Sepia Saturday 277: A Day at The (Boat) Races

I'm not really one for team sports, either as a spectator or participant, but I find I am able to rise to Sepia Saturday's image prompt on this particular occasion. In Bill Nelson's 1904 Grand Tour album which I featured here a couple of weeks ago, there is a sequence of photographs of boat races on the River Thames at Oxford.


One team pulls past the spectator barges, Ref. #09c
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
If it is the famous University Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge, which seems very likely, that traditionally takes place on the last weekend of March or the first week of April, the most recent of which was only two weeks ago - Oxford won by 20 seconds. In 1904, however, it took place on Saturday 26th March and Cambridge won by 4½ to 6 lengths (The Boat Race 1904).


Spectators watch two crews pass the Club House, Ref. #01b
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
Traditionally the teams are known as the "light blues" (Cambridge) and the "dark blues" (Oxford), from the colour of their jerseys, but it doesn't look, on the face of it, as though either of these two teams are wearing dark blue. The main race is preceded by a race involving the two reserve crews, called Isis and Goldie for Oxford and Cambridge respectively, and it is possible that these photographs include both the reserve and main race.


Rowers receive some coaching, Ref. #18a
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
Listed at number 7 (from the bow) in the main race in the Cambridge boat was New Zealand-born Harold Gillies, considered the father of plastic surgery for his pioneering work on facial reconstructive surgery during the Great War.


Spectators take to the water, Ref. #13a
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
Once the race was over, it appears that our photographer, along with many spectators, took to the water, recording the ongoing frivolities.


Barges overflow with spectators, Ref. #01a
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
I can well imagine that the day did not end without one or more of them getting a little damp. However, it is one of the younger spectators on the roof of the barge, at top left, in whom I am particularly interested.


Girl holds a No 1 Brownie box camera
Detail of negative #01a
The teenage girl with long hair wearing a straw hat is carrying a box camera and, after a lengthy comparison of this image with those illustrated in Brian Coe's Kodak Cameras: The First Hundred Years, I've decided that it is almost certainly a No 1 Brownie box camera.


No 1 Brownie camera, from 1903 Kodak Catalogue
Image courtesy of the Digitized Kodak Catalog Project

First introduced in October 1901 as a successor to the original model Brownie (1900), it sold for the grand sum of one dollar, produced 2¼" x 2¼" square prints from 117-format roll film, and was an immediate success. It isinteresting to note that of the hundreds of spectators visible in these photographs, the only one carrying a claerly identifiable camera was a young girl.



Packaging for the No 1 Brownie camera
Image © and courtesy of the National Media Museum Collection
Anyone could now afford a camera, but Eastman Kodak marketed the camera specifically towards children, inserting advertisements in popular magazines like The Saturday Evening Post and The Youth's Companion which showed even very young children using them. Even the Brownie name was based on the characters in a popular series of children's books by Canadian illustrator Palmer Cox.


Group in a rowing boat by unidentified photographer
2¼" x 2¼" mounted print, taken c. 1905, probably with a No 1 Brownie
Image © George Eastman House collection
This 2¼" x 2¼" print mounted on white card embossed with a decorative frame, fortuitously picturing a large group in a rowing boat, is from the George Eastman House collection and was probably taken with a No. 1 Brownie. I haven't been able to find many such examples online, and would appreciate hearing from readers who may have similar mounted prints in their own collections.


Oxford, Boys running, Ref. #01c
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
Another negative in this sequence shows a number of male figures running, although their attire doesn't suggest that they are in a race, more as if they are in a hurry to get somewhere, perhaps to get a good position to watch the start of "The Boat Race." However, it was a dark shape in the background that caught my eye.


Detail of negative #01c
It appears to be a figure standing on a platform, next to some sort of contraption, perhaps mounted on a tripod. Could this have been a camera of some sort? Upon searching the other boat race images, I discovered that the figure/contraption/platform appeared in front of the club house in the second view as well. This time, the figure is standing behind and partly hidden by the contraption, possibly with his head under a black cloth (below).


Detail of negative #01b
My next discovery was even more exciting. While searching the web for material relating to "The Boat Race," I came across a synopsis of a short documentary film in the IMDb entitled simply, "The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race," made in 1904 by the Charles Urban Trading Company. Charles Urban was a pioneering Anglo-American film producer who specialised in documentaries, travel and scientific films. Many of them have been "rediscovered" and are now available to view online, but sadly I haven't yet found the 1904 Boat Race.

