Saturday (6th December) marks the Feast of St. Nicholas when celebrations take place in many western Christian countries.
It’s a tradition that dates back to the 4th century when St. Nicholas as Bishop of Lyra was venerated for his generosity to children.
His later transformation into Santa Claus and Father Christmas during the 19th century has rather overshadowed his earlier role in the Christian church.
That said, many churches are named after St. Nicholas including one of my favourite buildings in Britain.
Newcastle Cathedral with its distinctive lantern tower began life during the 12th century as St. Nicholas Parish Church.
It’s a structure that continues to dominate the urban skyline and has been portrayed by successive generations of photographers as my own collection bears witness.
For instance, this carte de visite dates from the mid-1860s when the firm of W. & D. Downey was establishing its Newcastle studio in the heart of the city.
Erroneously titled ‘St. Peter’s’ in an unknown hand, it’s a view that had its origins in a stereoscopic 3D image.
In July 1864 as Downey’s consolidated its reputation for high-quality work, the firm placed one of its regular ‘Now Ready’ advertisements in the local press.
Newcastle Journal (15th July 1864). From British Newspaper Archive.
Like most collectors, the search for a particular image sometimes ends when you are least expecting it.
So it proved with a Downey stereo of St. Nicholas’ Church that appeared on a well-known auction site recently courtesy of a seller in the United States.
The first image I saw featured the verso of the stereocard revealing its title details printed on the company’s familar blue sticker.
The only slight disappointment was that, as closer examination of the two stereo halves reveals, the full 3D effect was undermined by the images being slightly out of alignment.
One explanation for this might be a result of the laborious process of cutting the photographic prints to size by hand.
Whether this particular stereo failed to meet Downey’s own high standards and ended up in the bin isn’t known.
Despite this, the pleasure of handling an object that is around 160 years old never fails to pall.
From the 1860s, photographers W. & D. Downey were among Queen Victoria’s favourites and produced defining royal images into the early decades of the 20th century.
However, by the time the Daily Mirror published this front page Downey portrait of Queen Alexandra marking her Diamond Jubilee in 1923, the company’s fortunes were already in decline.
Daily Mirror (7th March 1923). From British Newspaper Archive.
By July 1932, according to a notice that appeared in the Daily Telegraph, liquidators were called in and creditors asked to make claims on any outstanding debts.
Daily Telegraph (25th July 1932). From British Newspaper Archive.
That, one might have assumed, was the end of the W. & D. Downey story.
However, new research reveals that both the company name and its famous address of 61 Ebury Street in London’s Belgravia lived on.
The photographer responsible was Miss Sarah Partridge (1868-1955) whose career as a high society portraitist was celebrated in last week’s Pressphotoman blogpost.
By the time of Downey’s liquidation, she had a long and illustrious CV in the photography business.
Examples of Sarah’s photography have been shared with this blog by Jennie Gray, her great great niece who lives in Australia.
These untitled examples are both signed ‘S. Partridge’ with a London address at ‘26 Victoria Street, SW’ from where she operated in 1920, according to the London telephone directory.
Untitled by Sarah Partridge (1868-1955). Courtesy of Jennie Gray.Untitled by Sarah Partridge (1868-1955). Courtesy of Jennie Gray.. Signature of Sarah Partridge (1868—1955). Courtesy of Jennie Gray.
When the 1921 Census was taken, Sarah was recorded as a self-employed ‘photographic finisher’, working from home in the Surrey suburb of Croydon where she lived with her sister Lillie Kerswill and her family.
Sarah’s work for Bruton Studios in London’s Mayfair alongside society photographer Robert Johnson (1856-1926) seems to have lasted for around a decade into the early 1930s.
Examples of portraits by Sarah Partridge (1868-1955). Courtesy of Jennie Gray.
The details of how she then became connected with the W. & D. Downey company name after its liquidation are not known.
However, by 1935, ‘Sarah Partridge (Miss) (late of Bruton Studios) was operating as a ‘photographer & photographic instructor’ from Downey’s long-established London address at 61 Ebury Street in Belgravia.
1935 London Telephone Directory. From My Ancestry.
Trade directories reveal that she was sharing the premises with, amongst others, a cabinetmakers and a handicrafts business.
Examples of Sarah’s photography during this period have not survived, but she was using the company name as late as 1940 when this telephone directory listing was published.
1940 London Telephone Directory. From My Ancestry.
The following year, ‘W. & D. Downey’ is again listed in a London Post Office directory at 61 Ebury Street, but on this occasion there’s no mention of Sarah Partridge.
It’s at this point that the research trail goes cold, though the Royal Collection Trust website which features nearly 1,500 examples of the company’s photography, confirms that 1941 was Downey’s last year of operation.
Entry for W. & D. Downey from Royal Collection Trust website.
The lack of any surviving company archives by way of glass plate negatives or prints and written records suggests that the London Blitz may have had a hand in the company’s eventual fate.
What can be celebrated though with more certainty is the overlooked career of Miss Sarah Partridge who can now be recognised as a talented portrait photographer.
Sarah Treneman Partridge (1868-1955). Courtesy of Jennie Gray.
The search to discover more examples of her work and uncover more information about the final days of W. &. D. Downey continues.
Over the past few days, a significant anniversary in the history of the British monarchy and the media was passed.
On 3rd October 1896, Queen Victoria together with other members of the royal family were filmed for the first time.
Frame taken from cinefilm of Queen Victoria (3rd October 1896).
Keeping pace with the Queen’s passionate interest in all matters photographic, the shoot took place only ten months after the Lumiére brothers unveiled their first cinematograph films in Paris.
The firm of W. & D. Downey, often regarded as Victoria’s favourite portrait photographers, was tasked with recording the first moving pictures of her.
Given the importance of the assignment, members of the extended Downey photographic family travelled to the Scottish Highlands where the Queen was in residence at Balmoral.
Leading the filming project was William Edward Downey (1855-1908), who by this point had taken over day-to-day running of the firm co-founded in the mid-1850s by his father William (1829-1915).
Mr. W.E. Downey. From The Professional Photographer (1906).
He was joined by his cousins James John Downey (1854-1902) and Frederick Downey (1862-1936), who both travelled from Tyneside where the original Downey business had its roots.
By the 1890s, their own firm, J.J. & F. Downey based in South Shields, was a thriving photographic concern in its own right.
Details of filming at Balmoral and its aftermath can be gleaned from a variety of contemporary sources.
‘From a photograph by W. and D. Downey, Ebury Street, W’.
According to Queen Victoria’s Journals, 3rd October 1896 was “A lovely morning. — Nicky & Arthur breakfasted with us. — At 12 went down to below the Terrace, near the Ball Room, & were all photographed by Downey by the new cinematograph process, which makes moving pictures by winding off a reel of films.”
She continued: “We were walking up & down & the children jumping about. Then took a turn in the pony chair.”
Staying with the Queen were Tsar Nicholas II (known as Nicky) and his wife Tsarina Alexandra of Russia, who added additional glamour and international appeal to the occasion.
Recent research has revealed that unfamiliarity of working with the new technology meant the film was incorrectly loaded into the camera.
This resulted in an unstable image featuring “a severe vertical jumping motion and blurring of the picture.”
Using copies of the footage held by the BFI National Archive and Movietone News, the National Library of Scotland undertook a digitisation project in 2021 that has greatly improved the viewing experience.
Several weeks later, the national press reported how footage shot by W. & D. Downey, described as ‘animated photographs’, had been shown to the Queen and royal family members during a film and lantern slide show held at Windsor Castle.
Illustrated newspapers and magazines had only recently begun to employ halftone reproductions alongside engravings.
So to provide readers with an impression of watching moving pictures, Lady’s Pictorial used the latest printing technology to reproduce three pages of frames taken from the film footage.
Lady’s Pictorial Supplement (5th December 1896). From British Newspaper Archive.
Back on Tyneside, J.J. & F. Downey wasted little time in placing an advert in their local paper, the Shields Daily Gazette, offering the chance to view what they branded ‘Downey’s Living Photographs’.
