Portrait of a portraitist and local celebrity: Edward Foster (1762-1865) - Part 1

A couple of years ago Virginia Silvester sent me these intriguing scans of the front and reverse of a carte de visite portrait (1) by John Burton & Sons (2) in her collection of old family photographs, an almost identical view to one that I had scanned at the Derby Local Studies Library (3) a few months earlier.


By the time John Burton and his sons opened their third branch studio on the top floor above the bookshop of Messrs. Clulow & Sons in Victoria Street, Derby on 2 February 1863 (4, 5), they had half a decade of experience in the photographic business. They demonstrated not merely a proficiency in portraiture, but also some considerable astuteness in the marketing of their services. Faced with stiff competition from well established practitioners such as Thomas Roberts, James Brennen, George Bristow, E.N. Charles, William Pearson and Richard Keene, a pliable reporter from The Derby Mercury was inivited to the gallery. He duly supplemented the first of a regular series of Burton & Sons advertisements in that newspaper with a most favourable report (6):

"... we have since had an opportunity of inspecting a very large number of Mr. Burton's specimens. In one very large and handsome group of Volunteer officers these qualities are as palpable as in the exquisitely beautiful cartes-de-visite; and in the portraits of Lord and Lady Stamford delicate colouring is also apparent. Mr. Burton has succeeded in producing an admirably correct group of portraits of Ensign Turner, Colour-Sergeant Pratt, and Corporal Clulow, of the Derby Volunteers, in uniform. A visit to Mr. Burton' s Gallery, at Messrs. Clulow's, will afford very agreeable entertainment to every man of taste.

This type of advertorial, hand in hand with the celebrity endorsement, was evidently an accepted practice even a century and a half ago. Hand coloured photographs of volunteer soldiers in magnificent uniforms - such as that shown above, from the Derby studio of John Roberts (7) - as well as genteel portraits of members of the higher echelons of Derby society, provided valuable draw cards for clients from among the "ordinary" folk of Derby.


The reporter in question may even have been the Henry Latimer Kemp (1832-1869), newspaper writer at The Derby Mercury, whose vignetted Burton studio portrait - shown above - has survived in the Derby Local Studies Library collection (8). The Burtons continued to entice a wide range of clientele into the studio, and were even prepared to venture further afield to capture the more important clients (9):

The pictures obtained by this firm ... are remarkable for their sharpness of detail and brilliancy of light and shade. In the cartes de visite of several county families, these excellences are strikingly prominent, particularly in those of the Earl of Harrington, and of other members of the family recently taken by the Messrs. Burton, at Elvaston Castle. The admiration of the lover of art will be excited by an inspection of some of their fine studies of dramatic characters now in the course of completion. Mr. John Coleman as Hamlet, and Miss Caroline Carson as the Queen, considered as examples of pure photography, may fairly claim to be numbered among the gems of this fascinating art.

An advertisement in early May boldly proclaimed the ultimate conquests, asserting Her Majesty the Queen, H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, and H.R.H. the Princess of Wales as recent studio patrons on successive days (10), although newspaper accounts of royal movements during this period (29 April to 1 May) by this author render such claims highly unlikely (11). Following a practice common to many practitioners around the country, however, they soon took the liberty of embellishing the reverse of their card mounts with the royal coat of arms and the names of their noble clients (as shown above). By December that year their newspaper advertisements included "the nobility and gentry of the Midland counties" among their valued customers, in additon to "extraordinary advantages for photographing children." (12)


In the 1864 edition of Wright's Midland Directory, probably compiled in late 1863, and by which time a fourth Burton branch had been opened in Burton-upon-Trent, the firm took out a whole page advertisement offering a wide range of services, including "animals with the instantaneous process," and with a substantial list of prestigious patrons (13).


On 5 April 1864 they announced their appointment as sole photographers to the Shakspere [sic] Tercentary Festival (14), and that they would be working from "a commodious gallery adjoining the pavilion" in Stratford-upon-Avon from Monday 18 April. This occasion presented further business opportunities to the burgeoning Burton & Sons portfolio: in addition to the usual "carte de visite and other portrait" services, they offered "a series of Shakespearean views, comprising all objects of interest in Stratford and the neighbourhood," each photograph bearing "a facsimile of the Committee's seal." (15) During the event, they made the most of the presence of a number of "musical celebrities who created and sustained the interest of the last great Triennial Festival at Birmingham," inducing them into his makeshift studio for individual sittings. The separate negatives were then innovatively combined in a single commemmorative print, inferring ""that these talented personages met by concerted arrangement in a spacious drawing room, and that while engaged in social converse, the photographer successfully plied his vocation," and subsequently "exhibit[ed] in the artist's window, at Messrs. Clulow's, Victoria street." (16)

