Category: James Edward Ellam

Manchester 1894

January 12th, 2026
Pressphotoman’s ongoing search for stereoscopic photographs by the early press photographer James Edward Ellam (1857-1920) can report an exciting development.

One of his stereocards has been identified in the archive collection of Queen guitarist Sir Brian May thanks to co-curators Denis Pellerin and Rebecca Sharpe.

This wonderful 3D image features ‘Deansgate, Manchester’ with the city’s Anglican cathedral in the background

It’s captioned and dated ‘1894’ on the verso in Ellam’s distinctive handwriting.

Courtesy of the Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy (BMAS).

Courtesy of the Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy (BMAS).

Rebecca tells me that the card was added to the BMAS collection as part of a lot acquired in 2019.

Looking at the card’s style and colour, this newly-discovered example also appears significant in researching the pioneering Fleet Street photographer’s career.

In 1894, Ellam was working as a chemist’s assistant in the North Yorkshire town of Yarm where he lodged with tailor and fellow amateur stereographer Henry Bradley (1852-1937).

Like ‘Deansgate, Manchester,’ the stereo below also features rounded corners and is presented on black card.

© Author’s collection.

Though uncaptioned, research has identified its subjects as Henry Bradley with his wife Dorothy and some of their children.

The Bradley Family blogpost – 21st September 2023

The stereo was one of around 30 acquired by Pressphotoman from an Ebay auction in 2023 that can be attributed to James Edward Ellam.

If, like ‘Deansgate, Manchester’, the group portrait was taken in 1894, the Bradleys and their lodger were soon on the move to Dunmow in Essex where Henry took over another tailoring business.

This relocation gave Ellam proximity to London and allowed him to pursue a professional stereography career, first with Underwood & Underwood and then London News Agency Photos.

To add to my excitement about the newly discovered Ellam stereo, an example of Henry Bradley’s stereography has also emerged from the Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy (BMAS).

Courtesy of the Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy (BMAS).

Though untitled, the rural scene features an ‘H. Bradley, Dunmow’ stamp on the verso.

Courtesy of the Brian May Archive Stereoscopy (BMAS).

Research into the stereography of both James Edward Ellam and Henry Bradley continues.

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Jigsaw Pieces

December 8th, 2025
Photohistory research often resembles a large jigsaw puzzle in which the pieces are randomly scattered around the world

It’s then the researcher’s job to try and locate pieces that have survived the passage of time and reassemble what remains of the puzzle until some sort of understandable picture emerges.

Nearly two years have passed since a couple of 3D stereoscopic images produced by London News Agency Photos (LNA) of 46 Fleet Street came to my attention on a well-known online auction site.

© Author’s collection.

At the time, I made a case for the stereos taken at the 1910 Army Pageant at Fulham Palace being the work of early press photographer James Edward Ellam (1857-1920) whose career I continue to explore.

Press Agency Photos

Then out of the blue, a recent email exchange with Julie Gibb from National Museums Scotland yielded yet more pieces of this particular jigsaw.

She curates the Bernard Howarth-Loomes Collection of around 11,000 stereos.

Unbeknownst to me, it included a set of five featuring the self-same 1910 Army Pageant and also published by London News Agency Photos

What was more exciting was that one of the Bernard Howarth-Loomes images matched the second one that that I obtained from Ebay in 2024 minus its handwritten caption as supplied by JE Ellam.

The Bernard Howarth-Loomes Collection. Accepted in lieu of Inheritance Tax by H M Government from the estate of Ethel Alma Howarth-Loomes and allocated to National Museums Scotland, 2023.

© Author’s collection.

What is apparent from the further four LNA stereos in the Bernard Howarth-Loomes Collection is that they were published as a commercial set complete with printed captions.

This echoes the approach taken during the same era by Underwood & Underwood, a fellow stereoscopic photography company with a London office near Fleet Street.

Like LNA, they too published sets of stereocards featuring news events and supplied the images from the same assignment to newspapers and magazines.

To complete the picture, James Edward Ellam worked for the Underwood company for a decade from 1897 before joining London News Agency Photos after it began life in 1908.

These new LNA stereos featuring the 1910 Army Pageant add further weight to the case for them being Ellam’s work.

My thanks to Julie Gibb for permission to reproduce the following LNA stereos from the Bernard Howarth-Loomes Collection in this blogpost.

© The Bernard Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland.

© The Barnard Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland.

© The Bernard Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland.

© The Barnard Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland.

If anyone has other LNA stereos from the 1910 Army Pageant in their collection, I’d be very pleased further details via the comment box below.

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Man in a Hat

September 8th, 2025
In September 2023, a blog-a-day series of Pressphotoman posts featuring stereographs mostly attributable to the early press photographer James Edward Ellam (1857-1920) concluded with a question.

Was Ellam the man portrayed in one of the newly-discovered cache of stereos?

Though faded with age, a figure in full Highland dress pictured with a garden backdrop was captioned ‘His Majesty.’

© Author’s collection.

The handwriting was immediately recognisable from the multiple copyright forms that Ellam completed during his career, whilst the title ‘His Majesty’ appeared to be a humorous reference to one of his best-known images.

Taken for Underwood & Underwood, it featured Edward VII and his grandchildren (including the future Edward VIII and George VI) at Balmoral following the King’s Coronation in August 1902.

© Author’s collection.

These pieces of evidence seemed to point strongly, but not conclusively, in one direction.

For the past couple of years, Pressphotoman has been on the look out for photographic evidence that might corroborate this theory.

Thanks to Dr. Michael Pritchard, editor of the British Photographic History blog and The PhotoHistorian, journal of the Royal Photographic Society Historical Group, another photograph featuring Ellam has emerged.

It was taken in July 1908 when around 300 photographers, both professional and amateurs, gathered in Brussels for the 23rd Photographic Convention of the United Kingdom.

The choice of location was informed by the Convention president Sir Cecil Hertslet FRPS (1850-1934) who was His Majesty’s Consul-General to Belgium from 1903 to 1919.

Sir Cecil Hertslet by Bassano Ltd, 9th January 1920. © National Portrait Gallery, London. NPG x120011.

In Brussels, the traditional Convention group photograph was taken outside the Palais de Justice.

There, much to my delight, between ‘Miss. C. Comley’ and ‘W.H. Harrison’ was ‘J.E. Ellam’ wearing a floppy sun hat.

Detail from 1908 Photographic Convention of the United Kingdom group photograph. Courtesy of Dr. Michael Pritchard FRPS.

When compared with the man pictured in the aforementioned ‘His Majesty’ stereo taken a few years earlier, the similarity is striking.

© Author’s collection.

At this point in his career as a professional photographer, Ellam was nearing the end of a decade-long working relationship with 3D giants Underwood & Underwood based in London’s West End.

He had become a member of the Royal Photographic Society in 1907 and was also an active member of the West London Photographic Society, lecturing on stereoscopic photography at one of its meetings.

In 1909, as part of a display by the United Stereoscopic Society, he created a stereoscopic transparency displayed by lantern at the annual RPS exhibition.

By the following year, he was working for London News Agency Photos at 46 Fleet Street covering events like the Army Pageant of 1910 held in Fulham Palace Gardens.

© Author’s collection.

The discovery of another photograph of Ellam helps bring a further dimension to several blogposts on this site that can be found by putting his surname into the search engine via the link below.

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