Shields Daily Gazette (8th October 1896). From British Newspaper Archive.
It was to prove a fruitful avenue for theirs and other photographic businesses in the years that followed as moving pictures took over from portrait galleries and lantern slide shows as forms of mass entertainment.
During the summer of 1866, the celebrated photographic firm of W. & D. Downey named after its founding brothers William and Daniel placed a series of advertisements in the regional press.
These announced that they had opened a ‘branch establishment’ in the Northumberland seaside resort of Newbiggin by the Sea (last line below).
Newcastle Weekly Chronicle (16th June 1866). From British Newspaper Archive.
The choice of Newbiggin, fifteen miles along the North Sea coast from Downey’s main studio in Newcastle upon Tyne, was rooted in a significant family moment.
It was in Newbiggin that on 18th April 1866, Daniel Downey’s wife Elizabeth gave birth to a daughter.
Shields Daily News (20th April 1866). From British Newspaper Archive.
The couple’s choice of location for the baby’s delivery may well have been informed by the health benefits of escaping the pollution of an industrial city where child mortality rates were high.
Indeed, the couple, who married in 1863, had lost their first child, a boy named William Daniel, early the following year.
The safe arrival of Elizabeth Jane Downey was followed by a period of entrepreneurial photographic activity that characterised the firm throughout its long history.
Newspaper adverts reveal that by mid-July, the Downey’s had moved their seaside studio to Monck House, a property once occupied by Sir Charles Monck of Belsay.
A leading aristocrat in the region, Monck had previously sat for the Downey’s at Belsay Hall and was part of their expanding network of influential figures.
Monck House was certainly more in keeping with the facilities on offer at their 9 Eldon Square base in Newcastle as this newspaper advert confirms.
Newcastle Daily Journal (3rd August 1861). From British Newspaper Archive.
On 14th July 1866, an advert carried by the Morpeth Herald announced that Downey’s Newbiggin branch, now with its Monck House address, was open “for a short season, for the convenience of visitors to this beautiful watering place.”
It also advised that “to prevent disappointment, or having to wait, it will be better to make an appointment.”
Together with a series of views of “Newcastle, Woodhorn and Newbiggin-by-the-Sea”, another of the paper’s small ads made its readers aware of yet more Downey product that could be purchased in the resort.
Morpeth Herald (14th July 1866). From British Newspaper Archive.
Apart from mis-spelling its surname, the use of ‘Messrs. D & W.’ reversing the usual order of ‘W. & D.’ suggests that Daniel was combining his duties as a new father with this varied photographic schedule.
What a recent Pressphotoman visit to Newbiggin revealed was that the mid-1860s were pivotal years in the resort’s development.
1866 itself saw the building of Newbiggin Rocket House, one of Britain’s oldest and one that was involved in life-saving ship rescues well into the 20th century.
Within weeks of their summer season at Newbiggin by the Sea, the Downey brothers began a ground-breaking new chapter in their firm’s illustrious history.
For the first time, they were summoned by Queen Victoria to Balmoral where her diary for Saturday 22nd September 1866 records that “on coming home was photographed by a very good photographer Downey from Newcastle”.
Like the couple featured in a giant sculpture that watches over Newbiggin by the Sea today, the Downey’s never looked back.
The very first Pressphotoman post published in December 2022 featured a Channel 5 tv documentary about Queen Alexandra.
Portraying “the little celebrated and long-suffering wife” of King Edward VII, I questioned why a 70-minute programme rich in archive photographs had ignored one particular celebrated carte de visite portrait.
The resulting carte reportedly sold around 300,000 copies at a time when photography offered the public an affordable outlet for their fascination with the royal family.
That fascination continues as evidenced by another royal tv documentary broadcast in Britain last week.
Again, it offered an unmissable opportunity to utilise well-known carte de visite portraits of its subjects.
This time the programme makers did not disappoint.
Titled ‘Queen Victoria: Secret Marriage? Secret Child?’, Dr. Fern Riddell presented new evidence revealing a romantic relationship between Queen Victoria and her Highland servant John Brown.
As its title hinted, this included the claim that they not only married, but even had a child together.
Photohistorians have long pored over carte de visite portraits of the couple that were produced during the 1860s and 1870s.
Among the earliest was taken by the Aberdeen photographer George Washington Wilson at the Queen’s Balmoral estate in October 1863.
Marking the anniversary of her last Highland ride with Prince Albert, Victoria together with her pony ‘Fyvie’ were flanked by two of her servants, John Brown and John Grant.
However, when the photograph was published as a commercial carte, Grant was edited out of the shot leaving Brown and the Queen together.
The photograph later became symbolic of the monarch’s deep mourning for her late husband and her relationship with Brown that was already the subject of much gossip.
Sales during the following year were just short of 13,000 copies of this and other portraits made on the same occasion though the ‘Fyvie’ carte was the most popular.
The documentary also made great use of a similar portrait of Victoria and Brown taken five years later.
In the documentary, it was used to provide physical evidence for its argument that the Queen had given birth to a child with Brown the previous year.
Photographers like the Downey brothers and George Washington Wilson were no doubt privy to all kinds of interactions between the Queen and members of the royal household.
Exactly what they knew and saw would no doubt have interested today’s royal documentary makers.
What these intimate photographs capture only adds to the mystery surrounding Victoria and Brown.
Bigg Market in the heart of Newcastle upon Tyne is home today to numerous bars and restaurants that are a popular destination for a lively night out.
The name Bigg Market derives from a type of barley – ‘bigg’ – grown in the North of England and Scotland since Neolithic times.
From the early 19th century, varieties of grain from oats to corn were sold at a regular market staged in an area of Newcastle close to St. Nicholas Church, now its Anglican cathedral.
The name Bigg Market stuck.
It is a location captured during the late-1860s in this 3D stereocard by W. & D. Downey that has recently become part of the Pressphotoman collection.
Stereoscopically, it has the hallmarks of their work in terms of quality with the two wheeled carts in the immediate foreground acting as a trigger for the three dimensional effect.
Even without a stereo viewer to hand, it is possible to achieve the 3D effect by looking into the heart of the card and relaxing your eyes.
Downey’s had published stereos since its early days in South Shields at the end of the 1850s, but examples are hard to find.
Dating this card is helped by the knowledge that the prominent facade of Newcastle Town Hall (with St. Nicholas Church and its distinctive lantern tower in the background) was completed in 1863.
Another Downey stereo in my collection features the town’s catholic cathedral, St. Mary’s, and dates from around the same time when the company was actively promoting its series of ‘views’ of Newcastle in press adverts.
Again, yellow card is used, but the images are arched rather than square; and the verso features a blue coloured sheet of paper pasted onto the card that helped the stereos retain their shape.
One feature that is common to several Downey items in my collection is the same seller’s stamp on the verso.
‘Allan’ was Thomas Allan (1833-1894), a Newcastle blacksmith with a love of reading who set up in business as a bookseller and newsagent in 1858.
Three years later, he established another branch in nearby Dean Street which then moved to the ‘corner of Dean Street and Mosley Street’ as per his seller’s sticker.
As the company established itself in Newcastle, Downey’s ever-expanding range of carte de visite as well as stereocards were available to customers at all branches of Allan’s.
Thomas Allan joined forces with his brother William in 1881 and the T. & G. Allan company was a thriving concern across the North East of England into the 21st century.
The previous Pressphotoman piece marking a significant photographic anniversary has sent this blog’s research into the firm of W. & D. Downey of Newcastle on Tyne in fresh directions.
On 29th June 1863, William Downey took this group portrait in the garden of the London home of the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
It features Rossetti and William Scott Bell, known as the Northern Pre-Raphaelite, together with the movement’s champion John Ruskin.
The explanation for the hat and wig he is wearing is that his facial hair including his eye brows had recently fallen out due to an attack of alopecia.
This dramatic change is evident in an earlier Bell Scott portrait, also attributed to W. & D. Downey.