I emailed Luke McKernan, author of Charles Urban: Pioneering the Non-fiction Film in Britain and America, 1897-1925, asking his view on the expanded images and received this informative response:

There were at least three films made of the 1904 Boat Race, by the Charles Urban Trading Company, by the Warwick Trading Company, and by the British Mutoscope and Biograph Company. Urban's film was, according to a catalogue record, filmed from the bow of the Sportsman (presumably a vessel following the race), though they would have had cameramen positioned elsewhere as well.

The blow-ups in the photographs are puzzling, because neither looks like a conventional cine camera, being much too bulky. It almost looks like a photographer's black hood, and there is an outside possibility I suppose that it could be a still camera. However, my thought on seeing the photos is that they show a camera employed by the British Mutoscope and Biograph Company, who employed 70mm film (unlike the 35mm used by Urban and Warwick) with bulky, electrically-driven cameras. An advertisement for the film states "We have secured negatives of the crews leaving Boat House, and made arrangements to take the finish of the race today". I had thought that they had ceased using 70mm by 1903, but this could be a last-gasp effort with the format.

I thought about the possibility of a still camera being used too, thinking the dark shape could be a photographer's hood, but considered the chances of something that size being used outdoors in 1904 was pretty unlikely. For the moment the identity of the cameraman, if that's what it is, will remain a mystery, but I'm very grateful to Luke McKernan for his help.

The rest of the Sepia Saturday team will likewise be featuring team sports and similar topics this week, and I suggest you you head over there to visit them before you get too carried away watching film clips on YouTube.

Sepia Saturday 275: Summer holidays in Derbyshire, an early Kodak album

My contribution for Sepia Saturday this week has nothing whatsoever to do with the image prompt, I'm afraid. It does, however, follow on from my article last week, which featured an album of nitrocellulose negatives taken during a grand tour of Europe in 1904. Regular readers will recall that series of images as having been taken by an experienced and skilled photographer using a fairly sophisticated modern folding camera, possibly with a view to eventual commercial exploitation.


Cloth-covered Kodak photograph album, dated August 1903
Collection of Brett Payne
Today I'm featuring an album from my own collection which, although superficially similar in that it contains a series of 3¼" x 4¼" 118- or 119-format prints taken during a summer holiday in Derbyshire, England, is actually quite a different set in many ways. The album has 12 white card leaves bound in a light brown cloth-covered stiff card cover, now slightly grubby and showing slight wear on the edges, with "Kodak" printed in large black decorative writing on the front. Each of the leaves has paper sleeves on each side, designed to hold 3¼" x 4¼" paper prints.


Cloth-covered Kodak photograph album, dated August 1903
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
The inside front cover has "Kodak, Ltd. London" printed on the lower right, as well as the following inscription handwritten in black ink:

Summer holidays -
August 1903
Derbyshire (Matlock & Buxton)

I've been unable to find this specific album design advertised in Eastman Kodak Co.'s (U.S.) catalogues for the late 1890s and early 1900s. During this period they appear to have changed from albums with thick card leaves and standard-sized paper slots for different print formats, to loose-leaved albums with a higher number of pages constructed of thinner grey or black card, onto which the prints were intended to be glued with Eastman's Photo Paste ($0.25 per 5 ounce tube). Presumably this was in response to the rapidly increasing variety of print formats being introduced, and the large proportion of amateur prints perhaps not being mounted on card.

However, this particular paper slot-style album with 12 pages, designed to hold two 12-exposure films' worth of prints, was sold (and perhaps manufactured) by Kodak Ltd. at one of their six branch outlets in London, and may have been of a design not offered in the United States.



Each of the 24 sleeves in the album contains a print, some of which are trimmed rather roughly. Although the average size is around 3¼" x 4¼" (82 x 108mm) they range in size from 67 x 98mm to 97 x 113mm. The prints can be separated into three groups, based on size, printing characteristics and subject matter.


Locations photographed in Derbyshire, August 1903
The first ten prints (pages 1-10) have been roughly trimmed and are slightly smaller (78 x 102mm) but more varied in size. The black and white prints were taken at Buxton, Tideswell, Monsal Dale, Dovedale and Haddon Hall.


