IN a sign of the increasing prosperity of the residents of High Wycombe in the late 19th century, several professional photographers took the opportunity to establish studios in the town. For example, on September 21, 1877 two photographers both took large front-page adverts in the Bucks Free Press (BFP) to publicise their respective businesses.

Henry W. Taunt & Co, a company which was well established in Oxford, at Nos 9 & 10 Broad St. announced that the Photographic Gallery at 81 Easton St, High Wycombe was now under their entirely new management.

The second announcement was that the Frogmoor Photographic Studio was now open at No 3 Oxford Street, High Wycombe, conducted by Mr J P Starling. According to the advert he had worked for “A.J.Melhuish, Esq, F.R.A.S., of Portman Square, London, Photographer to the Royal Family” and “practised the different Branches of the Art [ie photography] under the best masters in each Department of the Profession”.

Both Taunt and Starling then ran adverts every week in the BFP up until the end of the year 1877, so clearly competition was fierce.

Henry William Taunt

Henry W Taunt was born on May 14,1842 in Penson’s Gardens in the parish of St Ebbe’s, Oxford. His father was a plumber and glazier. From a young age Henry worked for his father, but soon changed to working for a tailor. He then joined a stationer and next moved to a bookshop and auction room in Oxford High Street.

He had therefore a broad range of experience when in 1856 he was employed as a general assistant to commercial photographer Edward Bracher at his premises, also in the High Street.

Bracher was Oxford’s first commercial photographer and for some years had a monopoly in the city. Taunt, now in his element, was soon promoted by Bracher and took his first photographs in 1858, so still only aged 16.

In 1863 Bracher sold his business, the new owners kept Henry Taunt on as manager. That same year he married dressmaker Miriam Jeffery; they had no children, and in later life Miriam became an invalid.

In 1868 Taunt decided to establish his own photographic business, at first in premises in St Bernard’s Road in the city, before trading from his home in George Street. In 1869 his career in photography was really taking-off, so he leased premises at No.33 Cornmarket Street.

In 1871 he was appointed official photographer to the Oxford Architectural and Historical Society.

His career diversified in February 1873 when he organised a children’s party in Oxford Town Hall. This was very successful and developed into a series of events for children over many years, for which Henry Taunt wrote much of the entertainment, which soon included magic lantern shows.

His photographic business outgrew his Cornmarket premises, so in 1874 he moved it to Nos 9 & 10, Broad Street. The building was leased from the Town Council via Alderman Carr, and Taunt spent some £1000 increasing it by two storeys.

Taunt comes to Wycombe

Taunt next decided to have a branch of his business in High Wycombe, and in the first week of February 1876 advertised in the BFP that this was open at No. 81 Easton Street. A few months earlier he had negotiated a lease for these premises with Wycombe resident Alexander Murray Affleck, a draper. The lease was for 21 years at a rent of £30 per annum.

He put a Miss Fanny Miles, whom he had met in Oxford in 1873, in charge of this venture, which was probably in association with another local photographer F J Findlow. In March 1885 Taunt placed a notice in the BFP that their ‘present operator Mr Findlow will cease to represent them from Saturday, April 4. Mr Taunt will attend at Wycombe on Monday March 30 and will be pleased to attend to any orders or complaints personally’.

The Wycombe venture does not appear to have been successful after that. In May 1889 a notice appeared in the BFP stating ‘H W Taunt & Co, Easton Street, High Wycombe, are SELLING OFF at any price. Removing Business.’  In August 1889 it was announced that Alexander Glass from Windsor had taken over the business.

In 1891 Taunt managed to dispose of No. 81 Easton St, which had five years left on the lease. It was made over to shoemaker Caleb Bridger who at that time was based at No. 83, Easton Street. By then, Fanny Miles had moved back to Oxford to be installed as housekeeper at Taunt’s new house Rivera in Cowley Road.

With the assistance of Fanny Miles, Taunt’s photographic business continued in Oxford, and although he was declared bankrupt in 1895, this carried on until he died at Rivera on November 4, 1922, aged 80. Although his wife Miriam was still living, she died in 1929 aged 92, he left his entire estate to Fanny Miles, who remained at Rivera for some years thereafter. She died in 1945.