It is one that features in the collection of the Watts Gallery, Surrey (my thanks to Antony Ryan for this information).
The exact dating of the portrait is unknown, but it has the hallmarks of the company’s early celebrity cartes de visite published around 1860 when the Downeys were still based in South Shields.
As head of the Government’s School of Design in nearby Newcastle on Tyne (1843-1864), Bell Scott was a significant figure in the North East of England.
Eight of his best-known artworks completed between 1857 and 1861 feature in the Central Hall of Wallington, Northumberland, a stately home now in the care of the National Trust.
Rear view of Wallington, Northumberland. June 2025. Author’s photo.
Commissioned by Lady Pauline Trevelyan, Bell Scott’s brief was to decorate the hall with ‘wall paintings to illuminate the history and worthies of Northumbria.’
These are titled ‘The Roman Wall,’ ‘King Efrid and Cuthbert,’ ‘The Descent of the Danes,’ ‘The Death of Bede,’ ‘Spur in the Dish,’ ‘Bernard Gilpin,’ ‘Grace Darling’ and ‘Iron & Coal.’
The Central Hall designed by the Newcastle architect John Dobson took its inspiration from John Ruskin’s vision of an Italian Renaissance courtyard.
A recent opportunity to visit Wallington confirmed the impressive nature of both the hall and its paintings.
Central Hall, Wallington. June 2025. Author’s photo.Central Hall, Wallington. June 2025. Author’s photo.
On 29th June 1863, photographer William Downey set up his equipment in the garden of a house in the Chelsea district of London.
The house was home to the poet and illustrator Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882).
Joining him for the photoshoot were his friend and fellow Pre-Raphaelite artist William Bell Scott (1811-1890) together with the writer and critic John Ruskin (1819-1900).
Earlier in the year, Rossetti and Bell Scott had been photographed separately by William and his brother Daniel for their company, W. & D. Downey of Newcastle on Tyne.
Newcastle Daily Journal (21st March 1863). From British Newspaper Archive.
Hence, adding Ruskin to the line-up had a commercial caché.
The resulting photographs featuring the trio were then published by Downey in a variety of formats including cabinet cards and cartes de visite.
As to how the photoshoot came about, Bell Scott may well have been pivotal.
He was a Tyneside connection of the Downey brothers from his years as head of the Government School of Design in Newcastle (1843-1864).
In later years when interviewed about his own career, William Downey (1829-1915) recalled an incident about the Bell Scott/Rossetti/Ruskin photoshoot “hitherto unpublished.”
“I was taking their portraits together, and for the purpose of grouping would have had Mr. Ruskin sit down.
“But no. His reverence for Rossetti was so great that he would not sit down in his presence, and so had to be taken standing” (from ‘The Queen’s Photographer,’ English Illustrated Magazine, March 1896).
For the collector and those with an interest in the Downey photographic dynasty, these images are high on any wish list.
But their scarcity and budgetary constraints make adding such images to the Pressphotoman collection highly unlikely.
Given this, it was a moment of high excitement this week to obtain this carte portrait of John Ruskin taken on the same occasion.
The attribution ‘Unknown Photographer’ is like catnip to the photohistorian.
Sometimes the pieces of the jigsaw fall neatly into place and a credible name for the author of an image emerges.
That’s exactly what happened during the writing of this blogpost.
It began with a portrait photograph that is more than 160 years old and among the earliest protected by UK copyright law.
Copy 1/1/279. National Archives/OGL.
It features the veteran statesman and philosopher Henry, Lord Brougham (1778-1868) and was taken by Daniel Downey, one of the Tyneside brothers behind the celebrated photography firm of W. & D. Downey.
These facts are known because of a vital piece of legislation that early photographers in particular were quick to embrace.
On 29th July 1862, the Fine Arts Copyright Act became law and required anyone wanting to protect their paintings, drawings or photographs to complete a form and attach a copy of the work.
The first photograph (COPY 1/1/1) was registered on 15th August at Stationers Hall in London where the act was administered.
A few months later, according to a document stored in the National Archives at Kew, Daniel Downey submitted a form together with a copy of the photograph (seen above) that he had taken.
Copy 1/1/279. National Archives/OGL.
Dated 19th November 1862, the resulting form complete with his signature is numbered ‘279.’
For a researcher like me with an ongoing interest in charting the history of the Downey company, seeing such a document in the flesh as I did recently was a real privilege.
As regular readers will be aware, 1862 was a pivotal year for the Downey brothers, William and Daniel, who had started their photography business in South Shields several years earlier.
That January, their photographs of the aftermath of the New Hartley pit disaster claiming the lives of 204 men and boys were acclaimed by Queen Victoria.
Then, in March, their new studio at 9 Eldon Square, Newcastle on Tyne opened and quickly became a go-to destination for the great and good seeking a high-quality photographic portrait.
Daniel’s portrait of Lord Brougham was subsequently issued commercially as a carte de visite.
An example of this carte marked ‘Copyright’ and ‘W. & D. Downey’ on the front is part of the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.
As to when the photograph was taken, an article in the Newcastle Daily Journal (12th January 1863) reported how Downey had been honoured with repeated commissions from Brougham, who it called “the great opponent of the slave trade.”
The paper went on: “… only recently they were on a professional visit to his residence in Westmoreland, when they had the rare good fortune to obtain, in one small carte de visite, the portraits of both Lord Brougham and Mr. Gladstone.”
Searching online for this carte featuring Brougham with the then Chancellor of the Exchequer and later Prime Minister in four British governments, I came across this image.
Titled ‘Henry Brougham …. and William Ewart Gladstone’ and described as an ‘albumen print, late 1850s,’ the website of the National Portrait Gallery, London states that it was purchased in 1991 and attributes it to an ‘unknown photographer.’
Looking at the chair being used and the stone wall background, the visual evidence suggests a number of similarities with Daniel Downey’s copyrighted portrait of Lord Brougham.
Copy 1/1/279. National Archives/OGL.
Press reports also help identify a possible date and location at which these portraits featuring Brougham alone and together with Gladstone were taken.
In a report headlined ‘Mr. Gladstone’s visit to Newcastle’, the Newcastle Courant (10th October 1862) described how “the right honourable gentleman [Gladstone] and Mrs. Gladstone, who had been staying with Lord Brougham at Brougham Hall, near Penrith … arrived at Blaydon-on-Tyne, on Monday afternoon, by train from Carlisle.”
Newcastle Courant (10th October 1862). From British Newspaper Archive.
This account points to the period prior to this when the sittings took place with Brougham Hall being a strong candidate as the location.
It would also connect neatly with an event that took place in Newcastle the day after Gladstone and Mrs. Gladstone’s arrival in the city on Monday 7th October 1862.
The next day, the Newcastle Courant reported that Gladstone paid a visit to “the studio of Mr. Downey, photographer, Eldon Square, where the Chancellor of the Exchequer sat for a portrait.”
This resulting carte de visite issued by W. & D. Downey is part of my collection and also features in several versions in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Taken together, the sequence of events strongly suggests that Daniel Downey not only took the portraits featuring Lord Brougham and Mr. Gladstone at Brougham Hall, but also as that of Gladstone at Downey’s Eldon Square studio in Newcastle.
Whatever the exact details of their provenance, the resulting photographs capture two of Britain’s best-known politicians in their Victorian pomp.
Collecting carte de visite photographs is a never-ending journey of discovery.
Regular readers will be aware of my research into the studio of W. & D. Downey in South Shields and Newcastle on Tyne during the late-1850s and 1860s before relocating to London.
Their cartes of the great and good are a particular fascination of mine and my collection features not only single portraits, but others from the same sitting.
For example, Richard Cobden (1804-1865) was a Manchester businessman turned politician who became an MP.
He is best-known, together with his parliamentary colleague John Bright (1811-1889), for spearheading a successful campaign to repeal the Corn Laws, which penalised the poor.