"The Crescent, Buxton," August 1903
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 98 x 67mm
(Page 6, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
This image shows a group boarding a horse-drawn carriage at The Crescent in Buxton, perhaps for a day excursion to Tideswell and Monsal Dale. Baedeker's 1901 guide to Great Britain describes it thus:

The Crescent, the most prominent building in the town, has the Tepid Baths (1s.-2s. 6d.) and the Chalybeate Wells at the W. end and the Hot Baths (1s. 6d.-3s. 6d.) at the E. end. In front is the Pump Room.

"The Cathedral of the Peak, Tideswell Church," August 1903
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 77 x 103mm
(Page 4, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
Kelly's 1899 Directory of Derbyshire gives the following:

The church of St John the Baptist is a cruciform building of stone, belong almost exclusively to the Decorated style of the latter half of the 14th century, consisting of an unusually large chancel, clerestoried nave ... a lofty embattled tower at the west end, with battlemented turret-like pinnacles at the angles, terminating in crocketed spirelets ... the old chancel screen ... has been successfully restored.

"Nab's Dale," Dovedale, August 1903
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 80 x 95mm
(Page 7, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
Baedeker's guide gives details of the new railway from Buxton to Ashbourne, opened in 1899, which allowed the holidaymaker to travel the 23 miles in under an hour:

... afford[ing] the most convenient approach to the beauties of Dovedale. Passengers should alight at Alsop-en-le-Dale, walk down the valley, and rejoin the railway at Thorpe Cloud ... Alsop-en-le-Dale is the station for the head of Dovedale, a picturesque and narrow limestone valley, hemmed in by fantastic rocks, freely interspersed with woods ... The prettiest part of the valley begins at the Dove Holes ...

Nab's Dale, shown in the photo above, is close to Hanson Grange and Alsop-en-le-Dale and appears to be the point at which our photographer and party alighted from the train and entered Dovedale.


"Below Reynard's Cave," Dovedale, August 1903
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 79 x 104mm
(Page 2, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
This very much overexposed shot is taken from Reynard's Cave, further down the valley and overlooking the path next to the River Dove, along which several members of the party can just be seen, and down which I myself enjoyed a fine walk with friend and fellow Sepian Nigel Aspdin about 18 months ago.


"Peveril of the Peak Hotel & Thorpe Cloud," Thorpe, August 1903
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 105 x 80mm
(Page 5, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
Upon reaching the southern end of Dovedale, marked by the characteristic peak of Thorpe Cloud, they arrived at "... the stepping-stones ... where donkeys and refreshments are in waiting ... and, a little farther on, a foot bridge leading to the Izaak Walton Hotel, a favourite angling resort," frequented by my great-grandfather and which I wrote about in The Compleat Angler. Rather than crossing the footbridge, however, our party appear to have chosen the course which Nigel and I took "... a path to the left ascend[ing] from the stepping stones to the (½ M.) Peveril Hotel, not far from the village of Thorpe and railway station Thorpe Cloud." Embarking at the station, they either returned to Buxton or proceeded to Matlock.


"Haddon Hall," August 1903 (digitally enhanced)
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 108 x 82mm
(Page 11, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
The next nine prints in the album (pages 11-19) have been trimmed somewhat more accurately, and all are within a couple of millimetres of the standard 82.5 x 108mm. They were also processed slightly differently from the first batch, and are all slightly to moderately overexposed, also show a distinct sepia tone. The borders of the negative are partly visible in 7 of the prints; none were in the first set.

They were taken at Haddon Hall (above), Chatsworth House and at several locations in the vicinity of Matlock and Matlock Bath, all of which were popular destinations for Edwardian tourists.

Haddon Hall, picturesquely situated on a slope rising from the Wye, is an almost ideal specimen of an old English baronial mansion, and, though unoccupied, is still in fair preservation (adm. 4d.)

"Haddon Hall Terrace," August 1903
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 75 x 101mm
(Page 3, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne

... the S[outh] facade and the terraced gardens [date] from the end of the 16th century.

"In the Model Village - Chatsworth," Edensor, August 1903 (digitally enhanced)
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 83 x 83mm
(Page 13, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
Baedeker again gives a detailed description of the route and the sights to look out for:

... To reach Chatsworth from Haddon by carriage ... we follow the road from the bridge [over the River Wye] to Bakewell [where] we turn to the right and proceed by a circuitous route to Edensor, a model village, on the outskirts of Chatsworth Park. The church contains a memorial window to Lord Frederick Cavendish (assassinated in 1882), who is buried in the churchyard.

