Political elections and their outcomes are a talking point at the moment particularly in England, Canada and Australia where voters have recently gone to the polls.
Down the centuries, press and media coverage of such landmark events has evolved as demonstrated by this photograph.
More about the photograph’s subjects, its location and how it came to be taken shortly.
As to the photographer responsible, the image was created by James Edward Ellam (1857-1920) whose career as a stereographer and later press photographer is a continuing research thread for this blog.
The photograph’s existence is entirely due to the UK National Archives, formerly the Public Record Office.
The Fine Arts Copyright Act of 1862 required that anyone registering a photograph for copyright needed to complete a form with a copy of the image attached though not everyone did as they were required.
Today, those copyright records are stored in sturdy grey archival boxes in the National Archives building at Kew in London.
Each box contains a stack of forms preserved in see-through sleeves.
Fortunately for this researcher, Mr. Ellam’s form dated 27th June 1905 and signed by him together with the photograph it related to were intact.
Helpfully, the National Archives have created a digital record of these copyright forms and their contents.
But the contents of the forms are not always accurately recorded and so can send the researcher down a few dead ends as it did in this case.
On further investigation, what the catalogue listed as ‘Photograph of Barclay Howard Esq and Mrs. Howard walking along High Street, Dunmow’ turned out to have mis-spelt the couple’s surname.
Mr and Mrs. Heward (rather than Howard) were Spencer Barclay Heward (1853-1914) and his wife Lina Emily née Sewell, who had married in 1879.
The reason that James Edward Ellam had taken their photograph on a June day in 1905 was all down to politics.
Mr. Heward was a candidate in the forthcoming United Kingdom General Election that took place over several days in late January and early February 1906.
This wasn’t Heward’s first attempt to become a Member of Parliament.
A retired stockbroker, he had stood unsuccessfully in 1892 as the Liberal candidate for the Epping constituency in Essex.
From British Newspaper Archive.
In November 1904, he was again selected to fight the seat for the Liberals in a bid to unseat the same Conservative opponent, Colonel Lockwood.
Ellam’s photograph of Mr. and Mrs. Heward captures the couple striding confidently along the pavement, attracting the attention of various onlookers.
One particular point of interest is the photograph’s location as stated on the copyright form: ‘High Street, Dunmow.’
Whilst working during the week as a press photographer servicing London’s Fleet Street, Ellam lodged at weekends with Henry Bradley and his family at their outfitters business on Dunmow High Street in Essex.
Whether the photoshoot with the Hewards had been pre-arranged or came from Ellam’s quick-thinking, it resulted in an image with topical news value.
There was a growing market for such photos among newspapers and magazines.
These though were early days as far as press photography were concerned and even national newspapers previewing the General Election predominantly used line drawings as illustrations.
From British Newspaper Archive.
They were early days too for Ellam, who was operating at this point in his career as a freelance press photographer with an eye to selling his images to multiple customers.
Claiming copyright for his work provided a degree of protection for any financial benefits that might accrue if the photograph was reproduced by the press.
On this occasion though, and despite the Liberal landslide result across the UK, Ellam’s journalistic instinct went unrewarded at the polls.
Also in 1905, Ellam created another photograph aimed at the press that he again copyrighted, which is the subject of the next Pressphotoman blogpost.
Pressphotoman 
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