How the National Trust's collection spans the history of photography
BY Anna Sparham
19th Apr 2024 History
4 min read
From the 1840s to the present day, across the history of photography, a new beautifully illustrated book showcases 100 photographs from thousands held at National Trust properties
100 Photographs from the
Collections of the National Trust
offers an enticing curated representation of the half a million photographic
objects in its care. The selected photographs explore the breadth and depth of
the medium from the 1840s to the present day.
Many of those included entered
the collections through the significant houses and businesses to which they
relate and are therefore contextualised by those histories, as well as those who
originally made the photographs, whether famous professionals or lesser-known
enthusiasts. Discovery, invention, tragedy, beauty, the extraordinary to the everyday—these
diverse photographs and their stories conjure intrigue in their leap between the
familiar and the unexpected.
"These diverse photographs and their stories conjure intrigue in their leap between the familiar and the unexpected"
Photographs from Lacock
Abbey, once home to William Henry Fox Talbot, inventor of the photographic
negative sit alongside another significant inclusion, that of the work of Edward
Chambré and Margaret Hardman, whose 1950s preserved studio and home can be
visited in Liverpool. While offering insight to such places and many more across
England, Wales and Northern Ireland, these photographs also encourage us to consider
our own personal or family photographs, perhaps inspiring further photography to
fulfil the individual yearning for such tangible memories to treasure ourselves
today.
Studio style
From photography’s earliest days, the rise of the portrait
studio encouraged stylised portraits from eminent photographers with sitters formally
and fashionably portrayed. Cartomania—the avid collecting of the
Victorian cartes de visite—encouraged ownership of photographs of famous personalities
as well as family and friends.
Later studio prints, such as those by Lafayette or Alice
Hughes, are met by 20th century examples from from Edward Chambré
Hardman, Angus McBean, Vivienne, or Antony Armstrong-Jones.
A hand-tinted ambrotype portrait of a
young man posing in a professional studio, c. 1860s, from the collection at
Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire.
Actor Robert Donat posed dramatically in the
sought after studio of Liverpool’s Edward Chambré Hardman, 1929, from The
Hardmans’ House collection, Liverpool.
Global encounters
Landscapes, landmarks and people encountered on travels
across the globe are a subject of continual interest to the photographer. Numerous
photographic albums commemorate occasions or personal journeys of discovery
across the British Empire and beyond. The renowned Francis Frith’s images in
Egypt or the Dufty Brothers photographs of Fiji reflect Victorian travel,
collecting and imperial perceptions of these places, even when not visited in
person.
"Landmarks and people encountered on travels are a subject of continual interest to the photographer"
Photographs were purchased as souvenirs or actively taken by
professionals and amateurs alike as the medium became more accessible. 21st
century responses to India and China are also explored through contemporary
photographs in the collections.
Mahedevis of the Shan States attending the 1903
Delhi Durbar photographed by Bourne and Shepherd, from an album at Kedleston
Hall, Derbyshire.
Vita Sackville-West composing a picture of
Bakhtiari men encountered en route through Persia in 1927, from an album at
Sissinghurst Castle Garden, Kent.
A view of Mount Kenya c.1965 by Frants
Hartmann, from Florence Court, County Fermanagh.
One for the album
Alongside abundant professional portrait photographs, taken
in or outside the studio, widespread access to photography from the late 19th
century onwards, enabled the birth of the snapshot and the ability to take
images of family and friends far more easily. More relaxed and informal
photographs emerged.
Automated photography also added to the offer. The more natural
images strike a chord with themes of family, self-identity, celebration and
memory-making all playing their part in how we engage with photography and
those around us today.
Playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw, a
keen amateur photographer, composes this self-portrait with his wife Charlotte
in 1898, here as a digital positive of a negative at Shaw’s Corner,
Hertfordshire.
Early photo-booth portraits of Elizabeth
Kerr-Smiley (right), or “Betty” as she was affectionately known, in the
collections at Scotney Castle, Kent.
The Yorke brothers photographed by
their Aunt May Scott in 1908, from an album belonging to the boys’ nanny Lucy
Hitchman, in the collection at Erddig, Wrexham.
Women pioneers
The work of women photographers is keenly evident, from the
1850s to 2023. Many of these women were pioneering in their field, paving the
way for many more in their footsteps.
"Christina Broom is considered to be the UK’s first woman press photographer"
Julia Margaret Cameron is one of the best known, using her
typical characteristics of soft focus and motion blur in capturing Thomas
Carlyle’s likeness. Christina Broom, considered to be the UK’s first woman
press photographer, produced newsworthy images as photographic postcards and
submitted to the illustrated press.
Thomas Carlyle, voiced his dislike for this
portrait by Julia Margaret Cameron in 1867, but recognised that it had “something
of likeness”, from Carlyle’s House, London.
Edith Craig, the daughter of Ellen Terry, attending
the 1909 Green, White and Gold Fair in support of women’s suffrage,
photographed by Christina Broom, found at Smallhythe Place, Kent.
Poignant mementos and significant moments
Images reflecting conflict stand among some of the most poignant
photographs in the selection, depicting civilians and soldiers from the Second
Anglo-Afghan War to the Second World War.
Significant events such as war are present, but so too are more
positive moments, such as the incredible archaeological discovery made at
Sutton Hoo, recorded in meticulous detail by Mercie Lack and Barbara Wagstaff.
Pilot Arthur Tylston Greg in his Airco DH-4
plane not long before a fatal mission, 1917, from a scrapbook album made in
memory at Quarry Bank, Cheshire
Barbara Wagstaff with her camera at the
excavations of the fossil on an Anglo-Saxon ship, photographed by Mercie Lack
using rare colour film, 1939, from Sutton Hoo, Suffolk.
Innovative approaches
Innovation underpins much photography in this book and the
work of Anna Atkins was no exception. Pioneering the cyanotype process in
pursuit of photographs of botanical specimens, she even published the first
photographically illustrated book in 1843 and her methods continue to inspire
contemporary practitioners today.
Innovative approaches to photography are also seen in the
1890s from the experiments in electricity by Lord Armstrong at Cragside,
captured by John Worsnop, to the playfully attempts at “spirit photography” by
the Ketton sisters in Norfolk.
The Hedysarum genus as a cyanotype print, made
by Anna Atkins in 1854, from the collections at Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire.
Gertrude and Marion Ketton play ghost in this entertaining picture in the 1890s from Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk where they
lived.
100 Photographs From the Collections of the National Trust (National Trust Cultural Heritage Publishing) by Anna Sparham and contributors is available now
Banner: Pilot Arthur Tylston Greg by his Airco DH-4 plane not long before a fatal mission, 1917. ©National Trust Images, Robert Thrift (capture)
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