In Cobden’s case, the two cartes published by Downey in my collection demonstrate how one man sitting on a chair could be successfully repositioned and reorientated for the camera to provide different images.
In one, he is looking to the left of the operator; in the second, he is looking straight down the lens.
In one, his right arm is draped over the back of the chair; in the second, it’s his left arm.
As for props, the table on the right hand side also reveals how a book, often a visible sign of the sitter’s learning and erudition, was part of one shot, but not the second.
The carte on the left is part of the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London where the two examples it holds of the same card are distinguished by text in the white border at the bottom of the card.
These include the words ‘Copyright,’ ‘W. & D. Downey’ and ‘Mr. Cobden.’
A further two examples in the NPG collection are close-up head-and-shoulders shots taken from the same image where the original negative has been cropped by Downey to produce a more intimate portrait.
Cobden sat for his Downey portrait in the summer of 1863 during a visit to London by the firm as this newspaper advert confirms.
Newcastle Journal (30th July 1863). From British Newspaper Archive.
The Downey portrait of John Bright MP, listed above together with Cobden, also features in my collection and is equally distinguished.
The seller was Kent-born Joseph Haycraft, who had been a printer and later bookseller and stationer in Manchester from the 1840s.
Like many in his trade, the cartomania phenomenon had given a considerable boost to business.
Politicians were among those figures conveyed celebrity status by these affordable photographs.
In the final years of his political career, Richard Cobden was MP for Rochdale, so cartes featuring his distinctive visage would have proved popular sellers in nearby Manchester.
When Cobden died in April 1865, Downey’s various portraits of him gained another lease of life.
Indeed, many previously unissued images may well have been marketed precisely because there was a public appetite to memorialise the late MP.
Downey portraits also featured in press tributes such as this engraving used by the Illustrated London News in its obituary though, as was sometimes the case, the photographer’s work was not credited in the press.
Illustrated London News (16th April 1865). From British Newspaper Archive.
As for Haycraft, he died only a year after Cobden in May 1866.
The following month, an advertisement in the Manchester Courier revealed that his premises at 52 Market Street were “going to be pulled down” and that an auction of his ‘stock in trade’ would take place.
Manchester Courier (16th June 1866). From British Newspaper Archive.
Following the auction, his son Frederick Taylor Haycraft, who had assisted him in the business, took over its running at new premises in nearby Princess Street.
However, the story does not have a happy ending as was the case for many who rode the carte de visite wave.
By the end of the decade, Frederick was listed as a ‘bankrupt bookseller’ by the London press.
The name of John Hunter Rutherford (1826-1890) lives on in a number of educational institutions.
An evangelical preacher from the Scottish Borders, he came to Newcastle on Tyne in 1850.
Among his many achievements as an educationalist, he is best known for setting up a series of elementary schools in the surrounding area.
Rutherford College named after him gave birth to what today is Northumbria University.
When Dr. Rutherford died suddenly, his reputation was such that 5,000 people took part in his funeral procession.
Newcastle Daily Chronicle (28th March 1890). From British Newspaper Archive.
In addition, the Newcastle WeeklyChronicle estimated that more 100,000 lined the processional route.
This line drawing of him in later life accompanied the newspaper’s three-column report of the occasion.
Newcastle Weekly Chronicle (28th March 1890). From British Newspaper Archive.
However, in his younger days, a recent addition to the Pressphotoman collection reveals that he posed for his portrait with leading Newcastle photographers W. & D. Downey.
The slogan ‘Patronized By Her Majesty’ was used by the company before being replaced by ‘Photographers To Her Majesty’ in the middle of the decade.
This information and the lack of Downey branding on the front of the carte allows it to be dated c. 1862-1866.
At that point, Dr. Rutherford was in his late-30s and in the midst of his studies as a medical doctor.
A surprising twist to this blogpost is that his death occurred only a few doors away from where the Downey carte portrait was taken.
As part of its funeral report, the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle published a letter from Dr. Rutherford’s son John sent from 6 Eldon Square, the family home.
It indicates the esteem in which his father was held.
Newcastle Weekly Chronicle (28th March 1890). From British Newspaper Archive.
Given this, the Downey carte de visite of John Hunter Rutherford as a younger man making his way in the world seems all the more poignant.
Paul Frecker’s recently published book Cartomania: Photography & Celebrity in the Nineteenth Century (September Publishing) is a veritable feast for collectors of cartes de visite.
Cartomania: Photography & Celebrity in the Nineteenth Century by Paul Frecker. (September Publishing (2024), £40).
It’s the culmination of more than two decades working as a specialist photography dealer.
In particular, it showcases Paul’s collection of the palm-of-the-hand-sized cards that reached peak popularity during the 1860s.
More modest in size, my own collection started amid ongoing research into the photography firm of W. & D. Downey of South Shields, Newcastle on Tyne and later London.
The company’s story, achievements and several examples of their cartes feature in Paul’s book, which I’m thoroughly enjoying reading.
One early Downey carte that I obtained several months ago via a well-known auction site continues to intrigue me.
It features a woman in full riding habit and hat sat side-saddle on her horse with a smartly-dressed groom in attendance.
This striking example of the carte format prompted questions in my mind as to who it featured and when and where the photograph was taken.
Looking for clues, what appear to be footprints in the snow in the foreground suggest a winter’s day.
Shadows are cast onto the building in the background.
The low sun has also brought to life the horse’s coat, indicating that its groom had worked extra hard to prepare his charge for the camera.
As to who the carte features and when and where the photograph was taken, further research produced a helpful press report.
In May 1861 under the headline “The Photographic Art,” the North & South Shields Gazette printed an article about Downey’s activities.
It described how “the Messrs Downey” had just added “a series of local portraits” to “their photographs of illustrious men and legislators.”
Among those “local portraits” were the Lord Bishop of Durham, Henry Montagu Villiers, and his family, who had “honoured them [Downey] with sittings at Auckland Castle.”
A previous Pressphotoman post (1st July 2024) revealed that the photoshoot for the carte below featuring the Lord Bishop of Durham took place in late-1860.
Among other “local portraits’ credited to Downey were several featuring Sir Edward Blackett and his family “taken at Matfen Hall.”
The Blacketts were a long-established Northumberland family and Matfen Hall near Corbridge, built in the early 1830s, was their stately home.
Today it’s a luxury hotel, spa and golf estate.
But it was the newspaper article’s next sentence that offered a tantalising clue as to the identity of Downey’s woman on horseback.
It continued: “Let us add, as exemplified in the case of one of Sir Edward’s daughters and one of the honourable Misses Villiers [my italics] that the artists have exhibited much felicity in their management of a figure on horseback.”
This information helped narrow the field of likely candidates.
Looking at other sources, the 1861 Census records Sir Edward Blackett in residence at Matfen Hall with his daughters Louisa, Anna Maria and Georgiana Emma, who were all in their twenties.
As to the Villiers family, they were not at Auckland Castle when the census was taken, but at their London residence – 30 Cavendish Place, Marylebone not far from Oxford Street.
It listed the bishop together with his wife Amelia Maria Villiers and three of their daughters.
At the time, Gertrude, Mary and Evelyn Villiers were 17, 14 and 8 respectively though they had an elder sister Amy, who would have been 19.
Given this information, I was pleased to come across a further piece of evidence that points firmly in the direction of a member of the Villiers family being the Downey woman on horseback.
The collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London includes three horseback portraits featuring the ‘Hons. Mrs. Villiers.’
They are all by the celebrated portrait photographer Camille Silvy, who is a significant presence in Paul Frecker’s book Cartomania mentioned at the start of this post.
All three Silvy horseback portraits are dated 1860.
Given the physical similarity to the woman on horseback in Downey’s carte, might the ‘Hon. Mrs. Villiers’ (above) be the mother of “one of the honourable Misses Villiers?’
The success of W. & D. Downey of South Shields, Newcastle on Tyne and London was built upon its ability to recruit and train the right photographers.