"Chatsworth House," August 1903 (digitally enhanced)
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 108 x 82mm
(Page 12, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
This is one of the better known views of Chatsworth House, captured by local photographer William Potter for his commercial carte de visite landscapes as early as the 1870s. In this shot, an open horse-drawn brougham carrying four passengers is driven down the road, presumably on their way to visit the grand house in the middle distance. I wondered at first if they were waiting for the photographer, but since the carriage is slightly blurred, and the nearby tree sharp, I think they were moving at the time of the exposure.

Chatsworth, the magnificent seat of the Duke of Devonshire, is a striking contrast to Haddon, the one being as redolent of modern, as the other of medieval state ... the Gardens (small fee, to the gardener), which are fine but formal, with artificial cascades, fountains, surprise waterworks, etc. The Emperor Fountain throws a jet 265 ft. high.

"High Tor, Matlock," August 1903 (digitally enhanced)
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 83 x 107mm
(Page 19, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
Six of the remaining photographs were taken in and around the towns of Matlock and Matlock Bath, including this well known view of High Tor, Matlock Dale and the River Derwent. The postcard publishers James Valentine & Sons registered a very similar photograph in 1892, which I featured in an article on Photo-Sleuth two years ago (Before the humble postcard).

Kelly's 1899 Directory informs us:

Matlock Bath ... is a modern inland and fashionable watering place, with a station on the Midland railway, and is situated in a deep and lovely valley ... The place is celebrated for the romantic character of its scenery and the purity of its medicinal springs, and in the summer season this beautiful locality is frequented by visitors from all parts of the kingdom.

"High Tor from Lovers' Walk," Matlock, August 1903 (digitally enhanced)
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 108 x 83mm
(Page 17, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne

Among the attractions of Matlock ... Immediately opposite the High Tor is Masson Hill, nearly 800 feet high, from which and from the Heights of Abraham, about 650 feet high (to which a winding ascent has been made), an extensive view is afforded of the scenery of the surrounding country ... The Lovers' Walk, on the opposite side of the river, is another favourite place of resort; paths leading to different points from which the dale may be advantageously seen have also been cut through the wood in various directions.

"Mother & a piece of Monica!" August 1903 (digitally enhanced)
Unmounted silver gelatin print, 108 x 82mm
(Page 16, Kodak album, Summer Holidays)
Image © Copyright & collection of Brett Payne
A single photograph in this album is directed specifically at members of the holidaying party. Two female figures (Mother and Monica) are seated outdoors on a bench reading newspapers, umbrellas at the ready should the sun prove too hot or a shower present itself. Sadly, it is overexposed - the image above has been digitally enhanced, but even this is not sufficent to reveal Monica's features, obliterated by a careless flash of sunlight or perhaps by some light leakage into the body of the camera. The bench is situated in front of a tree, and what I think is the River Derwent through a gap in the branches immediately to the left of Mother.

In 1887 an iron bridge of 85 feet span was constructed ... connecting the Promenade with Lovers' Walk, and at the same time the Promenade was laid out ...

Detail of "Mother & a piece of Monica!"
There is, however, enough in the image to show three umbrellas leaning against the bench, and a valise or case which may be for the camera. The three umbrellas imply that there were only three in the party on this particular day: "Mother," Monica and the photographer, who could be the husband of either "Mother" or Monica, a son of "Mother" and brother of Monica, or indeed Monica's sister.


Composite of Derbyshire holidaymakers
Click image to enlarge
Fortunately we have a better image of Monica, taken on the Terrace at Haddon Hall (see lower left, above). The enlarged detail from several photos show several other people, and there may or may not have been more in the party at other stages of the holiday. It is even possible that one of the elderly men with luxurious white beards (at right) may have been "Father." Unfortunately, none of them appears carrying a leather case which would have held the camera, and I suspect that the photographer never appears in the photographs.

The last five prints (pages 20-24) were taken in Wiltshire the following year. While I have included them in the slideshow at the beginning of this article, they appear to have been inserted later to fill up empty slots in the album, and I'll leave discussion of them for another time.


Kodak Developing and Printing Outfits, from 1903 Kodak Catalogue
Image courtesy of the Digitized Kodak Catalog Project
The Derbyshire snapshots appear to have been taken in two sequences, the first of ten images, the second of nine. It is my belief that they were probably prints from two consecutive rolls of film, each containing 12 exposures, five of which were discarded as being of too poor quality to print or preserve in the album. The uneven trimming of the prints suggests to me that they were developed and printed by an amateur at home using one of Kodak's readily available kits, rather than taken into a chemist or other processing facility.


