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These two albums of the Edinburgh Calotype Club, the first photographic club in the world, are among the earliest photograph albums in the world ever assembled. They contain over 300 images by a group of pioneering Scottish photographers working in Edinburgh and St. Andrews.
The Edinburgh Calotype Club was formed in the early 1840s (possibly 1843) after a group of Edinburgh gentlemen were introduced to the calotype process by Sir David Brewster (1781-1868). He was the Principal of the United Colleges of St. Salvator and St. Leonard at St. Andrews and a close friend and associate of William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), who had discovered the process in 1839. As early as Decemmber 1839, the citizens of Edinburgh had been able to view Talbot’s ‘photogenic drawings’at the Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures and Practical Science at the Assembly Rooms on George Street.
The club apparently developed as the result of a visit by James Francis Montgomery, then reading for the bar in Edinburgh, with some other legal friends to Brewster at St. Andrews to see how the process worked. The group were clearly impressed as
‘on their return to town the results were shown and the manipulation explained, and Edinburgh was for some time in a state of furore and excitement …’ *
The Club is the oldest photographic club in the world and these collections of photographs arranged in two volumes - volume one is held at the National Library of Scotland; a second volume, which we have termed ‘volume two’ is held at Edinburgh Central Library. Apparently there were no articles of association and no minutes were kept of meetings. By all accounts it was quite an informal, convivial affair:
‘The meetings were held periodically at the houses of the members alternately, and generally each took the form of a breakfast, although when some greater step than ordinary had been made in advance it was generally honoured by being introduced to the members at a formal dinner’. *
The names of the eight members of the Club have been traced and photographs by five members and a number of associates appear in the albums. They were professional men - advocates, doctors and academics in Edinburgh and in St. Andrews. The Club was in existence until probably the mid-1850s, when the albumen and collodion processes superseded the calotype. These new developments meant that
‘the practice of photography was no longer confined to the few, but spread like wildfire over the country.’ *
The Edinburgh Calotype Club had, in a sense, outlived its usefulness, though some of the members, especially Cosmo Innes and George Moir, became active in the Photographic Society of Scotland, founded in 1856.
The Edinburgh Calotype Club was able to flourish in Scotland during this time as the patent Talbot had taken out in England in 1841, to protect his invention, did not apply in Scotland. Although in general the quality of the work produced by the club does not come close to matching that of the photographic pioneers David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, it is interesting to contrast the work of the enthusiastic amateurs with that of more skilled practitioners. Indeed there are close links between the club and their two more illustrious contemporaries: Robert Adamson was introduced to photography by his older brother John, a doctor and chemist in St. Andrews, two of whose photographs appear in volume one.
John Adamson (1810-1870) Medical doctor and chemist in St. Andrews. He was probably not a member of the Edinburgh Calotype Club. Adamson was curator of the Literary and Philosophical Society Museum at St. Andrews from 1838 until his death. Meetings of the society were the occasion for the exhibition and discussion of the photographs taken by William Henry Fox Talbot, Hugh Lyon Playfair, the Adamson brothers and others. He instructed his brother, Robert, in the calotype process, and is credited with taking the first calotype portrait (held in the Royal Museum, Edinburgh) in Scotland in 1842.
Sir David Brewster (1781-1868). Although not a member of the Edinburgh Calotype Club, Sir David Brewster (1781-1868) played a major role in the development and advancement of photography in Scotland. Born in Jedburgh, he entered Edinburgh University at the age of 12 and studied for the ministry. He abandoned the church in the early 1800s to pursue a career in science. He specialized in research into optics and invented the kaleidoscope in 1816 and later pioneered research into the operation of lighthouses. During his life he wrote over 300 scientific papers and edited three journals.
Brewster first met William Henry Fox Talbot in 1836 at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and and was Talbot’s guest at Lacock Abbey. The two men corresponded regularly between 1839 and 1843 on Talbot’s calotype discoveries and during this time Brewster unceasingly promoted Talbot’s work both in St. Andrews and Edinburgh. As early as March 1839, Brewster was showing Talbot’s ‘photogenic drawings’ to members of the St. Andrews Literary and Philosophical Society, less than six weeks after Talbot first exhibited the calotype in London. The two men remained in contact until at least 1864 when they participated in experiments held at a meeting of the Photographic Society of Scotland. Brewster experimented in the photographic art, but apparently did not take many photographs himself. However he did write and lecture on the subject and received a medal from the Photographic Society of Paris in 1865. Brewster was also the first president of the Photographic Society of Scotland, founded in 1856. Arguably his most important contribution was to introduce the Edinburgh painter David Octavius Hill to one of Talbot’s St. Andrews disciples, Robert Adamson.