As demonstrated by this mini-series profiling Downey luminaries, an association with the company, as royal warrant holders to Queen Victoria, proved useful when selling their own products.
Our final subject also used the verso of his cartes-de-visite to announce that he was ‘formerly with Messrs. W. & D. Downey, London.’
Given Downey’s origins in the North East of England, R. E. Ruddock’s credentials were impeccable.
Born in Bishopwearmouth, Sunderland in 1863, Richard Emerson Ruddock was part of a media family.
His father, also Richard, was a newspaper reporter and later executive with the Newcastle Chronicle for nearly half a century.
By the time he was 18, Ruddock junior was living in the Elswick district of Newcastle, working as an ‘artist and photographer.’
Given his father’s position, an opportunity to work for ‘W. & D. Downey, London’ may well have emerged through family contacts.
Though details of his assignments are not known, a period of employment at Downey’s studio in Ebury Street, Belgravia during the 1880s would have provided invaluable experience.
By the end of the decade, R.E. Ruddock had returned to the North East and formed a partnership with another Tyneside photographer, Matthew Auty (1850-1895).
‘Auty & Ruddock’ operated from the seaside resort of Tynemouth where the Ruddock family including wife Alice and a son, also named Richard, made their home.
However, in March 1892, the ‘Auty & Ruddock’ business partnership was dissolved and six months later, R.E. Ruddock launched his own portrait studio in nearby Newcastle.
The opening of the Grand Studio in Goldsmiths Hall ‘at the corner of Blackett Street and Pilgrim Street’ was supported by an advertising campaign in the local press.
This included a double-column advertisement in a number of newspapers including the Newcastle Daily Chronicle.
Newcastle Daily Chronicle (6th September 1892). From British Newspaper Archive.
The ad went on to include a detailed description of the new studio and its facilities.
One press report described it as ‘an establishment which, for luxury and artistic refinement, excels anything of the kind either in the provinces or in London itself.’
The high-quality theme extended to the design of Ruddock’s products including silver-etched cartes-de-visite.
At some point during the 1890s, ‘R.E. Ruddock’ became ‘Ruddock Ltd’ and extended its range to include portraits mounted within embossed cardboard frames.
Despite the fact that photographic portraits credited to ‘Ruddock Ltd’ still appeared as illustrations in the Newcastle press, the business was in financial difficulties.
By November, its liquidation was announced and the ‘Grand Studio’ and its high-quality contents including a ‘stock of picture postcards’ were sold by auction, presumably to realise assets and pay off creditors.
Newcastle Daily Chronicle (19th November 1906). From the British Newspaper Archive.
Whatever the reputational damage caused by this business failure, R.E. Ruddock was not yet finished with photography. Far from it.
Within a short time, he took over the long-established studio of ‘Abel Lewis’ on Whiteladies Road in the Clifton district of Bristol.
Lewis, a long-serving member of the Royal Photographic Society, established his award-winning photography studio in the 1860s, first in the Isle of Man and then in Bristol.
Following the Ruddock take-over, photographs credited to ‘Ruddock Ltd, Clifton’ were soon appearing in local newspapers suggesting access to a wider photographic and press network.
However, the death in 1908 of Richard Ruddock senior prompted his son’s return to Newcastle where he was among the funeral’s chief mourners.
Mr. R.E. Ruddock’s Bristol studio continued to operate and in 1912, he opened a ‘New Photographic Studio’ further along Whiteladies Road.
The press article announcing this news also found space to highlight its proprietor’s connection ‘for many years’ to ‘W. & D. Downey, the well-known firm of court photographers.’
Clifton and Redland Free Press (15th March 1912). From British Newspaper Archive.
However, two years later, the same paper reported: ‘We understand that Mr. Frank Holmes has acquired the goodwill and business of Mr. R. E. Ruddock (late Abel Lewis).’
That August, as the First World War broke out, Ruddock emigrated to the United States where he was then joined by his wife Alice and other family members, settling in Seattle, Washington.
US citizenship followed in 1921 where he continued working as a photographer.
His death a decade later, aged 68 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, was marked by a short newspaper obituaryaccompanied by a poorly reproduced halftone photograph.
The Tribune, Scranton, Pennsylvania(23rd November 1931). From Newspapers.com by MyAncestry.
The paper reported that Ruddock, a widower, died of pneumonia, had ‘been employed at J.B. Schreiver’s [photographic] studio during the past several years’ and ‘was well-known in the city.’
Like his fellow Downey luminaries H.S. Mendelssohn and John Edwards, who featured earlier in this mini-series, a handful of Ruddock’s portraits feature in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.
The value of having worked for W. & D. Downey whether on Tyneside or in London seems to have held all our subjects in good stead during their subsequent careers in photography.
If you can add any information to each of the four photographers profiled or if you know of examples of their work, please use the comments box at the bottom of this blogpost or any of the blogposts below.
Our third subject is someone who Messrs. Mendelssohn and Edwards are likely to have known during their years with Downey.
James Herriott was born in 1846 in Blaydon, a town on the Tyne, a few miles across the river from Newcastle.
By his mid-twenties, he was married with a baby daughter and living in nearby Gateshead.
But he had already made valuable connections in the photographic business.
During his teens, he was apprenticed to Mawson & Swan of Newcastle on Tyne, who supplied firms like W. & D. Downey with the latest photographic equipment and chemicals.
Given this background, it’s perhaps unsurprising that James Herriott’s own career in photography was soon underway in Gateshead.
The 1871 census recorded his ‘rank, profession or occupation’ as ‘photographic artist,’ and the following year, a newspaper advertisement described him as a ‘portrait and landscape photographer.’
Advertisement from Gateshead Observer (1st June 1872). From British Newspaper Archive.
In terms of portraits, he offered customers ‘cartes de visite enlarged to life size and finished in colours.’
Whether his business hit financial or other difficulties, a notice published in the Newcastle Journal in April 1875 signalled a change of direction.
After closing for alterations, the notice stated, the business would re-open ‘under the named management of Downey and Herriott’ and ‘they will be prepared to do the highest class of work in the Art.’
The named ‘Mr. Downey, late of Oxford Street, Newcastle’ was photographer John Downey (1823-1906), elder brother of William and Daniel.
As described in part 1 of this mini-series, John Downey was previously in partnership for two years (1872-73) with Hayman Seleg (H.S.) Mendelssohn, another Downey apprentice.
The Downey & Herriott partnership though appears to have been even more short-lived.
Within a year or so, James Herriott was again advertising his Gateshead business, now with a second studio address in the centre of Newcastle.
Meanwhile, John Downey had set up ‘J & C. Downey, Photo Artists’ with his eldest son Cornelius at a separate address in Gateshead.
Downey & Herriott portraits are hard to track down, however, this cabinet card is unusual in that it shows the name ‘Downey’ crossed out on both front and the verso.
One explanation might be that card stock printed for the Downey & Herriott partnership was later used by James Herriott alone, perhaps because finances were still tight.
It’s also noticeable that both Downey & Herriott and Downey & Mendelssohn used the same distinctive orange-coloured card for their products.
Herriott’s involvement with the Downey photographic empire points to a long-running relationship.
It was one that perhaps began in the late-1860s following his Mawson & Swan apprenticeship and before opening his own Gateshead studio.
In a 1920s newspaper interview recalling ‘the days of his apprenticeship to W. and D. Downey,’ he recalled assisting ‘Mr. Downey’ in photographing both Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) on separate occasions.
Another memory of a Downey assignment involved photographing Prince Albert (known as Eddy) and Prince George (the future George V) ‘while learning to splice rope’ during naval training aboard HMS Britannia.
In May 1878, the resulting photograph credited to ‘Messrs. Downey’ was reproduced as an engraving by the Illustrated London News.
Supplement to Illustrated London News (25th May 1878). From British Newspaper Archive.
The dating of 1878, at a point when James Herriott was running his own photographic business, reinforces the idea that he was a trusted Downey associate.
Within a few years though, the Tyneside chapter of his life came to an end.