"Take a Kodak with you"
Eastman Kodak Co. advertisement featuring "The Kodak Girl"
From the Ladies' Home Journal, 1901
Courtesy Duke University Advertising Ephemera Collection, Item K0034
The Kodak folding cameras of the late 1890s and early 1900s were specifically marketed towards women, the design intended to mimic a purse or pocketbook, although one would be hard pressed to fit a No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak in any standard pocket.


No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak, from 1903 Kodak Catalogue
Image courtesy of the Digitized Kodak Catalog Project
Constructed of aluminium covered with black morocco leather, the No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak (like its smaller cousin, the No 1) was designed to be compact and simple to use. Costing only $17.50 (and an extra $1.25 for a black sole leather carrying case, with strap), it was the cheaper version of the No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak DeLuxe camera featured in last week's 1904 Grand Tour article, but it used the same 118-format film, and therefore produced a print of the same size, 3¼" x 4¼".


"All Out-Doors Invites Your Kodak"
Eastman Kodak Co. advertisement from Life magazine, 1911
Courtesy Duke University Advertising Ephemera Collection, Item K0443
With the standard Rapid Rectilinear lens and Eastman Automatic shutter, and in the unsteady hands of an amateur new to framing a photograph, assessing lighting conditions, etc., the quality of of the resulting pictures is likely to have been variable at best. Judging from these prints, I feel it most likely that the camera was hand-held, in stark contrast to the 1904 Grand Tour series, the majority of which are likely to have been taken using a tripod. An unfamiliarity with the equipment may also have meant that the film was loaded with enough care, perhaps even with some exposure to bright sunlight, resulting in what appear to be "light leaks" on many of the prints.


Nigel at the start of the walk down Dovedale, 13 September 2013
Image © 2013 Brett Payne
As amateurish as the photographs in this album are, I was delighted with the purchase since, as suggested earlier, the route taken by the party was very similar to the very enjoyable 15 kilometre walk that Nigel and I took from Hartington down Dovedale to Thorpe Cloud, and then to Tissington in September 2013. It's also an area which my great-grandfather Charles Vincent Payne, as a keen trout angler, must have known well. I hope you've enjoyed the journey of discovery too.

Sepia Saturday 274: A Grand Tour of Europe, 1904

A year ago in Vacation Days are Kodak Days I featured a few images from a collection shared with me by Bill Nelson, scanned from a series of nitrocellulose negatives taken by an as yet unidentified amateur photographer on a European tour in 1904, probably using a No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak camera. Most of these high quality shots were taken in locations that were, even in 1904, relatively well known tourist destinations, but with an eye for composition and a technique that betrays not inconsiderable experience.

Today, given this week's Sepia Saturday image prompt of a poster of a coal cart drawn by two horses, I'd like to show you a few more of these images. I was initially struck by how many scenes included carts, carriages, wagons and other vehicles drawn by animals, wondering whether the photographer had intentionally focused on them, but in those pre-motor days, such methods of conveyance were a normal facet of everyday life in Europe, and our photographer would have used at least some of these during his journey.


Horse-drawn omnibuses, London, England, 1904
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
The journey appears to have started in bustling London, where the wide and still unpaved streets were full of pedestrians dodging a variety of horse-drawn hansom cabs, carriages and omnibuses, overshadowed by the tall buildings of the city. A deluge of advertisements flood the viewer with admonishments to buy Horlick's Malted or Nestle's Milk and Fry's Cocoa, or to watch the latest show at the Adelphi or Wyndham's theatre.


Organ grinder tableau, possibly in London, England, 1904
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
In a quieter suburban street, with a background of sash windows drawn up to let in the languid afternoon air, he captured this engaging image of an organ grinder busy shutting up shop at the end of a day's performances. His hat is perched jauntily on the back of his tousled head, a monkey balances on the organ and his daughter poses between the shafts of the hand cart, totally absorbed by the photographer setting up his apparatus on a tripod. Almost as an afterthought, a pedestrian in a straw boater walking along the pavement, perhaps on her way home from shopping, is momentarily distracted by the tableau.


