Kinship networks. Itinerant lives.

Introduction

Victorian Bournemouth (80) explores the social profiles belong to professional photographers who arrived by 1871. Photography appears to have had a slow start at the resort, but its early providers shared several social characteristics.

Victorian Bournemouth (80): early photography

A new technology

Image capture and retention without the use of brush and paint or sculpture emerged in the 1840s. Early participants experimented with different technological methods. At the outset, photography competed with painting for portraiture and landscape depiction. Professional photographers then often described themselves as ‘photographic artists’ or even just ‘artists’. As time passed, providers of the new serviced increased their numbers while fewer artists appeared in trade directories. Matthew Brady’s extensive documentary photographic coverage of the American Civil War expanded the technology’s application. Now professional photographers might not feel the restrictions of a fixed studio or surrogate portraiture. Before long, a social usage emerged in the form of the photographic calling card: carte de visite. Now people could share personal information beyond text. Such an application suited well the social atmosphere pervading spas and watering places. They complemented the visitor lists kept at Sydenham’s Bournemouth library.

Professional photographers at spas

Incidences of professional photographers increased between 1861 and 1871 according to top-line analysis of https://www.ancestry.co.uk/. Over this decade, the ratio between the description of ‘photographer’ and ‘photographic artist’ changed, the latter declining although their numbers remained constant. Entrants into the category perhaps recognised its shift away from surrogate portraiture. Professional photographers penetrated the larger spas early. A directory for 1859 listed ten photographers at Brighton. The number of professional photographers here active in the 1870s remained around twenty, but this increased thereafter. During the Victorian period, Brighton accounted for about 40% of all Sussex photographers. Cheltenham also had a high concentration of professional photographers working in Gloucestershire. Bath had almost twenty photographers by 1876. Photography did not, however, blossom early at Bournemouth. Although professional photographers here equalled the number of those at Southampton by the end of the century, Bournemouth still only accounted for a small proportion of Hampshire’s total.

Victorian Bournemouth (80): professional photographers at the resort

The early few

A trade directory of 1871 listed two professional photographers for Bournemouth: Thomas Adams and Robert Day. Towards the end of the decade, the number approached ten. As often the case, the census of that year differed to an extent. It also recorded the names Adams and Day, but also added Hawker and Pousty. A genealogical study of these families provides insights about professional photographers at the time. Key factors include mobility, longevity as well as financial (in-)stability, kinship, social prominence, the participation of women.

Thomas Adams

This man belonged to a kinship cluster that originated in Cranborne, members of which, including his brothers, migrated to Bournemouth during the Victorian period. A tailor’s son, Adams trained in that trade, but soon joined a brother at a local grocery shop. By 1861, however, according to the Cranborne census, he had begun his career as a professional photographer, listing himself as a ‘photographist’. A decade later he had arrived in Bournemouth, one of several Cranborne people living in the new area of Springbourne. Complex connections interwove the Adams brothers at Bournemouth and their marriage partners. Thomas married twice, his wives both widows, one much older, one much younger. By 1881, however, he had ceased as a professional photographer, making a living as a beer retailer. The Adams family kinship network extended across Bournemouth, but they did not become a photographic dynasty as sometimes occurred with others.

Robert Day

Son of a journeyman shoemaker, Robert Day lived first in Norfolk. His wife, from the area, may have come from an impoverished family. The couple produced many children, their birthplaces mapping the itinerant family’s journey: Winfarthing, Brighton, then Hampshire (Hampreston and Bournemouth). Along the way, Robert, at one time a groom and bailiff, became a professional photographer, coming to Bournemouth during the early 1860s. Several members of the family would continue to work in this business during the remainder of the century. His widow (Robert d 1873) ran it in 1881, supported by children, one of whom later continued it. One of Robert’s daughters married a professional photographer, the couple later emigrating to New Zealand followed by another daughter, a carpenter’s wife. A female relative of her husband worked in the Day photographic business. This ‘photographic family’ therefore appeared to retain close kinship relations but continued its itinerant behaviour.

William Hawker

The Hawker family originated in Birmingham, William’s father a picture dealer. Although no sign of William has emerged for 1871, his sister Emily, present at Bournemouth with her mother and siblings, listed her occupation as ‘photographic colorist’. By 1881, several members of the immediate family had photographic or artistic occupations. William, Emily – still a ‘photographic colorist’  – and a nephew worked as professional photographers. Others worked as an author, a painter, and an architect. Furthermore, William’s brother, Charles, established himself as a professional photographer in Newbury. William’s daughter, in the year of his death, appeared in Charles’s family home there. Hence two branches of the family had both personal and professional links. A nephew of William’s, Harry Herbert Petitt, worked in Bournemouth as a photographer for his family in 1881. For this family, it seems, photography represented another part of the arts in which they participated through several expressions.

William Pousty

This photographer illustrated both an itinerant life and financial problems. A carpenter’s son, born in Kent, Pousty appeared in the 1861 census as a photographer working at Cheltenham. From there he may have gone to his mother’s hometown, Hereford, where he went into partnership with a portrait artist. This man had a history of bankruptcy. Pousty may have spent a short time in Brighton, his eldest son born there, but, by 1871, he had arrived in the Bournemouth area, listed as a photographic artist living in Boscombe. William appears to have had broader expressionistic skills, for the next census described him as a ‘grainer and writer’. Thereafter, the family emigrated to Australia where he established a photographic business in Tasmania. The family had 99 acres split amongst them. Bankruptcy occurred, from which, nevertheless, he recovered to continue in photography. His death certificate described him as an ‘artist’.

Victorian Bournemouth (80): discussion

Although few professional photographers had arrived in Bournemouth by 1871, they and their families resembled each other in several ways. William Hawker’s father dealt in pictures, but the other photographers do not appear to have a relevant background. Entry into the category of professional photographer, therefore, perhaps needed only capital and chemical skills. Adams left the category soon. Pousty and the Hawkers demonstrated comfort with a wide definition of creative art. The Days appear to have built a solid photographic business. Apart from Adams, who moved from Cranborne to Bournemouth, the others had moved their growing families several times across the south. In at least two instances, the photographer had lived in Brighton. Furthermore, several groups emigrated to Australia or New Zealand. Some of the families appear to have had an intense connection with the activity, involving both direct and indirect kin, while also seeking marriage connections in the category. 

Photography offered work opportunities for women, even at the early stages. Adams dropped out of the category, perhaps for financial reasons, while Pousty moved within a world of bankruptcy. Financial difficulties also dogged the development of the automotive business and computer technology in years to come. Mergers and bankruptcies would shape those categories. In comparison to Brighton and perhaps Cheltenham, few opportunities for a professional photographer existed at Bournemouth during the category’s early years. This may have occurred because of a difference in population levels, the two established spas dwarfing their newer counterpart. Nevertheless, one estimate put Bournemouth’s visitor figure at 30,000 a year by the early 1870s. Furthermore, one of Bournemouth’s advantages lay in its climate, which enabled the town’s economy to have two seasons: winter and summer. This should have sufficed to underpin a photographic business, but, perhaps not so many.

Takeaway

Victorian Bournemouth (80) has found that the category got off to a slow start at Bournemouth. Those who did try the market appeared to share several social characteristics: photographic kinship networks, itinerary lives. In common with other early immigrants, some of the photographers came to Bournemouth as one stage in a nomadic life.

References

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