PHOTOGRAPHY has come a long way since the first photograph was taken some 200 years ago. Today most people can take one and achieve good results, all you need is a mobile phone with an inbuilt camera. But that has only been possible since the turn of the century, the first mass-market camera-phone being first sold in Japan in November 2000.

Originally, photography was really no more than a hobby for relatively wealthy people. When did it begin to be practised in High Wycombe?

Rev Edward Arnold

Although no-one has been formally established as the first to take a photograph in the Wycombe area, a leading candidate must be the Rev Edward Arnold, the curate of St Peters Church in Loudwater.

Originally from Ireland, he lived with his wife Mary and two daughters Edith and Agnes in Loudwater Vicarage in Back Lane, now Kingsmead Rd. On the SWOP website www.swop.org.uk there are a series of nine stereo-images taken by the Rev Arnold of his extended family and of two different scenes in Loudwater in c.1860. Judging from the estimated age of his daughter Edith in one of the photographs, that particular one was taken in about 1856.

It is not known if the Rev Arnold took any more photographs than those shown on the SWOP website, but he died in the city of Bonn, at that time in Prussia, on January 29, 1865.

Later in the nineteenth century local photography enthusiasts formed the High Wycombe and District Amateur Photographic Society, the name being changed to The Wycombe Camera Club in October 1894.

Lewis Broughton

Lewis Broughton was born in 1842, the son of William Broughton, a stone mason living and working in Oxford Road, High Wycombe. Lewis continued the family trade on the same site, building a large and successful business as a Stone and Monumental Mason in the town - indeed, a mark of his success was the widespread appearance of his name in the press when he was responsible for overseeing the preparations for the burial of Benjamin Disraeli at Hughenden in 1881.

Lewis was not a professional photographer - the surviving albums acquired by the SWOP project show all the usual mistakes of the keen amateur - but it is his choice of subject/technique that is of value, giving us a unique view of Wycombe folk in the late 1890’s. With the exception of some 30 or so ‘holiday snaps’, all his subjects were unaware that their photo was being taken through a window of his house in Oxford Road.

Young women/girls were the predominant target of Lewis Broughton’s hidden camera, exhibiting the fashion of the day as they head for church or chapel. The photographs were taken over a number of years and fill two albums. Whilst some of the people are named, the majority are not. Maybe you can help identify them?

Lewis Broughton was a founder member of the High Wycombe and District Amateur Photographic Society in 1892 and was President from about 1893 to 1896. It was under his Presidency in 1894 that the society was renamed as the Wycombe Camera Club. At his death, he was described as “a clever exponent of the wet-plate system”. It remains a mystery as to why he took so many photos of the people of Wycombe, and over such a number of years. There is just one report in the local press that in 1899 he “Exhibited a collection of ‘snap shots’ at the White Hart St Primitive Methodist Mutual Improvement Class”.

In 1902 he sold his Oxford Road business, intending to retire away from the town, but shortly after, he became paralysed and remained an invalid, living in Crown Lane, until his death in 1918. He was twice-married but had only one child, a son, Edwin.

Professional photographers come to Wycombe

The earliest record of a photographer offering services in High Wycombe is an entry in the 1864 edition of Kelly’s Trade Directory by W.C.Sansome of Easton St. Three years later, on March 7 1867 he was sentenced to one month imprisonment for larceny. This would have had a very serious negative impact on his reputation and later that year, on December 17, Sansome placed an advertisement in the Bucks Free Press (BFP) announcing a ‘Great Reduction in Price’ on Carte de Visite (CdV), at six for five shillings (25p).

CdV were invented in France in the mid-1850s and came to England in 1857. They were the size of Victorian visiting cards, at that time no self-respecting gentleman would fail to present his card when meeting a new acquaintance. Initially, their usual cost was about 12s.6d per dozen, or £1 (20s) for 20.

Unfortunately, Sansome was again in trouble with the law in July 1868, being fined for ‘obscene and indecent language’. Unsurprisingly his business did not improve, so he placed another ad in the Bucks Free Press on November 5, 1869 offering “his business to let”. This advert is also interesting because in it Sansome claims that his business had been established for 15 years, which puts the starting year at 1855. Sansome then moved away from Wycombe.

On 26 June 1868 A. Szarkowski ‘Photographer from Poland’ placed an advert in the BFP for ‘superior’ Carte de Visites at six shillings (30p) per dozen, considerably undercutting Sansome’s advertised price of 10 shillings (50p) per dozen. He was based at 3 Crendon Villas but appears to have been only ‘passing through’ and had moved on by the end of the year. In the 1870s he was living in Peascod St, Windsor, and in 1881 in Aldershot, when his wife and three children were all involved in his photography business.

The competition increased further in 1868 when Laz Roberts advertised in the BFP on October 23, further reducing the price for CdV’s to 3s.6d (17.5p) per dozen. At this time he was operating from ‘Hughenden Road, Frogmoor Gardens’, but early in 1870 he moved his business to 85 Easton St. He placed an advert in the BFP on 16 March to say that he was applying for permission to move, and then on 29 March announcing that he had moved, and was now open for business. Later in the year, on September 2, he advertised that “he is working on entirely new process of his own, Chromophotography, and taking life-like CdVs in Natural Colours”. The last we hear of Laz Roberts is in 1875 when he advertised in Judson’s Trade Directory.

Two other photographers appear in 1870; advertising on May 20 were F and H. Dann working in Hughenden Road but also able to make “special arrangements for sittings to be made at 23, Easton Street, or at the Glass Room”. And on May 27 a Mr Thorpe working at Denmark Street. The Danns are interesting, because they are the first photographers to advertise Landscape as well as Portrait photography.

No photographs taken by any of these early photographers up to 1875 are known to exist, I would be interested to hear if any reader should know otherwise, please contact me by email at deweymiked@aol.com.

The work of other early photographers in the Wycombe area will be described in the second part of this article.