PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART AND SOCIAL HISTORY

Part 1: The Francis Bedford Topographical Photographs

Part 2: Urban Landscapes and Society: The Warwickshire Photographic Survey from
Birmingham Central Library

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION by Phillip N Allen

Francis Bedford (1816-1894) was an extremely respected photographer of the mid-nineteenth century whose landscape images were highly acclaimed. The Bedford archive which is now preserved in the Central Library at Birmingham comprises some 2,700 negatives and a further 2,000 prints. All the images in the collection are reproduced in this microfiche edition together with a detailed listing and subject index giving fiche number, place, county and title of each photograph.

Francis Bedford was born in London into the middle-class family of Francis Octavius Bedford, an architect of some distinction, who designed some six churches. Francis Bedford was the eldest of five children and probably receives his earliest training in his father’s architectural practice. In this respect it is interesting to note that interiors and exteriors of churches loom large in this later photographic output. Between 1833 and 1849 Francis exhibited a number of architectural drawings and watercolours at the Royal Academy and these again were mainly of ecclesiastical buildings. It is also clear that Bedford was a skilled lithographer for he produced A Chart of Westminster Abbey in 1840 followed by A chart of church architecture and The Churches of York in 1843.  Digby Wyatt hired Bedford to produce 158 coloured lithographs for the monumental Industrial Arts of the Nineteenth Century at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and by the mid-1850s Bedford was combining his artistic and photographic skills for in the Treasury of Ornamental Art, published in about 1858, it is recorded that the images were photographed and drawn on stone by Francis Bedford. Exactly when and why Bedford took up photography had not been established but it is possible that the introduction of the collodion wet-plate process in 1851 indicated that the new art had a bright future and that his real involvement dates from this time.  It should also be noted that according to his obituary in The Bookseller (6 June, 1894) the publishers of all the above works, Day & Son, actually suggested that he should take up photography.

It is recorded that Bedford was one of the original members of the Photographic Society which was founded in 1853 and he certainly contributed images to their first 1853-4 exhibition and to subsequent shows until 1870 when he seems to have given up in favour of his son William.

He also contributed to the first  Photographic Album published in 1855 and a view of Pont-pair to the second volume (1857).  Wales was to loom large in Bedford’s photographic output and of the 9,000 images recorded in his sales catalogue about 90 are views of Wales.  Bedford had a great affection for Wales and even had a house at Larne but it was North Wales that received his attention as a photographer. His Chester publishers, Catherall and Pritchard, issued a set of stereoscopic views of Chester and North Wales in 1860 and the Ruined Castles of North Wales followed in 1864. Catherall and Pritchard continued to publish and distribute Bedford’s images even after his death in 1894 and were probably using stock prints which had been made at the Camden Road address from whence Bedford operated.

An examination of Bedford’s published catalogue shows that he photographed almost exclusively in the western half of Britain and did not stray much further north than Blackpool.  All the places which he visited were noted for their scenic beauty or had become established tourist attractions. The advent of the railways in the second quarter of the nineteenth century and the inauguration of organized tours by Thomas Cook from 1836 promoted tourism. The introduction of cheap, workmen’s trains in the 1860s and the establishment of Bank Holidays in 1871 also acted as a further stimulus. It is interesting to note that Black’s Picturesque  Tourist and Road and Railway Guide Book through England and Wales published in 151 and similar guides mention almost all the places which Bedford chose to photograph and it is thus clear that he was fully aware of the commercial value of his work.

Details of Bedford’s personal life are very shadowy but it would appear  that he was of a very modest and retiring disposition if not positively reclusive.

He seems to have left the parental home as early as 1833 and lives an almost peripatetic life until he bought the house at 326 Camden Road, London where he resided and used as his business address until his death in 1894. The name of his wife remains unknown but we know that his only son, William, was born in 1846.

He was elected as a member of the London Photographic Society in 1857 and it was in this year that he received a commission from Queen Victoria to produce some views of Coburg as a gift for Prince Albert.  This was not his first royal commission but it led to Bedford’s appointment as photographer on the tour of the Middle East by Edward, Prince of Wales, in 1862.  The 1860s proved to be Bedford’s most active decade during which, a large number of publications illustrated with his fine photographs were produced, he was awarded medals and elected as Vice-President(1861) of the London Photographic Society. Although he was re-elected as Vice-President in 1878 Bedford seems to have retired from truly active participation in the work of his chosen profession in favour of his son, William, whose work is almost indistinguishable from that of his father. In 1886 Bedford retired from the Council of the Photographic Society and appears to have busied himself working in his studio at Camden Road.  On 13th January, he suffered a mortal blow with the death of his son William and this event probably hastened his own demise on 15th May the following year.

The actual archive preserved at Birmingham comprises images both in negative and as prints, many of which were produced by Bedford senior. However, it is certain that a good number should be attributed to his son if not indeed to the band of workers who helped to operate the Camden Road business. Amongst these mention should be made of Robert Hayward who had worked for Bedford over a period of many years and wrote Francis’s obituaries. Another was George Harris who actually continued the business at Camden Road for approximately seven years after the death of Francis and it was probably he who co-operated with Catherall and Pritchard.  The archive probably remained at Camden Road until the family finally vacated the premises in about 1933 and eventually came into the possession of the Francis Frith Company which flourished until 1972. It was from this source that Birmingham Library Services acquired the remaining archive.

Although Bedford’s published catalogue provides us with very little information about the chronology of the images it is clear that the 10 x 12 plates (Bedford’s preferred size) are amongst some of the earliest taken. Other early images can be identified by a physical examination of the plates for many bear the unmistakable signs of the paintbrush. Bedford lavished a great deal of attention on his interiors and many negatives have tissue paper pasted over given areas to hold back the light at one point and allow for greater intensity in another.  A review of an exhibition in the British Journal of Photography for August 1861 draws attention to Bedford’s photograph of the south-west door of Exeter Cathedral saying that it is ‘an extraordinary photograph’ in which ‘an accidental ray lights up in a marvellous manner the internal walls’. Many such photographs are indeed marvellous but the filtered light was far more contrived than the viewer thought.

Bedford’s importance as one of England’s foremost early landscape photographers has long been recognized but it also cannot be doubted that his architectural photographs are of almost equal importance and that his interiors would be difficult to better.

Phillip N Allen

November 1993

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