Part 4

In 1845 I came into direct contact with photography for the first time. It was in that year that an Irishman named McGhee came into the neighbourhood to practise the Daguerreotype process. He was not a licencee, but no one appeared to interfere with him, nor serve him with an injunction, for he carried on his little portrait business for a considerable time without molestation. The patentee was either very indifferent to his vested interests, or did not consider these intruders worth going to law with, for there were many raids across the borders by camera men in those early days. Several circumstances combined to facilitate the inroads of Scotch operators into the northern counties of England. Firstly, the patent laws of England did not extend to Scotland at that time, so there was a far greater number of Daguerreotypists in Edinburgh and other Scotch towns in the early days of photography than in any part of England, and many of them made frequent incursions into the forbidden land without troubling themselves about obtaining a licence, but somehow they never remained long at a time; they were either afraid of consequences, or did not meet with patronage sufficient to induce them to continue their sojourns beyond a few of the summer weeks. For many years most of the early Daguerreotypists were birds of passage, frequently on the wing. Among the earliest settlers in London, were Mr. Beard (patentee), Mr. Claudet, and Mr. J. E. Mayall--the latter is still alive, 1889--and in Edinburgh, Messrs. Ross and Thompson, Mr. Howie, Mr. Poppawitz, and Mr. Tunny--the latter was a Calotypist--with most of whom it was my good fortune to become personally acquainted in after years.

Secondly, a great deal of ill-feeling and annoyance were caused by the incomprehensible and somewhat underhanded way in which the English patent was obtained, and these feelings induced many to poach on photographic preserves, and even to defy injunctions; and, while lawsuits were pending, it was not uncommon for non-licencees to practise the new art with the impunity and feelings common to smugglers. Mr. Beard, the English patentee, brought many actions at law against infringers of his patent rights, the most memorable of which was that where Mr. Egerton, 1, Temple Street, Whitefriars, the first dealer in photographic materials, and agent for Voightlander's lenses in London, was the defendant. During that trial it came out in evidence that the patentee had earned as much as forty thousand pounds in one year by taking portraits and fees from licencees. Though the judgment of the Court was adverse to Mr. Egerton, it did not improve the patentee's moral right to his claim, for the trial only made it all the more public that the French Government had allowed M. Daguerre six thousand francs (£240), and M. Isidore Niépce four thousand francs (£160) per annum, on condition that their discoveries should be published, and _made free to all the world_. This trial did not in any way improve Mr. Beard's financial position, for eventually he became a bankrupt, and his establishments in King William Street, London Bridge, and the Polytechnic Institute, in Regent Street, were extinguished. Mr. Beard, who was the first to practise Daguerreotyping commercially in this country, was originally a coal merchant. I think Mr. Claudet practised the process in London without becoming a licencee, either through previous knowledge, or some private arrangement made with Daguerre before the patent was granted to Mr. Beard. It was while photography was clouded with this atmosphere of dissatisfaction and litigation, that I made my first practical acquaintance with it in the following manner:--

Being anxious to obtain possession of one of those marvellous sun-pictures, and hoping to get an idea of the manner in which they were produced, I paid a visit, one sunny morning, to Mr. McGhee, the Daguerreotypist, dressed in my best, with clean shirt, and stiff stand-up collar, as worn in those days. I was a very young man then, and rather particular about the set of my shirt collar, so you may readily judge of my horror when, after making the financial arrangements to the satisfaction of Mr. McGhee, he requested me to put on a blue cotton _quasi_ clean "dickey," with a limp collar, that had evidently done similar duty many times before. You may be sure I protested, and inquired the reason why I should cover up my white shirt front with such an objectionable article. I was told if I did not put it on my shirt front would be _solarized_, and come out _blue_ or dirty, whereas if I put on the blue "dickey" my shirt front would appear white and clean. What "solarized" meant, I did not know, nor was it further explained, but, as I very naturally wished to appear with a clean shirt front, I submitted to the indignity, and put on the limp and questionably clean "dickey." While the Daguerreotypist was engaged with some mysterious manipulations in a cupboard or closet, I brushed my hair, and contemplated my singular appearance in the mirror somewhat ruefully. O, ye sitters and operators of to-day! congratulate yourselves on the changes and advantages that have been wrought in the practice of photography since then. When Mr. McGhee appeared again with something like two wooden books in his hand, he requested me to follow him into the garden; which was only a back yard. At the foot of the garden, and against a brick wall with a piece of grey cloth nailed over it, I was requested to sit down on an old chair; then he placed before me an instrument which looked like a very ugly theodolite on a tripod stand--that was my first sight of a camera--and, after putting his head under a black cloth, told me to look at a mark on the other side of the garden, without winking or moving till he said "done." How long I sat I don't know, but it seemed an awfully long time, and I have no doubt it was, for I know that I used to ask people to sit five and ten minutes, afterwards. The sittings over, I was requested to re-enter the house, and then I thought I would see something of the process; but no. Again Mr. McGhee went into the mysterious chamber, and shut the door quickly. In a little time he returned and told me that the sittings were satisfactory--he had taken two--and that he would finish and deliver them next day. Then I left without obtaining the ghost of an idea of the _modus operandi_ of producing portraits by the sun, beyond the fact that a camera had been placed before me. Next day the portraits were delivered according to promise, but I confess I was somewhat disappointed at getting so little for my money. It was a very small picture that could not be seen in every light, and not particularly like myself, but a scowling-looking individual, with a limp collar, and rather dirty-looking face. Whatever would _mashers_ have said or done, if they had gone to be photographed in those days of photographic darkness? I was, however, somewhat consoled by the thought that I, at last, possessed one of those wonderful sun-pictures, though I was ignorant of the means of production.

