Striking Likenesses: George White (1810-1880), from Silhouettist to Photographer

Auguste Edouart, self portrait, 1843
Silhouette, Lithograph on paper
Image © National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Options available for preserving a likeness of yourself for posterity in the pre-photographic era of Georgian England were limited, unless you were wealthy enough to commission a portrait, life size or miniature. A cheaper alternative was to have a silhouette portrait either cut from black paper or painted. In fact the name itself implied a low price. French finance minister Etienne de Silhouette imposed severe economic austerity measures during the Seven Years War, and his surname came to signify anything that was done on the cheap. Auguste Edouart (1789-1861) was probably the most widely celebrated silhouettist of his time, establishing his reputation first in London and then touring England, Scotland, the United States and France.


Advertisement by William Seville, Lancaster, 1824
from Jackson (1911)
I have written previously of Mancunian William Seville (1797-1866), who made the transition from an active career cutting silhouette portraits, spanning three decades, to an arguably less successful spell taking collodion portraits (ambrotypes) at Derby in the mid- to late 1850s. Edward Foster of Derby was also a prolific artist of this genre. After travelling widely throughout England and painting silhouettes from 1809 until at least 1838, he turned to the compilation and publication of educational books and charts in the 1840s. Although Foster apparently never made the move to photographer, there is evidence that he appreciated the value of the carte de visite as a means of self promotion.


Handbill by Mr. G. White of Rose Hill, c.1850-1855
Image © Derby Local Studies Library and courtesy of Michael Spencer
Another Derbyshire-born profilist - a term commonly in use before Edouart popularised the eponymous "silhouette" - was George White. Although silhouettes cut by one or more artists named White, together with various trade labels, have been been documented by Jackson (1982) and McKechnie (1978), his true identity has not previously been established. I have known of George White's photographic exploits (Payne 2008a) for a couple of years, but had not appreciated his connection with silhouette portraiture, until I spotted the following in his advertising handbill:

G. WHITE will also take his BRONZED AND SHADED LIKENESSES, from the plain bust to the highly finished whole length figure. LIKENESSES COPIED. Keeps constantly a variety of suitable Frames for the Daguerreotype Portraits and Paper Cuttings.

Although it doesn't refer to them as profiles or silhouettes, that is what these "bronzed and shaded likenesses" were. I have previously demonstrated (Payne 2008b) that this Mr. G. White, who spent a brief period cutting profiles and taking daguerreotype portraits in Chesterfield during the early to mid-1850s, is the same person as the George White (1810-1880) who operated a photographic studio at 1 Queen's Terrace, Adelaide Street, Blackpool from 1849 to 1869 (Jones, 2004).


Trade label: "Cut with scissors at White's," undated
Image © and courtesy of Peggy McClard
McKechnie lists several trade labels on photographs and profiles, of which this one from 1855 is typical:

Photographic Portraits, Paper Cuttings, &c. Taken by Mr. White at his Gallery (daily), Queen's Terrace, opposite the Royal Hotel, Blackpool. Likenesses faithfully copied. Open from 7 am until 7 in the evening.

It is clear that the examples described by McKechnie and Jackson (1982), all apparently dating from the early 1850s, are likely to have been by the same George White.

George was born in 1810 in the Derbyshire village of Winster, near Matlock, the second of eight children of James White (1775-1854) and Elizabeth Hodgkinson. He was baptised on 28 December 1810 at the parish church of St John the Baptist. His family moved to Chesterfield between 1814 and 1817, where James worked as a gardener. Little further is known about George White's teenage years, his education or early adulthood, until his marriage at Duffield in 1834 to Ann Melbourne (1808-1895), daughter of a Belper nail manufacturer.


The Manchester Times and Gazette, 26 September 1835
A year later he opened a shop at number 20, Piccadilly, Manchester in September 1835, offering to "cut likenesses of ladies, gentlemen, and children; dogs, horse, &c." for prices ranging from 2/6 to 10 shillings.