Henry Taunt’s estate included at least 53,000 photographic glass negatives. Rivera was eventually bought by a local builder and the glass negatives started to be either stripped for use as greenhouse glass or else smashed. Fortunately, a local historian alerted the Oxford City librarian, who in 1924/25 bought several thousand of Taunt’s negatives and some of his prints, papers and manuscripts.

Major collections of his work are held by English Heritage, Oxfordshire County Council, and the River and Rowing Museum at Henley-on-Thames.

On the SWOP website www.swop. org.uk there are 85 Taunt images.

Josiah Pring Starling

Josiah P Starling was born in West Ham in 1841, the son of William and Sarah Starling, his father working as a Hatter. His mother died when he was young, the family then moving to the Isle of Wight, with his eldest sister Maria taking on the role of Governess according to the 1851 census, his father was now a Hatter and Hosier.

Starling probably began his career in photography in his teens, as a partnership he had formed with two other men as Trade Photographic Printers was formally dissolved on September 21, 1863. This was based at 5/6 Bowater Place, Blackheath in Kent and following the dissolution it was agreed that ‘all debts owing to and by the said late firm’ would be settled by the other partners, who were to carry on the business.

In the official records we next hear of Starling when, still living in Bowater Place, Blackheath, he appeared before the Court of Bankruptcy on June 10 1869, to deposit a ‘list of his debts and liabilities, and a statement of his property and credits’. He then agreed to ‘pay his creditors 1s in the pound at the expiration of 3 months from June 3 1869.’

A new Bankruptcy Act was introduced in 1869, under which bankruptcy cases were to be heard in a County Court. Starling, now living at 4 Brunswick Place in Blackheath, appeared before Kent County Court on December 15, 1876 to be declared Bankrupt. He was ordered to attend before the Court on January 4 1876 ‘for examination and to produce a statement of his affairs’ and a Trustee was to be appointed. This was a fellow photographer Edgar Drewett

Starling comes to Wycombe

His two appearances before the courts for bankruptcy must have negatively impacted Starling’s business reputation locally, so he decided to move away from the Blackheath area. In 1877 came to Wycombe and established a photographic business at No.29 Frogmoor Gardens. He later moved the short distance to the Temperance Hotel building on the western side of Frogmoor, then to a studio in Oxford Street on the southern side of Frogmoor.

In April 1891 Starling announced that he had ‘bought for cash all of the negatives taken in the last sixteen years by Henry Taunt & Co. and is prepared to supply copies from the same at greatly reduced prices’. The advert continues ‘NB These negatives must shortly be destroyed to make room for ever increasing stock’. Presumably he had purchased these negatives from Taunt’s successor in Easton Street, Alexander Glass.

Starling’s business in Wycombe must have been successful because in the mid-1890s we know he was employing four ‘photographic artists’. One of these ‘artists’ was Edward Sweetland, who went on to establish what was perhaps Wycombe’s best-known photography business in the first half of the 20th century. He probably joined Starling’s business c1884 and was so well thought-of that he was made a partner in 1898/99, but the partnership was ‘dissolved by mutual consent as and from December 25, 1899’. Perhaps a nice Christmas present for one of them!

In the first issue of the new year 1900, readers of the BFP were assailed by a barrage of advertising. One complete column down the centre of the front page of the newspaper was taken by Starling, who emphasized his experience with ''Established in 1877'' and ''under the distinguished patronage of Her Majesty the Queen'', with a long list of local worthies who presumably had been his clients. As well as landscape photography, Starling also stressed that his work for the local chair manufacturers was with ''Great care is taken in photographing sample Suites and Chairs, J.P.Starling having had many years’ experience in producing them for nearly all the leading firms. Special precaution is taken that none but the Owners shall have access to their own designs.''

Joseph Pring Starling died in 1908, having operated his photography business in Wycombe for over 30 years. He had married twice, Mary Ann Morris in 1863, but she died in June 1894, and Jane Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beer at Christ Church, Crendon Street on June 26, 1899.