Suburban scene, possibly in London, England, 1904
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
A less well framed, and yet just as charming, scene captured in a slightly upmarket residential area appears to record a visit to a private house. The upstairs windows are neatly framed by chintz curtains and underscored with an ornate wrought iron balcony. A hansom cab waits at the kerb, a horse impatiently champing at the bit and stretching its neck against the pull of the reins, while a group of young boys loitering on the pavement ham it up for the camera.

A woman wearing an enormous pancake hat, so characteristic of the mid-1900s, pauses on the threshold, in front of the already open doorway, while the somewhat disembodied lady of the house and a uniformed house maid peer as if taken unawares over decorated flower boxes through an open window. A scullery maid, caught as if by accident while having an rare break from her daily drudgery, leans wearily against the railings on the steps leading down to the servants' quarters in the basement.


Outside the Blue Ball Inn, Countisbury, Lynmouth, Devon, England, 1904
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
In Somerset the photographer visited several locations popularised by Romantic poets, such as in R.D. Blackmore's Lorna Doone (published in 1869), including Lynmouth, Countisbury and Porlock. Here a coach drawn by six horses prepares for departure from the Blue Ball Inn, which still operates to this day as a bed and breakfast.


Donkeys outside the New Inn, Clovelly, England, 1904
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
The tiny but picturesque fishing village of Clovelly in North Devon, brought to public attention by Charles Kingsley's 1855 novel Westward Ho! was another destination visited. Its steep cobbled streets, wattle-and-daub cottages, donkeys with pannier baskets and crusty old characters provided fertile ground for photographic procrastinations.


Dog cart in the Netherlands, 1904
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
A journey on one of the many ferries crossing the Channel took our photographer to Normandy, where the lives of peasants and fishermen on the pebbly beaches around Étretat caught his attention for a while, and then to the Netherlands, where he photographed this young man selling wares from a small dog cart parked in a leafy avenue.


Smock mill Sanssouci Park, Potsdam, Germany, 1904
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
The ubiquitous Dutch windmills and canals were photographed too, but it was this huge smock mill in Sanssouci Park, Potsdam (just west of Berlin, Germany) that caught my eye, particularly because of the marked contrast presented by the bizarrely shaped horse-drawn van. Unfortunately I can't quite make out the name of the business painted on its side, and the banner-shaped sign on top is facing the wrong direction, but I wouldn't mind buying a frankfurter or an ice cream from him, should either of those be on offer (perhaps not a frankfurter in Berlin).


Oxen and wagon, Austria, 1904
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
In Austria a group is just visible taking refreshments in the cool shade of a leafy arbour in the village square, although the camera catches a woman washing laundry in the cherub-adorned fountain, while two oxen harnessed to a four-wheeled cart wait patiently nearby.


Possible itinerary for Grand European Tour, 1904
A possible itinerary drawn up for the unknown photographer's 1904 Grand Tour through Europe is somewhat fanciful, given that we don't have a clear picture of the order in which the photos were taken, but it does give an impression of the large amount of ground covered. One of the most intriguing aspects to this story is that a contact print of one of the negatives has been discovered in an archive in Bayreuth, Germany, suggesting that the films were being developed and printed along the way. How would this have been feasible for an amateur in 1904? For an answer to that we must start by looking at the camera which produced these fine photographs.


No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak DeLuxe Camera, modified Model AB, c.1902
Image © and courtesy of David Purcell
118-format roll film, with individual frames measuring 3¼" x 4¼" was introduced by Eastman Kodak specifically for the No 3 Folding Pocket Kodak camera first offered for sale in April 1900. By 1904 this camera was available in its fifth version, the Model C-2, with an array of shutter and lens options. Given the high quality of the images, it seems likely that our photographer was using a recent version with high quality lens and shutter, perhaps similar to the modified AB Deluxe model with Persian morocco leather case, brown silk-covered bellows and an engraved silver nameplate, advertised in the 1903 Kodak catalogue for a pricey $75 (compared with $17.50 for a standard model).


Negative album and index card for 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format rollfilm
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
The negatives in this collection, some with slightly uneven edges suggesting they were cut using a pair of scissors, are housed in a negative album containing 100 thick paper pockets in a thick green cloth-covered card folder, advertised in Kodak's 1903 catalogue for $1.00 (below).


Eastman's Negative Film Albums, extract from 1903 Kodak catalogue
Image courtesy of the Digitized Kodak Catalog Project
Each 118-format transparent film cartridge with 12 exposures cost 70 cents, and supplies were available from Kodak outlets in, amongst several other cities, London, Paris, Brussels, Berlin and Vienna. Several dozen rolls must have been used during the trip, since there are multiple negatives in each sleeve.