Soon after having my portrait taken, Mr. McGhee disappeared, and there was no one left in the neighbourhood who knew anything of the mysterious manipulations of Daguerreotyping. I had, nevertheless, resolved to possess an apparatus and obtain the necessary information, but there was no one to tell me what to buy, where to buy it, nor what to do with it. At last an old friend of mine who had been on a visit to Edinburgh, had purchased an apparatus and some materials with the view of taking Daguerreotypes himself, but finding that he could not, was willing to sell it to me, though he could not tell me how to use it, beyond showing me an image of the house opposite upon the ground glass of the camera. I believe my friend let me have the apparatus for what it cost him, which was about £15, and it consisted of a quarter-plate portrait lens by Slater, mahogany camera, tripod stand, buff sticks, coating and mercury boxes of the roughest description, a few chemicals and silvered plates, and a rather singular but portable dark room. Of the uses of the chemicals I knew very little, and of their nature nothing which led to very serious consequences, which I shall relate in the proper place. Having obtained possession of this marvellous apparatus, my next ardent aspiration was to make a successful use of it. I distinctly remember, even at this distant date, with what nervous curiosity I examined all the articles when I unpacked them in my father's house, and with what wonder, not unmixed with apprehension, my father looked upon that display of unknown, and to him apparently nameless and useless toys. "More like a lot of conjuror's traps than anything else," he exclaimed, after I had set them all out. And a few days after he told one of my young friends that he thought I had gone out of my mind to take up with that "Daggertype" business; the name itself was a stumbling block in those days, for people called the process "dagtype, docktype, and daggertype" more frequently than by its proper name, Daguerreotype. What a contrast now-a-days, when almost every father is an amateur photographer, and encourages both his sons and daughters to become the same. My father was a very good parent, in his way, and encouraged me, to the fullest extent of his means, in the study of music and painting, and even sent me to the Government School of Design, where I studied drawing under W. B. Scott; but the new-fangled method of taking portraits did not harmonise with his conservative and practical notions. One cause of his disapprobation and dissatisfaction was, doubtless, my many failures; in fact, I may say, inability to show him any result. I had acquired an apparatus of the roughest and most primitive construction, but no knowledge of its use or the behaviour of the chemicals employed, beyond the bare numerical order in which they were to be used, and there was no one within a hundred miles of where I lived, that I knew of, who could give me lessons or the slightest hint respecting the process. I had worn out the patience of all my relations and friends in fruitless sittings. I had set fire to my singular dark room, and nearly set fire to the house, by attempting to refill the spirit lamp while alight, and I was ill and suffering from salivation through inhaling the fumes of mercury in my blind, anxious, and enthusiastic endeavours to obtain a sun-picture. It is not long since an eminent photographer told me that I was an enthusiast, but if he had seen me in those days he would, in all probability, have told me that I was mad. Though ill, I was not mad; I was only determined not to be beaten. I was resolved to keep pegging away until I obtained a satisfactory result. My friends laughed at me when I asked them to sit for a trial, and they either refused, or sat with a very bad grace, as if it really were a trial to them; but fancy, fair and kindly readers, what it must have been to me! Finding that my living models fought shy of me and my trials, I then thought of getting a lay figure, and borrowed a large doll--quite as big as a baby--of one of my lady friends. I stuck it up in a garden and pegged away at it for nearly six months. At the end of that time I was able to produce a portrait of the doll with tolerable certainty and success. Then I ventured to ask my friends to sit again, but my process was too slow for life studies, and my live sitters generally moved so much, their portraits were not recognisable. There were no head-rests in those days, at least I did not possess one, or it might have been pleasanter for my sitters and easier for myself. What surprised me very much--and I thought it a singular thing at the time--was my success in copying an engraving of Thorburn's Miniature of the Queen. I made several good and beautiful copies of that engraving, and sent one to an artist friend, then in Devonshire, who wrote to say that it was beautiful, and that if he could get a Daguerreotype portrait with the eyes as clear as that, he would sit at once; but all the "Dagtypes" he had hitherto seen had only black holes where the eyes should be. Unfortunately, that was my own experience. I could copy from the flat well enough, but when I went to the round I went wrong. Ultimately I discovered the cause of all that, and found a remedy, but oh! the weary labour and mental worry I underwent before I mastered the difficulties of the most troublesome and uncertain, yet most beautiful and permanent of all the photographic processes that ever was discovered or invented; and now it is a lost art. No one practises it, and I don't think that there are half-a-dozen men living--myself included--that could at this day go through all the manipulations necessary to produce a good Daguerreotype portrait or picture; yet, when the process was at the height of its popularity, a great number of people pursued it as a profession in all parts of the civilized world, and in the United States of America alone it was estimated in 1854 that there were not less than thirty thousand people making their living as Daguerreans. Few, if any, of the photographers of to-day--whether amateur or professional--know anything of the forms or uses of plates, buffs, lathes, sensitising or developing boxes, gilding stands, or other Daguerreotype appliances; and I am quite certain that there is not a dealer in all England that can furnish at this date a complete set of Daguerreotype apparatus.