The Preston Chronicle, 23 April 1836
He remained there for seven months, and then moved to Preston where he occupied a shop at number 128 Fishergate. His prices were similar, ranging from one to five shillings, depending on whether the likenesses were full length, half length or busts, plain, shaded or elegantly bronzed. He no longer offered sittings for horses or dogs - perhaps it was too tricky to keep them still, even for three minutes. By mid-June he had built up a collection of "likenesses of many well-known individuals of [the] town", which were for sale and on display in his shop window. He announced that he would shortly be taking up engagements in Southport and Blackpool, where he would cater to visitors during the bathing season.


Silhouette of young girl by White, undated
Image © and courtesy of Peggy McClard
A series of newspaper advertisements suggest by their wording that White made regular visits to Preston and Lancaster from 1836 to 1839. He probably also worked in other Lancashire towns, although evidence for these has been elusive. There is also a curious dearth of information about White's activities during the 1840s. By June 1841, he and his wife were in Bispham, north of Blackpool. Living them was George's younger brother James, aged 15 and described in the census as an artist's apprentice. Perhaps they were preparing themselves for the forthcoming summer season, although the great tourism boom was still to arrive, with the railroad, after 1846.

The next sighting of George White is an 1849 entry in Gillian Jones' compilation, Lancashire Professional Photographers, which shows him with premises at number 1, Queen's Terrace, Blackpool in that year. However, it is not clear if he was already working as a photographer by that time, since Mannex & Co's History, Topography, and Directory of Westmorland for 1851 shows him merely as an artist and lodging house keeper. He was obviously still travelling to find business, because the 1851 Census shows him in the village of Church, near Accrington, while his wife and nine month-old son remained at the house in Blackpool.


Chesterfield Town Hall, Rose Hill, Chesterfield
Image © Alford and courtesy of Panoramio
The handbill which advertised his services in Chesterfield was probably ordered from Chesterfield printer John Roberts in the early 1850s. Rose Hill - now occupied by the grand Chesterfield Town Hall building, shown above - was where his parents lived, at least until his father's death in 1854.


Portrait of unidentified elderly man, c. mid-1860s
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
By April 1861 he had returned to his family in Blackpool, where he described himself as an artist. The carte de visite portrait shown above was probably taken in the early to mid-1860s in his studio at 1 Queen's Terrace, Adelaide Street. The last directory entry noted by Jones was in 1869, and on census night April 1871 he described himself as a retired artist. Since late 1869 their address had been 23 Adelaide Street, although it is not clear whether they had moved or the street had simply been renumbered.


"G WHITE PHOTO BLACKPOOL"
Blind stamp from front of carte de visite
George White died at Blackpool on 23 March 1880, aged 69, leaving his widow Ann and son Frederick George White, a banker's clerk.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Peggy McClard for providing information about White's career as a silhouettist, and for kindly giving me permission to reproduce the wonderful image of her White silhouette. If you're interested in silhouettes and other folk art, I strongly recommend visiting Peggy's web site, Peggy McClard Antiques. I'm grateful also to Michael Pritchard and Ian Leith for their lookups, to Ann Halford for information about the Melbourne family of Belper, and to Dawn Scotting for her work on Winster families. I'd also like to thank Mike Spencer, who spotted the handbill amongst the archives at the Derbyshire County Record Office, and sent me a photocopy, thus sparking off the whole quest in the first place.

References

1841-1911 UK Census Collection, England & Wales National Probate Calendar and England & Wales BMD Index from Ancestry.

Anon (1835) Likenesses cut with scissors, in three minutes (Advertisement, dated 25 Sep 1835), The Manchester Times and Gazette, 26 September 1835.

Anon (1836a) Striking likenesses cut with scissors, in three minutes (Advertisement), The Preston Chronicle, 23 April 1836.

Anon (1836b) Likenesses, The Preston Chronicle, 18 June 1836.

Anon (1838a) Likenesses cut with scissors (Advertisement), The Preston Chronicle, 13 October 1838.

Anon (1838b) Likenesses cut with scissors (Advertisement), The Lancaster Gazette and General Advertiser, 1 December 1838.

Anon (1839) Likenesses cut with scissors (Advertisement), The Preston Chronicle, 12 October 1839.

Anon (1855) Slater's Directory of Lancashire, from Ancestry.

Halford, Ann (n.d.) Melbourne Tree, Ann & John's Family Histories.