Such an environment was eminently suitable for an invitation to a portrait sitting to be sent to Derby's man of the moment. A contemporary inscription handwritten in ink on the reverse of the card mount not only identifies the subject of Virginia's portrait, but also helpfully provides some clues to the circumstances surrounding the sitting:

Presented to E Hayman
by the original.
Ed. Foster Esq
Decr. 5 1864. Taken on his 102 Birth-
day Nov 8th 1864 -

Indeed the copy held by the Derby Local Studies Library is similarly, but somewhat less informatively, inscribed, "Mr Foster Centenarian." Virginia explains:

"E Hayman was almost certainly my great-grandfather Edward Hayman, originally from Devon and en route to London via Liverpool and Lichfield. As far as I know, Ed Foster was not related, and was probably only a casual acquaintance."

From an account of an 1861 portrait of Foster and his daughter by fellow Derbeian John Haslem (17), we know that Foster was no stranger to photographic studios, and may well have used such portraits to enhance his celebrity status, as a means of publicising his commercial activities.

Edward Foster was an extraordinarily energetic man, in spite of his advanced years, who had been active in a wide variety of fields throughout his long life. After turning a hundred and attending a public dinner held at Derby in his honour, he set off on several lengthy tours to towns as far afield as Birmingham (18), Gloucester (19) and Huddersfield (20). From the tone of the newspaper reports, these towns had previously played significant roles in his younger years, although he was originally a Derby man and it was to Derby that he returned in late 1863. He was reported to be:

In full possession of all his faculties, with eyesight that does not yet need the aid of spectacles, intelligent and communicative, Mr. Foster is a marvel for his age. The charts of which he is the author ... have been under the public eye for many years, and have been adopted by most of the principal colleges and schools in the country ... the chart of the histories of Rome, France, and Britain has reached its 42nd edition, while altogether upwards of 120,000 copies of the charts have been circulated ... The charts are admirably adapted to be given at schools, &c., as prizes, and have been extensively used for that purpose.

While apparently healthy, Edward Foster, his much younger wife and their teenage daughter were in a poor financial state, and an application was made by the Mayor of Derby Thomas Roe for him to receive some sort of pension, in light of his straitened circumstances. The Derby Mercury of 2 December 1863 reported that a letter had been received from the Prime Minister Lord Palmerston instructing payment of a donation of 60 pounds to Foster (21). A further article on 1 Feb 1865 (22) reported that:

For some time past Mr. Foster has been, from illness and consequent debility, unable to travel about the country in search of purchasers of his valuable charts, from the products of which the existence of himself, his wife, and daughter depend ... in order to minister to his temporary necessities, subscriptions should be obtained from all those who are benevolently inclined.

He died a few weeks later, at his home in Parker Street, Derby, on Sunday 12 March leaving "a widow and daughter in straitened circumstances." (23) He was buried in the New Cemetery on Nottingham Road on Thursday 16 March 1865 (24).


While there is plenty of verifiable information detailing Edward Foster's latter years, the material concerning his first half century appears to be mostly hearsay. At least I should perhaps clarify that by stating that I have been unable to substantiate many of the claims that have been made. Peter Seddon's recent article in Derbyshire Life entitled, "Edward Foster: A Master in Profile" provides an excellent overview of the remarkable life of "The Derby Centenarian." (25) However, much of the material has apparently been sourced from a book about Derby personalities that was published in 1866, shortly after the death of Edward Foster (26). Sadly, no sources are provided in either article. The engraving shown above (27) also illustrates this book, and appears to have been taken from the 1863 Burton portrait.

The important aspect, at least from the point of view of this article, and one about which there is little doubt, is that, after 25 years of service with the 20th Regiment of Foot, he discovered an artistic propensity and became a painter of miniature portraits and silhouettes. He subsequently forged this into a career which was to serve him well for several decades, at least until he was well into his seventies.

I have written previously about silhouette portraiture, and its relationship with early portrait photography, in an article about William Seville (28). In Part 2 of this series I will discuss Foster's early life in the miltary and as a silhouettist in further detail, and explore how he dealt with the rapid incursion of photographic portraiture into the silhouette business in a very different manner to the way that Seville did.