It was in 1849 that I gilded my first picture--a portrait of one of my friends playing a guitar. I possess that picture now, and, after a lapse of forty years, it is as good and bright as it was on the day that it was taken. It was not a first-class production, but I hoped to do better soon, and on the strength of that hope determined to commence business as a professional Daguerreotypist. While I was considering whether I should pitch my tent permanently in my native town, or take to a nomadic kind of life, similar to what other Daguerreotypists were pursuing, I was helped to a decision by the sudden appearance of a respectable and experienced Daguerreotypist who came and built a "glass house"--the first of its kind--in my native town. This somewhat disarranged my plans, but on the whole it was rather opportune and advantageous than otherwise, for it afforded me an unexpected opportunity of gaining a great deal of practical experience on easy terms. The new comer was Mr. George Brown, who had been an "operator" for Mr. Beard, in London, and as he exhibited much finer specimens of the Daguerreotype process than any I had hitherto seen, I engaged myself to assist him for six months at a small salary. I showed him what I had done, and he showed and told me all that he knew in connection with photography, and thus commenced a business relation that ripened into a friendship that endured as long as he lived.

At the end of the six months' engagement I left Mr. Brown, to commence business on my own account, but as neither of us considered that there was room for two Daguerreotypists in a town with a population of _one hundred and twenty thousand_, I was driven to adopt the nomadic mode of life peculiar to the itinerant photographer of the period. That was in 1850. Up to that time I had done nothing in Calotype work. Mr. Brown was strictly a Daguerreotypist, but Mr. Parry, at that time a glass dealer and amateur photographer, was working at the Calotype process, but not very successfully, for nearly all his efforts were spoiled by decomposition, which he could not then account for or overcome, but he eventually became one of the best Calotypists in the neighbourhood, and I became the possessor of some of the finest Calotype negatives he ever produced, many of which are still in my possession. Mr. Parry relinquished his glass business, and became a professional photographer soon after the introduction of the collodion process. Another amateur photographer that I met in those early days was a flute player in the orchestra of the theatre. He produced very good Calotype negatives with a single lens, and was very enthusiastic, but extremely reticent on all photographic matters. About this period I made the acquaintance of Mr. J. W. Swan: I had known him for some time previously when he was apprentice and assistant to Mr. Mawson, chemist, in Mosley Street, Newcastle-on-Tyne. Neither Mr. Mawson nor Mr. Swan were known to the photographic world at that time. Mr. Mawson was most popular as a dealer in German yeast, and I think it was not until after Archer published his process that they began to make collodion and deal in photographic materials--at any rate, I did not buy any photographic goods of them until 1852, when I first began to use Mawson's collodion. In October, 1850, I went to Hexham, about twenty miles west of Newcastle-on-Tyne, to make my first appearance as a professional Daguerreotypist. I rented a sitting-room with a good window and clear view, so as to take "parlour portraits." I could only take small pictures--two and a half by two inches--for which I charged half a guinea, and was favoured with a few sittings; but it was a slow place, and I left it in a few weeks.