Heathcote, Bernard & Pauline (2002) A Faithful Likeness - The First Photographic Portrait Studios in the British Isles, 1841 to 1855, publ. by the authors (courtesy of Ian Leith)

Jackson, Emily Nevill (1911) The History of Silhouettes, London: The Connoisseur, 121p, 72pl, at Archive.org

Jackson, Emily Nevill (1982) Silhouettes: A History and Dictionary of Artists, New York: Dover Publications, 154p, 103pl.

Jones, Gillian (2004) Lancashire Professional Photographers 1840-1940, PhotoResearch (courtesy of Michael Pritchard)

Knipe, Penley (1999) Shades and Shadow-Pictures: The Materials and Techniques of American Portrait Silhouettes, The Book and Paper Group Annual, Vol. 18 (1999), Paper delivered at the Book and Paper specialty group session, AIC 27th Annual Meeting, June 8-13, 1999, St. Louis, Missouri.

Mannex & Co. (1851) History, Topography & Directory of Westmorland, from the University of Leicester's Historical Directories.

McClard, Peggy (2007) Cut & paste silhouette of a young girl carrying a basket, by White, Peggy McClard Antiques.

McKechnie, Sue (1978) British Silhouette Artists and their Work, 1760-1860, London: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 799p. Extracts by kind courtesy of Peggy McClard (Peggy McClard Antiques)

Payne, Brett (2008a) Advertising by Photographers (1) Daguerreotypist, G. White of Rose Hill Chesterfield, Photo-Sleuth, 17 February 2008.

Payne, Brett (2008b) George White of Chesterfield & Blackpool, Photo-Sleuth, 8 May 2008.

Payne, Brett (2009) William Seville (1797-1866), silhouette and photographic artist, Photo-Sleuth, 17 Sep 2009.

Scotting, Dawn (2010) The Ancestral Trees of the Families of Winster Derbyshire, Rootsweb/Ancestry.com

William Seville (1797-1866), silhouette and photographic artist

I have written previously (here) about Derby's first photographers John Johnson and Thomas Roberts, who operated daguerreotype studios in Victoria Street from the summer of 1843 until September 1845, under license from Richard Beard. From then until about 1854, there appears to have been a hiatus in commercial photographic activity in the town.

Then, in the early to mid-1850s, with the expiry of the patent on the daguerreotype process and the popularisation of Frederick Scott Archer's patent-free wet-collodion process, there was a sudden and rapid flurry of photographic activity in Derby. Most, if not all, of the photographic artists who appeared are likely to have been offering collodion-positive portraits, or ambrotypes as they were popularly known.

Advertisement from The Derby Mercury, 20 March 1850
Image © British Library Newspapers and courtesy of Gale CENGAGE Learning

Many of these early photographers came to the profession from an artistic background, which included portrait painting in oils or water colours, full-size and miniatures, and silhouette portraiture. One such practitioner was William Seville, an experienced silhouette artist from Manchester. His first recorded appearance in Derby was in March 1850, when he placed an advertisement in The Derby Mercury advising residents that he was producing "the most striking and perfect likenesses" from premises at 42 Queen Street, Derby. He offered ...

... an exact likeness for 6d., beautifully shaded, 1s. 6d., extra finished in bronze, 2s. Full length figures highly finished in bronze, 4s.; children's full lengths, 2s. 6d. Miniatures on ivory and coloured likenesses at very low charges. Families attended without any extra charge.

William Seville was baptised on 5 March 1797 in the chapelry of Hey, at Lees near Oldham, north-east of Manchester, one of seven children of Joseph and Sarah Seville (or Sevill). According to the biographical notes in Sue McKechnie's British Silhouette Artists and their Work 1760-1860, William Seville started working as a silhouette artist in Manchester shortly before 1820 (Woodiwiss, 1965).
? Miss Margaret Clutterbuck (1780-1855) of Alnwick & Newcastle-on-Tyne, undated
Gold-coloured black card cut-out silhouette by William Seville
Image © and courtesy of Cynthia McKinley & Wigs on the Green

It appears that he almost immediately started travelling widely as an itinerant artist, with a record of his being in North Shields (Northumberland) in April 1820 (Jackson, 1911).