In March 1882, the Berwick Advertiser listed ‘James Herriott, photographer’ among ‘incomers’ to Berwick on Tweed.
This move together with his wife Martha and their four children might be explained by James’s parents originating from Berwick, the northernmost town in England, where James had become a Freeman at the age of 21.
Resuming his photography, he opened a studio in the town’s Castlegate offering a range of portraits.
The verso of his products also took the opportunity to highlight his professional link to ‘Messrs. W. &. D. Downey, Photographers to the Queen, London.’
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.
The Morning Post (11th June 1881). From British Newspaper Archive.
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.
Label for Hoare & Co’s Imperial Ale.
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.
Extract from 1895 Street Directory. From My Ancestry
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.
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.
Research into the photographic firm W. & D. Downey of South Shields, Newcastle upon Tyne and London is regularly published on this blog.
A number of photographers who worked for the Downey brothers, William (1829-1915) and Daniel (1831-1881), later went on to enjoy successful careers of their own.
Over coming weeks, a Pressphotoman mini-series will share new research on a selection of Downey luminaries.
When the celebrated portrait photographer Hayman Seleg (H.S.) Mendelssohn died in 1908, aged 59, a brief obituary in the Royal Photographic Society Journal described how his career began.
Born in 1847 in Germany and raised in Poland, “… political reasons obliged him to leave that country, and he settled at Newcastle-on-Tyne where he commenced his photographic career.”
It went on: “After serving with Mr. D. Downey for some time, he went into business for himself.”
This passing reference to Daniel Downey points to an apprenticeship with the company’s Eldon Square studio in the late 1860s.
W. & D. Downey’s Newcastle on Tyne studio was located in Eldon Square. Courtesy of Private Collection, Zurich.
Married with two very young children, the transition to life in a different country must have been unimaginably hard.
The Mendelssohns were one of only 160 Jewish families living in Newcastle at that time.
By 1871, they were sharing a house with jeweller Simon Falk and his family in Blandford Street, a short walk from the city’s railway station.
Evidently, employment with W. & D. Downey proved life-changing.
In the 1871 census, Mr. Mendelssohn’s stated ‘trade or profession’ was ‘photographer.’
He then formed a business partnership with another of the Downey brothers, John (1823-1906), who was also a photographer.
In late-January 1872, the firm of Downey & Mendelssohn opened for business in premises at 111 Northumberland Street.
Interestingly, this was the address that W. & D. Downey used when it opened its first studio in Newcastle on Tyne a decade earlier.
Advertisements placed by Downey & Mendelssohn in the Newcastle press offered a range of services.
These included ‘photographs taken of any animate or inanimate object’ and ‘Rembrandt portraits taken to perfection,’ however conventional portraits were their stock-in-trade.
Another notable detail was the addition of the term ‘Photo Artists’ in line with an array of competitors in the city, adding ‘sepia, oil or water colors [sic]’ to their products.
Within 12 months, their studio moved a short distance from 111 Northumberland Street (left of map below) to 17 Oxford Street (bottom right).
Studio moved from Northumberland Street (left) to nearby Oxford Street (bottom right). From John Tallis map of Newcastle on Tyne (1854).
The firm also adopted a distinctive orange-coloured card for presenting its products.
In December 1873, Downey & Mendelssohn’s two-year long partnership came to an end, and ‘H. S. Mendelssohn, Photo Artists’ became sole proprietor of 17 Oxford Street.
By this point, he was an active participant in the photographic life of the city.
This 1874 newspaper advertisement promoted an exhibition of his portraits using the carbon print process invented in Newcastle by (Sir) Joseph Swan.
Newcastle Daily Journal (15th October 1874). From British Newspaper Archive.
However, the adjoining ‘Notice’ hints at a form of intimidation that could be viewed as anti-semitic, which he was willing to confront publicly.
From this point, H.S. Mendelssohn’s career went from strength to strength.
He opened a further studio in nearby Sunderland in 1881 and the following year, his business expanded to London where his growing reputation attracted prestigious clients.
Queen Victoria’s diary entry for 20th December 1883, made at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, recorded: “A new photographer, named Mendelssohn, has taken lovely photographs of [Victoria’s grandchildren] Daisy [Margaret of Connaught] and little Arthur [Duke of Connaught].”
Whether W. & D. Downey’s royal warrant to Her Majesty (1879) played a part, it proved to be the first of many royal commissions.
H.S. Mendelssohn’s career is celebrated in various collections including the National Portrait Gallery, London where he is credited with 70 portraits.
This cabinet card featuring the actress Miss Ellen Terry taken in 1883 demonstrates his skills and how far he had travelled since arriving in Newcastle on Tyne as a refugee fleeing persecution.
Miss Ellen Terry by H.S. Mendelssohn. National Portrait Gallery, London. NPG Ax5571.
In the next post in this mini-series, how Downey’s principal photographer in the 1860s and 1870s used that calling card to attract clients to his own successful portrait studio.
Collectors on the hunt for a particular item or object will be familiar with the daily visit to online auction sites.
This involves entering a few well-chosen words into a search engine and hoping that a ‘new’ or ‘recently added’ result appears.
Even when this happens, the item description often suggests little to indicate that the seller is offering what you are looking for.
This was the case recently when a ‘Victorian Gentlemen’ appeared in a trawl for cartes-de-visites produced by W. & D. Downey during their early years in South Shields.
Initially, the card’s dirty and stained verso looked unpromising.
The NPG’s portrait matched my ‘Victorian Gentleman’ in almost every detail except that his top hat was placed on a cloth-covered table nearby.
Removing the top hat allowed the light to fall on his face producing, to my eyes, a more detailed and pleasing portrait.
Which of the two portraits was taken first is hard to tell.
In the NPG version, the bishop is using his cane for support rather than leaning on the table, so perhaps this came later in the shoot when (minus his top hat) he felt (and looked) more relaxed.
Another interesting feature of these portraits is that they are slightly smaller than other Downey cartes-de-visites of the period.
Both measure 3 and 5/8 inches (rather than 4 inches) by 2 and 3/8 inches.
The accuracy of the NPG’s dating of ‘around 1860’ is supported by the Bishop of Durham’s installation in September of that year.
By December, a lengthy article about W. & D. Downey in the North & South Shields Gazette titled ‘Photography in South Shields’ described how “the portrait of the Lord Bishop of Durham has also been taken by Messrs. Downey.”
Whether or not these portraits were made available to the public, they soon had an added commercial value.
In August 1861, the national press reported the death of Henry Montagu Villiers “whose health has long been in a precarious state … in his 48th year.”
A fortnight later, his funeral was held in Bishop Auckland when, according to the Brighton Gazette, “the shops of the town were closed, as were also the principal shops in the city of Durham.
“And the bells of the cathedral in Durham and of the churches of Newcastle, Shields, Sunderland and other towns, tolled solemnly during the course of the day.”
The arrival of the carte de visite format in the late 1850s was enthusiastically embraced by public figures such as Guthrie, who features in commercially available cards produced by several companies.
Downey’s version, which so impressed me, dates from the early 1870s towards the end of Guthrie’s life.
At that point, the company’s London studio at 61 Ebury Street off Eaton Square ‘opened occasionally,’ according to press adverts.
This ties in with the proviso stated on the verso that ‘portraits taken by appointment.’
As Downey’s business expanded from its Newcastle upon Tyne base to the capital, it encountered a number of accomplished competitors.
Founded in 1863, Elliott & Fry went on to establish itself as ‘one of the most important in the history of studio portraiture in London,’ according to the National Portrait Gallery, London website.
Its own carte de visite of Thomas Guthrie, also produced in the early 1870s, is in a similar style to Downey’s, perhaps suggesting that they kept an eye on each other’s products.
Guthrie’s death in February 1873 generated national newspaper headlines, and such carte de visites offered customers an affordable keepsake of a respected figure.
Given a choice, which of these Guthrie portraits would you have bought and why?
