The postcard is now a familiar and widely used source for local history. Thousands of books and websites have drawn upon the enormous surviving body of photographic postcards to illustrate the streets, buildings and landscapes of Britain. Yet, some forty years before the postcard became established, a remarkably similar photographic record was being created in the form of the carte de visite (CDV).
The CDV became one of the great photographic crazes of the 1860s and 1870s. Although small in format, it was a genuine photograph capable of surprisingly fine detail and high resolution. Millions were produced, but the vast majority were portraits. Of the very large number of photographers operating throughout Britain, only a small minority produced topographical views.
A few firms, including Bedford, Frith and Wilson, became important producers of topographical photography. Most, however, were small regional photographers. Some specialised in views, while others produced only a few photographs of their own town and its immediate surroundings. Their relatively small operating radius, limited in practical terms by horse transport, makes these photographs particularly local in character.
Topographical CDVs are now surprisingly scarce. Unlike portraits, which were produced in large numbers and often preserved in family albums, views were generally made in much smaller quantities. Individual examples can be found, but duplicates are seldom encountered. Many views may therefore represent very limited photographic editions of places that were never extensively recorded by commercial photographers.
Despite their potential value as an early photographic record of Britain's towns and countryside, topographical CDVs remain little known. There is no known comprehensive collection devoted to British topographical CDVs and cabinet photographs, and relatively few examples have been brought together or made accessible online.
The photographers themselves add another fascinating dimension. Many were small local businesses whose histories have largely disappeared from view. Their names, addresses and often elaborate decorative advertisements survive on the backs of the cards, providing evidence of their businesses and careers as well as the places they photographed.
This collection brings together these largely overlooked photographs, arranged by county, location and photographer, and seeks to document an important but little-explored chapter in the photographic record of nineteenth-century Britain. |