Reverse of Clutterbuck silhouette
"Cut with common scissors by Mr Seville without either drawing or machine"
Image © and courtesy of Cynthia McKinley & Wigs on the Green

At around this time - the exact date is unknown - William Seville probably married Frances Bethell (1803-1837), daughter of Joseph and Fanny Bethell of Chester. William's son Frederick William Seville was born at Durham (City) around 1824 or 1825. Certainly by April 1824 he was working in nearby Newcastle-on-Tyne. The silhouette portrait illustrated above - the subject of which has been tentatively identified as the splendidly monikered Miss Margaret Clutterbuck, daughter of eminent Northumbrian John Clutterbuck and his wife Ann Lyon - may have been from this or a later period.

Mr. W. Seville label
Image © and courtesy of Cynthia McKinley & Wigs on the Green

Seville was also in Lancaster during 1824, and then in Dundee from April 1825; McKechnie suggests that he may have spent much of that year in Scotland. There is a suggestion that he worked in East Anglia during the late 1820s in partnership with fellow artist John Stannard.

Unidentified man, undated
Framed, gold-coloured black card cut-out silhouette by William Seville
Image © and courtesy of Cynthia McKinley & Wigs on the Green

In August 1830 Seville was plying his trade in Castletown, Dublin, Ireland, known from a dated portrait (McKechnie).

Advertisement from The Preston Chronicle, 22 September 1832
Image © British Library Newspapers and courtesy of Gale CENGAGE Learning

By September 1832 he appears to have been working in Preston (Lancashire) judging from the advertisement which appeared in The Preston Chronicle in that month, which suggests he had also taken "thousands of likenesses in Bolton, Lancaster, Edinburgh, &c.." His wife Fanny died at Sheffield on 10 May 1837 "after a long and painful illness," as reported in The Manchester Times and Gazette (13 May 1837).

Advertisement from The North Wales Chronicle, 21 August 1838
Image © British Library Newspapers and courtesy of Gale CENGAGE Learning

By August 1838, William Seville was working at Bangor in Wales. Apart from his usual full range of silhouettes, he also offered to teach the art of making wax flowers and gave lessons in landscape and flower painting, mezzotinting, velvet painting, &c."

Article extract from The North Wales Chronicle, 28 August 1838
Image © British Library Newspapers and courtesy of Gale CENGAGE Learning

A newspaper report a week later suggested that he was finding a steady stream of customers, but his last advertisements on 4 September and 2 October reported his intention to leave "in the course of a few days."

Article extract from Freeman's Journal & Daily Commercial Advertiser, (Dublin, Ireland), 7 February 1843
Image © British Library Newspapers and courtesy of Gale CENGAGE Learning

McKechnie suggests that Seville had returned to Ireland by August 1842, and believes that his son may have been assisting him by this time. His son would have been about seventeen years old by then, and since neither of them has been located in the 1841 Census of the United Kingdom, it seems quite likely that they had both taken the short journey from Liverpool across the Irish Sea.

Label on the reverse of Smyth Family silhouette, shown below
Image © Courtesy of Peggy McClard Antiques

This is supported by a dated and signed silhouette of the Smyth family now in a private collection. An image of the label on the reverse kindly sent to me by Peggy McClard, who used to own the silhouette, states that it was "cut with scissors by F.W. Seville / Drogheda / Novr. 1842." A Dublin newspaper advertisement of February 1843, shown above, indicates that they remained there for some months.

Unidentified man, undated
Framed, gold-coloured black card cut-out silhouette by William Seville
Image © and courtesy of Cynthia McKinley & Wigs on the Green

By January 1845 Seville was in Shrewsbury (Shropshire), as evidenced by a dated portrait and handbill (McKechnie).

Advertisement from The Derby Mercury, 5 June 1850
Image © British Library Newspapers and courtesy of Gale CENGAGE Learning

The next sighting of Seville is when he appeared in Derby in March 1850. Business remained fairly brisk until early June, when the appearance of another advertisement suggested an impending departure from Derby.