The next move I made was to Seaham Harbour, and there I did a little better business, but the place was too small and the people too poor for me to continue long. Half guineas were not plentiful, even among the tradespeople, and there were very few gentlefolk in the neighbourhood. Some of the townspeople were very kind to me, and invited me to their homes, and although my sojourn was not very profitable, it was very pleasant. I had many pleasant rambles on the sands, and often looked at Seaham Hall and thought of Byron and his matrimonial disappointment in his marriage with Miss Milbank.

From Seaham Harbour I went to Middlesborough, hoping to do more business among a larger population, but it appeared as if I were only going from bad to worse. At that date the population was about thirty thousand, but chiefly people of the working classes, employed at Balchow and Vaughn's and kindred works. I made portraits of some of the members of Mr. Balchow's family, Mr. Geordison, and some of the resident Quakers, but altogether I did not do much more than pay expenses. I managed, however, to stay there till the year 1851, when I caught the World's Fair fever, so I packed up my apparatus and other things I did not require immediately, and sent them to my father's house, and with a few changes in my carpet-bag, and a little money in my pocket, I started off to see the Great Exhibition in London. I went by way of York and Hull, with the two-fold object of seeing some friends in both places, and to prospect on the business chances they might afford. At York I found Mr. Pumphrey was located, but as he did not appear to be fully occupied with sitters--for I found him trying to take a couple of boys fighting in a back yard--I thought there was not room for another Daguerreotypist in York. In a few days I went to Hull, but even there the ground was preoccupied, so I took the first steamer for London. We sailed on a Saturday night, and after a pleasant voyage arrived at the wharf below London Bridge early on Sunday evening. I put up at the "Yorkshire Grey," in Thames Street, where I met several people from the North, also on a visit to London to see the Great Exhibition. This being my first visit to London, I was anxious to get a sight of the streets and crowds therein, so, after obtaining some refreshment, I strolled out with one of my fellow passengers to receive my first impressions of the great metropolis. The evening was fine, and, being nearly the longest day, there was light enough to enable me to see the God-forsaken appearance of Thames Street, the dismal aspect of Fish Street Hill, and the gloomy column called "The Monument" that stands there to remind citizens and strangers of the Great Fire of 1666; but I was both amazed and amused with the life and bustle I saw on London Bridge and other places in the immediate neighbourhood, but my eyes and ears soon became fatigued with the sights and sounds of the lively and noisy thoroughfares. After a night's rest, which was frequently broken by cries of "Stop thief!" and the screams of women, I arose and made an early start for the Great Exhibition of 1851. Of all the wonderful things in that most wonderful exhibition, I was most interested in the photographic exhibits and the beautiful specimens of American Daguerreotypes, both portraits and landscapes, especially the views of Niagara Falls, which made me determine to visit America as soon as ever I could make the necessary arrangements.

While examining and admiring those very beautiful Daguerreotypes, I little thought that I was standing, as it were, between the birth of one process and the death of another; but so it was, for the newly-born collodion process very soon annihilated the Daguerreotype, although the latter process had just reached the zenith of its beauty. In the March number of the _Chemist_, Archer's Collodion Process was published, and that was like the announcement of the birth of an infant Hercules, that was destined to slay a beautiful youth whose charms had only arrived at maturity. But there was really a singular and melancholy coincidence in the birth of the Collodion Process and the early death of the Daguerreotype, for Daguerre himself died on July 10th, 1851, so that both Daguerre and his process appeared to receive their death blows in the same year. I don't suppose that Daguerre died from a shock to his system, caused by the publication of a rival process, for it is not likely that he knew anything about the invention of a process that was destined, in a very few years, to abolish his own--living as he was in the retirement of his native village, and enjoying his well-earned pension.