Behind the company name W. & D. Downey lay a team of skilled photographers who established its reputation during the 1860s and 1870s.

One of these was John Edwards (1813-1898), who is the subject of the second post in this mini-series about Downey luminaries.

Cartes-de-visite and cabinet cards produced by his studio made great use of that  photographic pedigree.

The versos proudly proclaimed: ‘For many years principal photographer for W. & D. Downey.’

The absence of company records means it is difficult to identify individual Downey photographers as their names rarely appeared in print alongside their work.

Researching John Edwards life and career in photography is further complicated by his name being so commonplace.

Fortunately, he features in the 1881 census which recorded that he was born in the ‘East Indies,’ that he was a ‘photographer,’ and that he was 67 years old.

At that point, he was living with his wife Harriet together with a servant in London’s Kensington district.

In that same year, 1881, an advertisement in the London press highlighted ‘Mr. John Edwards’ photographic portrait studio near Hyde Park Corner, a well-known London landmark.

Given the reference to ‘for many years,’ it seems reasonable to conclude that Edwards employment as Downey’s ‘principal photographer’ covered the early decades of the company’s history.

This was a period from 1860 to 1880 during which it consolidated its base in the North East of England and established a London studio on Ebury Street in Belgravia.

It would also point to John Edwards photographing key Downey clients from royalty to celebrities, working alongside co-founders William and Daniel Downey and a growing team of staff.

His own studio at 1 Park Side, Hyde Park Corner attracted the sort of well-to-do individuals and families that he would have been well used to photographing.

A cabinet card, recently added to the Pressphotoman collection, well illustrates his studio’s appeal to a particular class of customer.

Helpfully, the verso featured the names and ages of those appearing before his studio camera in 1884.

Mrs. Laura Hoare is pictured with her children Geoffrey, aged 5, two year-old Lionel and Richard, aged 10 months.

All three took their mother’s maiden name as their middle name, which is also recorded in pencil on the verso.

The daughter of a baronet, Laura Lennard had married William Hoare in 1878.

Educated at Eton and Cambridge University, William was a partner in both Hoare’s Bank and a family brewery business, which included a chain of more than 100 public houses.

The couple went on to have four children including a daughter Mary, whose ‘personal occupation’ is recorded in the 1911 census as ‘poultry keeper.’

However, one of the boys who featured in the 1884 cabinet card, like many of his generation, pre-deceased both his parents.

Their youngest son Richard was killed in 1916 whilst serving as a captain during the First World War.

When Laura died in 1929 aged 78, the press report of her funeral recorded both Geoffrey and Lionel as being Lieutenant Colonels, perhaps indicating military careers rather than banking or brewing.

Their father, who was absent from the family photo created by John Edwards, had died in 1925.

The former Downey principal photographer continued to portray London’s leading families for posterity.

He also supplied images to the illustrated press as the halftone revolution enabled photographic reproduction.

By the mid-1890s, his studio at 1 Park Side shared its address with three other businesses – a waterproofers, an undertakers, and an auctioneer – reflecting that a golden era of portrait photography was nearing its end.

Shortly before his death, John Edwards’ business including its negatives was taken over by yet another Downey graduate, the celebrated Australian photographer H. Walter Barnett (1862-1934).

However, ‘John Edwards’ portraits continued to appear in newspapers as stock images.

A small number of other portraits credited to John Edwards (1813-1898) feature in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.

https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp124334/john-edwards

If you have any further details of John Edwards biography or know other examples of his photography, please use the comments box below.

In part 3 of this mini-series, how a Mawson & Swan apprentice in Newcastle on Tyne became a trusted Downey assistant, photographing Queen Victoria and the future Edward VII and George V.

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