The Smyth Family, Drogheda (Ireland), November 1842
Framed, gold-coloured black card cut-out silhouette by William Seville
Image © and courtesy of Cynthia McKinley & Wigs on the Green
Original in private collection

It is not clear what William Seville did for the next five years, although it is clear that this was probably one of the most challenging periods of his career, with daguerreotype photography - and the rapid introduction of collodion portraits after 1854 - providing some serious competition to his now old-fashioned silhouettes.

30 March 1851 Census Extract: North Tawton Devon NA Ref. HO107/1885/658/7/23
Image © The National Archives and courtesy of Ancestry.co.uk

On census night Sunday 30 March 1851, William Seville's son Frederick William was lodging with a bookseller's wife in the small village of North Tawton in Devon. He described himself as an artist. Sadly, his father is nowhere to be found - perhaps he was travelling in Ireland again.

Advertisement from The Derby Mercury, 15 August 1855 Image © British Library Newspapers and courtesy of Gale CENGAGE Learning

William Seville returned to Derby in mid-August 1855, the evidence being in the form of an advertisement in The Derby Mercury offering collodion photographic portraits at the "reduced" price of 2s. each, case included, from premises at No. 51 St Peter's Street, Derby, directly opposite St Peter's church.

Location of William Seville's photographic studio at 51 St Peter's Street, Derby View Derby Studios in a larger map
St Peter's Street, Derby (looking north), c.1890 Image © and courtesy of Nigel Aspdin

This view looking north up St Peter's Street was probably taken around 1890, some 35 years after Seville was there. The photograph belongs to Nigel Aspdin and shows the draper's shop of Hurd & Dean - number 54 St Peter's Street, at centre right - John Dean (1853-1918) being a relation of Nigel's. Although the building at number 54 was probably built after Seville's era, it seems likely that number 51 was located in a yard behind the shops. This would have been accessible through an alley to the right of the drapery shop, an archway to which can just be seen in a detailed version of the image (here).

Advertisement from The Derby Mercury, 12 September 1855 Image © British Library Newspapers and courtesy of Gale CENGAGE Learning

While his name was not mentioned in that particular edition of the newspaper, it is clear from a similar insertion four weeks later, on 12 September, that it was Seville who had succumbed to market forces and was trying his hand at the then fairly new wet collodion photographic process.

Advertisement from The Derby Mercury, 19 December 1855 Image © British Library Newspapers and courtesy of Gale CENGAGE Learning

At the onset of the Christmas season, the business had acquired the rather grand name of the "Crystal Palace Portrait Gallery." The Crystal Palace was built in Hyde Park, London to house the hugely popular Great Exhibition of 1851, but relocated to Sydenham in 1854. In the same year a book entitled The Portrait Gallery of the Crystal Palace by Samuel Phillips was published, being an official handbook or catalogue of portraits of eminent Victorians chosen for display at the exhibition. It is possible that Seville intended a play on the title of this book for added publicity.

Extract from F. White's 1857 History, Gazetteer & Directory of the County of Derby Image © and courtesy of Ancestry.co.uk

He remained in Derby for several months more, long enough at least to appear in White's 1857 trade directory, presumably compiled in late 1856, at the same address. It is worth noting that while Seville inserted advertisements in many newspapers over the years, advertising his presence in a particular town for a few weeks or perhaps months, this is the only trade directory entry found thus far, indicative of the itinerant nature of his trade. There is no evidence that he ever operated a photographic studio in his presumed home town of Manchester.

7 April 1861 Census Extract: Shoplatch, Shrewsbury, Shropshire NA Ref. Ref. RG9/1873/41/10/68 Image © The National Archives and courtesy of Ancestry.co.uk

In late 1856 Frederick William Seville had married and settled in Shrewsbury (Shropshire), with a daughter being born to him and his wife Elizabeth late the following year. By early April 1861 William Seville had joined them, living in Shoplatch, close to the centre of the town where his son operated a photographic studio and tobacconist. Now aged 64, he described himself to the census enumerator as a retired artist.

H.E. Smallwood, 1841 Full length gold-coloured silhouette portrait by F.W. Seville Image © and courtesy of AskArt.com

William Seville died in 1866 at the age of 68. Frederick William Seville continued to reside in Shrewsbury with his wife and three children, and described himself in census records as both artist and photographer until at least 1881. The dated silhouette portrait of H.E. Smallwood from 1841 shown above is ascribed to F.W. Seville.