Kodak 118-format roll film
Image © and courtesy of Geoff Harrisson
The opening pages of Kodak's 1902 catalogue focused on their daylight-loading film cartridge, which utilised a strip of black paper along the back of the film strip to exclude light, making "pocket photography practical and ... it possible to do away with the dark room in loading and unloading the camera." This technology was already a decade old, invented by S.N. Turner of the Boston Camera Manufacturing Company for his Bull's Eye camera, then licensed and later purchased by George Eastman for the Pocket Kodak range.


Eastman's Kodak Developing Machine, extract from 1903 Kodak catalogue
Image courtesy of the Digitized Kodak Catalog Project
By the time their 1903 catalog was released, however, the emphasis had taken a leap forward as Kodak announced, "The Dark Room is abolished" with the introduction in August 1902 of the Kodak Developing Machine, an idea brought to Eastman a few months earlier by its inventor A.W. McCurdy. The Kodak slogan had made a radical change, from "You press the button, we do the rest" to "You press the button, then do the rest."


Eastman's Kodak Developing Machine, extract from 1903 Kodak catalogue
Image courtesy of the Digitized Kodak Catalog Project
With this tank (the Style E sold for $7.50, which included a wooden carrying case with leather handle) and a Kodak Developing Outfit (containing chemical powders and various other equipment needed, for another $1.60) our photographer would have been set for his expedition. According to The Kodak Story, a press photographer took one of these portable developing tanks with him to the front of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, and was able to send developed negatives back to Collier's magazine for quick printing and publication.


Cover of 1903 Kodak catalogue
Image courtesy of the Digitized Kodak Catalog Project
Even with some presumed failures, our photographer must have been extremely competent, and I think we must examine the motives for this tour. Was he or she merely recording the adventure for posterity, as some snapshots of people in gardens and on board ship attest to, or were some of the photographs intended for some other purpose? Eastman Kodak Ltd sponsored a huge international contest open to amateur photographers, and many of the winners were featured in The Grand Kodak Exhibition, a spectacular travelling photographic show which toured Britain in 1904 and America in 1905.


Men and Girl on the Docks, Marken, Netherlands, 1904
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
It is possible that our photographer was inspired by seeing this exhibition in England. Compare the images taken in Marken and Volendam in the Netherlands with those graphics used to illustrate Kodak marketing material and it's hard to deny their similarity. With such a serious commitment to photography, some considerable previous experience and, in the light of both contest and exhibition, was our photographer hoping to enter his own photographs in a subsequent competition? Or perhaps there was a hope of selling scenes to a postcard publisher?


The Streets of Volendam, Netherlands, 1904
Nitrocellulose negative film, 3¼" x 4¼", 118-format
Image © and courtesy of Bill Nelson
Marken, Volendam and Alkmaar have long been tourist destinations, just as they were when I visited my Dutch grandparents in Holland in my youth, and likewise other European destinations like Oxford, coastal Devon, Bayreuth, Potsdam, Prague and Vienna. The itinerary was one already well worn by generations of travellers as attested to by any number of Baedeker guides from that era. A new century in which transatlantic travel was much easier and quicker presented huge marketing opportunities for the firm of Eastman Kodak, and they had already made it clear they welcomed contributions from skilled amateurs.

Acknowlegements

Many thanks to Bill Nelson for the opportunity to study his collection of nitrocellulose negatives and reproduce scans of them, and for an ongoing conversation from which much more may eventually emerge.

I'm indebted to Rob Niederman and Milan Zahorcak for their extremely useful Digitized Kodak Catalog Project, which has cast such light on the background to Bill's collection, not to mention Rob's kind responses to my questions and sharing of his extensive knowledge of the history of old cameras.

Thank you also to David Purcell and Geoff Harrisson for permission to use the photographs of items in their private collections, which help to round out the photohistorical story.

References

Coe, Brian (1978) Cameras: From Daguerreotypes to Instant Pictures, United States: Crown Publishers, 240p.

Coe, Brian (1988) Kodak Cameras: the First Hundred Years, East Sussex, United Kingdom: Hove Foto Books, 298p.

Collins, Douglas (1990) The Story of Kodak, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 392p.

Hannavy, John (Ed.) (2013) Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography, Routledge.

Niederman, Rob & Zahorcak, Milan (nd )Digitized Kodak Catalog Project