April 1861 once again describe Roberts, still living at 3 St James' Lane, merely as a printer, compositor and newsagent/newsvendor, so it is not clear how long the Oake's Yard studio remained in operation.


This carte de visite portrait of a young man was taken by Thomas Roberts at studio premises in Albert Street, probably in the mid- to late 1860s. The first documentary record of this address being occupied by Roberts is Harrod & Co.'s 1870 Postal & Commercial Directory of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland & Staffordshire (Historical Directories), which also lists his newsagency in premises at "Morledge Bridge." In 1867 and 1868, the entire length of St James' Lane was demolished and redeveloped, which is almost certainly the reason for Roberts' move. It is also likely that the newly built shops on the broad thoroughfare which was now called St James' Street attracted a higher rent than that which Roberts had paid previously.

The census of 2 April 1871, also showing him living on the Morledge (next to the Old Boat Inn), is the only one in which he describes himself only as a photographer - the natural assumption is that this was now his primary means of income, but this may not have been the case. Three years later, C.N. Wright's 1874 Directory of South Derbyshire included entries for him as a newsagent on the Morledge, and as a photographer at his Albert Street premises, on the southern side of the road between the Derby Co-operative Society Stores and the Prince's Street corner, and with a new stall at the Market Hall, selling books and stationery.


By early January 1876, however, Thomas Roberts had decided to quit the portrait business for good, and instructed auction house Messrs. J. & W. Heathcote to dispose of the studio and all of its contents [Source: Advertisement in The Derby Mercury, dated 12 January 1876].

Albert-street, Derby. To photographers, gardeners, and others. Messrs. J. and W. Heathcote have received instructions from Mr. Roberts, to sell by auction, upon the premises adjoining the Co-operative Stores, Albert-street, Derby, on Thursday, Jan. 13, 1876, at 11 o'clock precisely, a photographic studio, well adapted for a Greenhouse. It contains 10 frames, glazed with 21 oz. glass, 6ft. by 3 ft. 4 in., and 6 frames 3 ft. 6 in. by 3 ft. 3 in., besides various other lights, with wood floor, and part sides, measuring 26 ft. long by 10 ft. wide. Also several Photographic Instruments, including multum in parvo, pedestal vase, full plate lense, half plate ditto., quarter plate ditto, with camera complete, rolling machine 17 in. with polished plate, stove piping, and other effects. The whole to be sold without reseve, the land being wanted for building purposes immediately. Auction Offices, Albert-street, Derby.

The description of the studio suggests that it had originally been purpose-built, but it was advertised as also being suitable for use as a greenhouse! It is not known what became of the studio, but there doesn't appear to have been another one in Albert Street until the 20th Century.

The census of 3 April 1881 shows Roberts living with his family at the premises of the newsagent's shop, situated on the north-eastern side of the Morledge, at Tenant Street Bridge. He is described, once again, merely as a newsagent. The 1881 edition of Kelly's trade directory (published on microfiche by the Derbyshire Family History Society) confirms that he was running the news agency from the shop on the east side of the Morledge, as well as listing him as a bookseller & stationer at Market Hall.

Thomas Roberts died at Derby on 2 December 1885. His widow Harriet continued the bookselling business at the Market Hall stall, helped by a grand-daughter, while her two daughters Elizabeth and Jane ran the newsagents shop at Morledge until at least 1895. Harriet died in Derby in 1900.