Disaster at St Mary's Church, Shrewsbury, February 11th, 1894
Watercolour, signed and inscribed by F.W. Seville, 21" x 14.5" Image © and courtesy of Live Auctoneers

No photographic portraits by the younger Seville have been located but he became a well known watercolourist, producing many views of late Victorian Shrewsbury. The watercolour shown above depicts an event which occurred on 11 February 1894, and is likely to have been painted shortly afterwards.

F.W. Seville's son, also named Frederick William, continued the tradition and became a photographer too, being listed with this profession in Shrewsbury by 1891 at the age of 23. After the death of both of his parents in 1899 he moved to Congleton (Cheshire), where his sister and brother-in-law were living, and was shown working from premises at 10 Lawton Street as late as 1914 (Jones & Jones, 1995).

After a career spanning some four decades William Seville left a vast body of work, probably amounting several thousand silhouettes. While only a small proportion of these have survived the subsequent century and a half, silhouettes by Seville appear not to be particularly uncommon. The status of any surviving collodion portraits, however, is unknown. Judging by the fact that many, if not most, of his silhouettes were identified with a label, it seems likely that his cased ambrotypes would have been similarly marked. I am hopeful that eventually one of his photographic portraits will surface.

I am very grateful to Cynthia McKinley for her generosity in allowing me to reproduce images of silhouettes in her collection and for providing me with material about William Seville's life and work. Cynthia's web site Wigs on the Green is an excellent source of information about silhouettes and silhouette artists.

Post Script: Thank you, too, to Peggy McClard who sent me images and information about the Smyth family silhouette, and gave me permission to use them to illustrate this article. Peggy has an absorbing web site Peggy McClard Antiques, devoted to antique silhouettes, Americana and related folk art, which is well worth a visit.

References

General Register Office (GRO) Index to Births, Marriages & Deaths from FreeBMD

International Genealogical Index (IGI) from the LDS Church & FamilySearch

UK Census 1841-1901 Indexed images from Ancestry.co.uk

19th Century British Library Newspapers from Gale CENGAGE Learning:
The Manchester Times and Gazette
North Wales Chronicle
Freeman's Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser
The Derby Mercury
The Preston Chronicle

Trade Directories from the University of Leicester's Historical Directories Project:
Wright's Directory of South Derbyshire, 1874
Kelly's Directory of Shropshire, 1891
Kelly's Directory of Herefordshire & Shropshire, 1895
Kelly's Directory of Cheshire, 1914

Coke, Desmond (1915) The Art of the Silhouette. London: Martin Secker. Available from The Internet Archive

Jones, Gillian A. & Jones, Graham (1995) Professional Photographers in Cheshire 1849-1940. Bath, England: Royal Photographic Society Historical Group. The PhotoHistorian Supplement, No. 108, July 1995, 40p. ISSN 09570209.

McKechnie, Sue (1978) British Silhouette Artists and their Work 1760-1860, Sotheby Parke Bernet, 824p. ISBN: 0856670367. Extracts courtesy of Cynthia McKinley

McKinley, Cynthia. Guide to Collecting Silhouettes. Wigs on the Green web site.

Phillips, Samuel (1854) Portrait Gallery of the Crystal Palace. Facsimile edition published 2008 by Euston Grove Press, 240p. (PDF version)

Read, Gillian (1982) Manchester Photographers 1840-1900. Bath, England: Royal Photographic Society Historical Group Newsletter, Supplement No. 59, 1982, 20p.

White, Francis & Co. (1857) History, Gazetteer & Directory of the County of Derby, transcribed by Neil Wilson in PDF format & available from Ancestry's UK City & County Directories

Further Sources
Jackson, E. Nevill (1982) Silhouettes: A History & Dictionary of Artists, Dover Publications. ISBN 0486242102. [in McKechnie, 1978]
Jackson, E. Nevill (1911) The History of Silhouettes, The Connoisseur. 121p.
Woodiwiss, John (1965) British Silhouettes, Country Life, 104p.