References

(1) Carte de visite portrait of Edward Foster, dated 8 November 1864, by John Burton & Sons of Leicester, Derby, Birmingham, Nottingham & Burton-upon-Trent, Collection of Virginia Silvester, Reproduced by permission.

(2) Profile & Portfolio of John Burton & Sons, Derbyshire Photographers & Photographic Studios, web page by Brett Payne

(3) Carte de visite portrait of Edward Foster, undated, by John Burton & Sons of Leicester, Derby, Birmingham & Burton-upon-Trent, Collection of Derby Local Studies Library, Reproduced by permission.

(4) Advertisement, The Derby Mercury, 28 January 1863, 19th Century British Library Newspapers from Gale CENGAGE Learning


(5) Advertisement, The Derby Mercury, 18 February 1863, 19th Century British Library Newspapers from Gale CENGAGE Learning


(6) The Photographic Art, The Derby Mercury, 18 February 1863, 19th Century British Library Newspapers from Gale CENGAGE Learning

(7) Carte de visite portrait of unidentified militia soldier, undated but possibly taken c.1865-1868, by John Roberts of 26 Osmaston Street, Derby, Collection of Michael Jones, Reproduced by permission.

(8) Carte de visite portrait of H.L. Kemp, undated but probably taken c.1863-1864, by John Burton & Sons of Leicester, Derby, Birmingham & Burton-upon-Trent, Collection of Derby Local Studies Library, Reproduced by permission.

(9) Photography, The Derby Mercury, 11 March 1863, 19th Century British Library Newspapers from Gale CENGAGE Learning

(10) Advertisement, The Derby Mercury, 6 May 1863, 19th Century British Library Newspapers from Gale CENGAGE Learning

(11) The Court, Daily News, 30 April, 1 May & 4 May 1863, 19th Century British Library Newspapers from Gale CENGAGE Learning

(12) Advertisement, The Derby Mercury, 30 Dec 1863, 19th Century British Library Newspapers from Gale CENGAGE Learning

(13) Anon (1864) Wright's Midland Directory, Leicester & Loughborough, with Burton-on-Trent, C.N. Wright, Victoria Street, from Historical Directories by the University of Leicester

(14) Carte de visite portrait, undated but probably taken c.1866-1868, by John Burton & Sons of Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Melton Mowbray & Burton-upon-Trent, Collection of Brett Payne

(15) Advertisment, The Birmingham Daily Post, 5 April 1864, 19th Century British Library Newspapers from Gale CENGAGE Learning

(16) Advertisement, The Derby Mercury, 22 Jun 1864, 19th Century British Library Newspapers from Gale CENGAGE Learning

(17) Haslem, John (1882) Silhouettes, or Black Profile Portraits, Notes and Queries, Oxford Journals, Volume s6-VI, Number 133, p. 57-58. Available at Google Books [Accessed 6 Apr 2010]

(18) A Veteran, The Derby Mercury, 7 May 1862, 19th Century British Library Newspapers from Gale CENGAGE Learning

(19) The Derby Centenarian, The Derby Mercury, 28 Oct 1863, 19th Century British Library Newspapers from Gale CENGAGE Learning

(20) Untitled, The Derby Mercury, 9 Dec 1863, 19th Century British Library Newspapers from Gale CENGAGE Learning

(21) Mr Edward Foster, the Centenarian, The Derby Mercury, 2 Dec 1863, 19th Century British Library Newspapers from Gale CENGAGE Learning

(22) Mr Foster, the Centenarian, The Derby Mercury, 1 Feb 1865, 19th Century British Library Newspapers from Gale CENGAGE Learning

(23) Deaths, The Derby Mercury, 15 Mar 1865, 19th Century British Library Newspapers from Gale CENGAGE Learning

(24) Untitled, The Derby Mercury, 22 Mar 1865, 19th Century British Library Newspapers from Gale CENGAGE Learning

(25) Seddon, Peter (2009) Edward Foster: A Master in Profile, (Derbyshire's Artistic Heritage), Derbyshire Life, July 2009, p.170-173.

(26) Robinson, Joseph Barlow (1866) Derbyshire Gatherings: A fund of delight for the antiquary, the historian, the topographer, the biographer, and the general reader ..., London: J.R. Smith, 106p, (Mr. Edward Foster, The Derby Centenarian, p. 81-84), Available online at the Internet Archive [Accessed 5 April 2010].

(27) Engraving of Mr. Edward Foster, Centenarian by uknown artist, in Robinson (1866).

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

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.