At no. 9 (on the right of facing terrace above), W. & D. Downey opened a new studio in March 1862, consolidating a growing reputation for supplying high-quality portraits.
Other leading photographers in the city such as P.M. Laws, E. Sawyer, R. Turner, G.C. Warren and T. Worden provided the Downey brothers, William and Daniel, with stiff competition.
But in 1864, when W.S. Parry moved his long-established studio to no. 17 Eldon Square, a new chapter in Newcastle’s photo wars began.
William Softley Parry was born in 1826 across the River Tyne from Newcastle in Gateshead.
By the late-1840s, he was in business as a window glass merchant in Grainger Street, Newcastle, enjoying the new medium of photography as a hobby.
Initially, he produced paper calotypes which he exhibited at the Annual Conversaziones of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne (founded 1793), known as the ‘Lit & Phil.’
By 1855, following the invention of the wet collodion process which used glass plates, Parry opened his ‘Photographic Institution’ at 44 Newgate Street (‘nearly opposite St. John’s Lane’).
Press adverts promised ‘female attendance for ladies’ indicating that his wife Christiana was involved in producing the studio’s photographic portraits ‘on paper and glass.’
Three years later, the Parry’s business relocated to 44 Bigg Market (‘4th door N.W. of Grainger Street’) and glowing reviews from the national press helped promote its wares.
Advert from North & South Shields Gazette, 15th July 1858. From British Newspaper Archive.
The new fashion of carte de visite portraits attracted a wide variety of clients and offered an affordable opportunity to dress up and look your best.
Then in March 1864 with business evidently booming, an opportunity arose to relocate to the more prestigious surroundings of Eldon Square a few doors down from W. & D. Downey.
According to a notice placed in the Newcastle Courant, no. 17, described as an ‘eligible freehold dwelling house with Coach House and Stable,’ was ‘to be sold by auction.’
Advertisement from Newcastle Courant, 14th March 1864. From British Newspaper Archive.
Within a few months, ‘The Eldon Portrait Rooms, 17 Eldon Square, Conducted by Mr. & Mrs. W. S. Parry and Assistants’ were open for business.
Advert from Newcastle Daily Journal, 20th July 1864. From British Newspaper Archive.
The Parry’s arrival cemented Eldon Square’s status as a place to go if you were having your photo portrait taken.
The fact that W. & D. Downey at no. 9 were the Parry’s neighbours and photographic competitors was reflected in subtle changes to their business offer.
For instance, when Downey’s offered a new series of stereoscopic views of Newcastle, Parry raided his photographic archive to advertise ‘local views, and others of general interest … taken from eight to sixteen years ago.’
In the drive for valuable custom, both studios placed almost daily front-page adverts in the Newcastle press.
Downey invariably occupied the top of the left-hand column whilst Parry took a prominent position on the right-hand side of the page.
Then, on 11th July 1868, the Newcastle Daily Journal reported the death of Christiana Parry.
In her late 30s, she had died at no. 17 the previous day though no cause of death was given.
It was the latest tragedy to befall the Parry family whose ‘eldest surviving daughter’ Euphemia died in 1862 aged five.
A fortnight after ‘the lamented death of his wife,’ William announced in a press ad that he was resuming business and that the Ladies’ Department would be run by her assistant for the past three years, Miss Lizzie Elliot.
Advert from Newcastle Daily Journal, 24th July 1868. From British Newspaper Archive.
Improvements to the studio in Eldon Square followed.
However, in June 1871, no. 17 was put ‘up for sale’ and William revealed that he would ‘shortly leave for the South.’
The following month, a two-day sale of ‘household furniture and effects’ and ‘the apparatus and working plant of the Photographic Department’ was held at his home.
After leaving Newcastle, W.S. Parry ran at least two photography businesses, one in Berkshire during the 1870s and another in Birmingham in the 1880s.
However, by the time of his death in 1915, his reputation as a pioneering photographer was long forgotten.
Even the Newcastle Journal, which celebrated his many photographic achievements during the Eldon Square years, headlined its report of an inquest into his death: ‘Blown Over By The Wind: An Old Man’s Sad Death At Middlesbrough.’
Despite this, William Softley Parry’s work as a pioneering photographer is chronicled in two respected accounts of the medium’s early years.
Notably John Werge’s History of Photography (1890) and, more recently, Roger Taylor’s Impressed By Light: British Photography from Paper Negatives, 1840-1860 (2007).
What they confirm is that W. S. Parry’s Newcastle years were both influential and productive and helped put the city on the map as a centre of photographic innovation.
Next time in the final part of this mini-series, new Pressphotoman research explores if an amateur husband-and-wife photography team were also living in Eldon Square at the turn of the 1860s.
Celebrations marking International Women’s Day earlier this month revealed an intriguing French portrait photograph from the 1860s.
In Britain, the National Trust shone a spotlight on Susan Davidson (1796-1877) calling her a “Victorian Wonder Woman.”
Mrs. Davidson’s crowning achievement is Allen Banks and Staward Gorge, a woodland estate in rural Northumberland to which she devoted more than three decades of her life.
To celebrate International Women’s Day, the NT’s Allen Banks and Staward Gorge page on Facebook posted this photograph of Mrs. Davidson.
It was captioned with her full married name, Susan Hussey Elizabeth Davidson, together with the credit “A. Ken. Phot.”
Alexandre Ken (1828-1874) was a photographer with a studio in the Monmartre district of Paris, suggesting a visit by Mrs. Davidson to the French capital to have her portrait taken.
She was not alone. Ken’s portraits of British society figures and aristocracy feature in the National Portrait Gallery, London, and he is described as being “active in the 1860s and 1870s.”
His image of Mrs. Davidson caught my attention as I had previously come across a portrait in a similar style during my ongoing research into the photography firm of W. & D. Downey.
Titled “Mrs. Davidson of Ridley Hall,” the credit in the bottom left cited “W. & D. Downey, South Shields” as the photographer.
This information enables the portrait to be dated prior to October 1861 when the Downey brothers, William and Daniel, first opened a studio in neighbouring Newcastle upon Tyne.
Both images successfully capture a woman, then in her sixties, who was evidently a force of nature, shaping and managing the large Ridley Hall estate.
A new exhibition opened over the weekend at Belsay Hall in Northumberland featuring work by the Turner Prize-nominated artist Ingrid Pollard.
“There is Light in the Fissures” features tree stumps and lumps of stone that form installations and interventions in Belsay’s spectacular Greek Revival house and quarry gardens.
Belsay was the brainchild of Sir Charles Miles Lambert Monck (1779-1867), who was a Whig MP during the early 19th century and also served as a magistrate.
Now in the care of English Heritage, the property that Monck shaped to mirror his own artistic vision has inspired Ingrid Pollard in her role as EH’s first visual art fellow.
Monck’s role in the creation of Belsay is celebrated on the English Heritage website in the “History of Belsay” section.
There, it uses this uncredited portrait photograph captioned “Sir Charles Monck in 1865 at the age of 86.”
“Sir Charles Monck in 1865 at the age of 86.” Taken from the English Heritage website for Belsay Hall, Castle and Gardens.
The website entry goes on: “He refused to have his portrait painted, but was interested in ‘the new medium of photography.’”
Given Monck’s enthusiasm, I wondered if it was possible to identify the photographer responsible for his portrait.
My research revealed a small ad placed in the Newcastle Daily Journal by “W. & D. Downey, Photographers, 9 Eldon Square, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.”
There “Sir Chas. M.L. Monck, Bart” featured amongst a list of well-known names in its forthcoming “Series of Portraits of Eminent Men.”
Small ad placed by W. & D. Downey for its “Series of Portraits of Eminent Men” including Sir Charles Monck. From British Newspaper Archive.
However, the ad’s dating of “March 4, 1862” in the bottom line did not align with the 1865 date given by English Heritage on its Belsay Hall website.
So was this a reference to the same Monck portrait?
Confirmation that it is one and the same comes from this 1908 reproduction of an engraving of Downey’s photograph of Monck that I recently added to my collection.
The same engraving features in the collection of the British Museum where it is attributed to Joseph Brown (1809-1887) “after a photograph by Downey” and dated to 1862 when it first appeared in Baily’s Magazine.
Tomorrow (16th January) marks the anniversary of the Hartley Pit Disaster in SE Northumberland, which claimed the lives of more than two hundred men and boys in 1862.
Photographically, the ‘catastrophe’ was recorded by the Newcastle firm of W. & D. Downey, who sent a selection of images taken at the pithead to Queen Victoria.
The firm’s celebrated photographs of William Coulson and his team of sinkers, who led the rescue efforts, plus mine owner Charles Carr and pit manager Joseph Humble now feature in the Royal Collection.
Twelve months ago, this blog presented new evidence raising doubts about the accepted dating of Downey’s Hartley photographs.
A few weeks after publishing this research, I was fortunate enough to see and handle a set of carte-de-visite published by Downey in the aftermath of the disaster.
They form part of the Mining Institute Collection housed at the Common Room in Newcastle and include images in addition to those sent to Queen Victoria.
These cdvs were included in my 2023 talk for the Royal Photographic Society’s Historical Group about the early years of the Downey company in the north-east of England.
You can view them at 31′ 30″ in the ‘1862’ section of the talk which includes a more detailed look at Downey’s photography of the Hartley Pit Disaster.
‘W. & D. Downey, Photographers: The Road to Balmoral’ for the Royal Photographic Society Historical Group. 15th March 2023.
The name of John Mawson (1815-1867) is one that has featured in earlier posts on this blog, notably ‘The Hartley Catastrophe’ (16th January 2023).
As a chemist and druggist in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the 1850s, Mawson was well placed to supply the needs of those taking up photography in the North East of England.
They included the fledgling company of W. & D. Downey of South Shields, Newcastle and later London whose activities I continue to research.
In 1854, Mawson was able to announce in the press that he held the sole license from William Fox Talbot for “the practice of photographic portraiture in Newcastle and neighbourhood.”
Advertisement from Durham Chronicle, 19th May 1854.
Mawson & Swan, the company formed with his brother-in-law Joseph (later Sir Joseph) Swan, went on to establish itself as a leading supplier of the collodion products that revolutionised wet-plate photography.
Their address at 13 Mosley Street, Newcastle-upon-Tyne became known around the world and a plaque on the building marks some of their achievements.
Memorial plaque outside 13 Mosley Street, Newcastle upon Tyne. Author’s photograph October 2022.
Locating actual photographs featuring such pioneering figures in the medium’s evolution often proves surprisingly difficult.
During my ongoing Downey research, I have previously come across only one photograph of John Mawson.
Taken on 26th June 1862 by the London-based portraitist Camille Silvy (1834-1910), it features in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.
At some point in its history, “Mr. John Mawson” has been written in pencil along the bottom of the card.
In the process, the credit, “W. & D. Downey. Phot.,” together with the word “copyright” have been partially obscured.
Aside from it being evidence of another photographic collaboration between Messrs. Mawson and Downey, the card’s verso contained the additional notation “Sheriff of Newcastle,” apparently in the same hand.
According to the Newcastle Daily Chronicle (7th October 1867), John Mawson was elected to the post of Sheriff after serving as a member of Newcastle Council for nine years.
Soon afterwards though, his life came to a tragic end.
As described by Roger Taylor in Impressed By Light (2007, p. 347): “Mawson, in his role as sheriff, was called in to dispose of barrels of nitroglycerin found in the basement of pub in the heart of Newcastle.
“Tragically, he and seven others were killed in the process.”
Whether this carte-de-visite was issued by Downey to mark Mawson’s appointment as Sheriff or following his death, it is a fine portrait with a natural quality lacking in the more formal posed version by Silvy.
The informality of this carte-de-visite may have reflected the long-standing relationship between the Downey brothers, William and Daniel, their studio and its staff and John Mawson.
Finally, another aspect of the card’s verso picks up a question first raised in my blogpost “If photographs could speak” (7th December 2023).
What is the explanation for the appearance of 4 Eldon Square as Downey’s Newcastle studio address rather than number 9 where the company’s best-known location in the city opened in March 1862?
Since writing my original post, I have seen several other Downey examples featuring the 4 Eldon Square verso together with the same list of “illustrious and eminent persons.”
That list, with its inclusion of “H.M. the Queen ” and “H.R.H the Prince and Princess of Wales,” who were first photographed by Downey in the Autumn of 1866, points to 4 Eldon Square cards being issued after that point.
Despite extensive searching, I have yet to come across a newspaper advert placed by Downey in the late 1860s or an article about the company from that period that features number 4 in any context.
Of the theories put forward in the earlier post, that suggesting human error, involving a mis-reading of “4” as “9” in the order for a batch of cards produced by a third-party printer, is fast gaining momentum.
An illustrated talk that I presented recently for the Royal Photographic Society’s Historical Group set me thinking about one image in particular.
The subject of the talk was the photography firm of W. & D. Downey and its first decade in the North-East of England in the 1850s and 1860s.
Downey’s celebrated image of Alexandra as Princess of Wales carrying her daughter Louise on her back featured in an earlier post (2nd December 2022).
In the past year, I’ve started collecting Downey carte-de-visites. Such was their ubiquity that many thousands are still in circulation.
The carte-de-visite format appeared in the late-1850s and immediately proved popular with the public.
Aside from its affordability, a carte-de-visite by design nestles conveniently in the palm of your hand
As the talk took place at Newcastle Cathedral, I was pleased to track down a card that featured the building’s distinctive ‘lantern tower’ and then included it in my presentation.
Confusingly though, at some point in its life, an unknown hand has written ‘St Peters’ in pencil on the front of the card, a point that members of my North-East audience were quick to point out.
In fact, the cathedral’s patron saint is St. Nicholas and not St. Peter.
However, that’s not the only aspect of the photograph that prompted a little head scratching.
When you turn the card over (to its ‘verso’), it lists ‘W. & D. Downey. Photographers’ as being based at ‘4 Eldon Square, Newcastle on Tyne.’
As proclaimed in regular adverts for its wares in the local press, the company’s studio in the city from 1862 to the late 1880s was at 9 Eldon Square rather than at number 4.
What then might be the explanation for this apparent anomaly?
Eldon Square, a group of impressive townhouses created by the eminent architect John Dobson between 1825 and 1831, became one of the most fashionable addresses in Newcastle by the mid-19th century.
Public records reveal that 4 Eldon Square was home to one ‘Thomas Humble MD,’ a physician who features in both the 1861 and 1871 censuses for that address.
According to a notice he placed in the Newcastle Courant (1st March 1867), Dr. Humble served the Newcastle Dispensary, a medical charity treating the city’s poor and destitute, for nearly 38 years. He was resigning the position, he said, due to his ‘increasing engagements.’
Given this background, is it possible that he needed to let out rooms to his photographer neighbour to earn additional income?
Downey’s photographic business was certainly booming and extra capacity to accommodate its growing clientele may well have been welcome, if only on a temporary basis.
This scenario is partly supported by other information on the card’s verso.
It lists ‘illustrious and eminent persons’ the firm had photographed including Her Majesty Queen Victoria.
This dates the card’s likely production to late 1866/early 1867 by which point Downey had recently photographed the Queen at Balmoral for the first time.
On the other hand, human error might have been responsible.
Simply put, a batch of carte-de-visite produced for Downey were printed with the wrong address featuring number 4 rather than number 9 Eldon Square.
Despite this error, they were used anyway and sold to a public whose main interest lay in a carte-de-visite photograph rather than its ‘advert’ verso.
There is one remaining possibility though and one that needs to be considered by collectors of all kinds of objects.
That the card is a fake.
If so, it’s a very convincing one.
The faker has even gone to the trouble of attaching a sales sticker for Allan, a bookseller, stationer and news agent in 1860s Newcastle, known to have been one of Downey’s sales outlets.
Pressphotoman 
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