John Cay (1790-1865). Advocate. He was Sheriff of Linlithgow from 1862 to 1865 and was one of the members of the Edinburgh Calotype Club. He and members of his family were photographed by David Ocatvius Hill and Robert Adamson. Cay was an active member of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts which had early presentations on photography. He was in correspondence with David Brewster in 1827, well before the formation of the Edinburgh Calotype Club. Cay was also one the founding members of the Photographic Society of Scotland, established in 1856 and the Society's Honorary Auditor from 1857 until his death in 1865. Although there are no photographs by him in either of the two albums it is known that he was a practitioner of this new art. The National Library of Scotland has a photograph by him attached to a letter dated 12 March 1852 (MS. 933) to John Gibson Lockhart, Sir Walter Scott's son-in-law. A photograph by Cay is also mentioned a review of the Photographic Society of Scotland exhibiti on in 1861. In 2003 a collection of calotypes of and by members of the Cay family, including a number by John Cay, were discovered in Toowoomba in Queensland, Australia. Two of his sons, whose portraits feature in the albums emigrated to Australia in the 1840s.
Sir James Dunlop (1830-1858). Army officer. He was educated at Edinburgh Academy, and entered the army, purchasing a commission in the Coldstream Guards in 1849. He served with distinction in the Crimea and died in the south of France in 1858. He is not recorded as being a member of the Edinburgh Calotype Club. Dunlop's aunt Frances Dunlop, the second wife of Alexander Earle Monteith may have introduced him to photography. It is probable that the photographs of Malta and Italy were taken by Dunlop, while travelling with James Calder Macphail, another photographer whose work appears in volume one, in the course of a ‘grand tour’ in the late 1840s, possibly in 1847 - there is some discrepancy about the dates. Other calotypes attributed to Dunlop are in the collections of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and the John Paul Getty Museum.
Professor Cosmo Innes (1798-1874). Advocate and antiquary. He was Sheriff of Elgin from 1840 to 1852 and Principal Clerk of Session 1852 to 1874. He was an active member and editor of the Bannatyne, Spalding and Maitland clubs. From 1846 to 1874 he was Professor of Constitutional Law and History at Edinburgh University and from 1858 to 1859 he served as Vice-President of the fledgling Photographic Society of Scotland.
James Calder Macphail (1821-1908). Born near Loch Broom, Wester Ross. Studied at Aberdeen University and at Divinity Hall and New College Edinburgh. Participated in the Disruption in the Church of Scotland and the subsequent founding of the Free Church in May 1843. He was ordained a Free Church minister in Aberdeen East in 1849 and in 1868 was appointed minister at Pilrig, Edinburgh. He is known to have been an active photographer later in life and his photographs appear in a privately published account of a journey to the Holy Land. Macphail was an authority on Gaelic literature and was heavily involved in training Gaelic-speaking students for the ministry. He was appointed a senior minister in 1898. He was acquainted with James Dunlop and it is possible that they may have travelled together in Italy and Malta in the late 1840s. He was a friend of Dunlop’s uncle, Alexander Earle Monteith and assisted Cosmo Innes in his antiquarian research.
George Moir (1800-1870). Born and educated in Aberdeen, he was admitted an advocate in Edinburgh in 1825. Moir developed a wide knowledge of continental literature and in 1828 published a translation of Schiller’s Historical Works. He wrote numerous articles for the Edinburgh Review, Foreign Quarterly Review and Blackwood’s Magazine as well as contributing to the seventh edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica published in 1842. In addition to his works of literary criticism he wrote some satirical and legal works.
Moir was appointed Professor of Rhetoric and Belles-lettres at Edinburgh University in 1835, a position he held for five years, before becoming Sheriff of Ross-shire. He became Sheriff of Stirling in 1858. He took pictures of Ghent (in volume two), and was one of founders of the Photographic Society of Scotland in 1856 and one of it's first Vice-Presidents.
James Francis Montgomery (1818-1897). Advocate, cleric and compiler of one of the albums, probably during the 1850s. At the time of the visit to Sir David Brewster in St. Andrews he was studying for the bar in Edinburgh. Between 1853 and 1856 he studied for the ministry (Episcopal Church) at Durham University. He served as a curate in Puddletown, Dorset and in Edinburgh and in 1879 became Dean of St. Mary’s Cathedral, a position he held until 1897. As well as being largely responsible for compiling the album held in Edinburgh Central Library, in 1851 he also presented 41 calotypes to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, which are now held in the library of the National Museums of Scotland.
Mark Napier, (1798-1879). Advocate. Educated at Edinburgh University and became an Advocate in 1820. Sheriff of Dumfries from 1844 to 1879. He wrote a number of works on Scottish history, including biographies of James Graham (the Marquis of Montrose) and John Graham of Claverhouse (Bonnie Dundee). He was a member of the Edinburgh Calotype Club and the Photographic Society of Scotland (established in 1856), but he is not recorded as a photographer in either of the albums.
Sir Hugh Lyon Playfair (1786-1861). Born at Meigle, Perthshire. He was an army officer who served in India 1805-1817 and 1820-1834 and was Provost of St. Andrews from 1842 until his death. He is credited with modernising the town - establishing the public library, promoting the extension of the railway to the town and securing government grants to enable the university to carry out improvements. He revived the golf club and was knighted in 1856. Although not a member of the Edinburgh Club, he, along with David Brewster and John Adamson, experimented with the calotype process. He was proficient in several musical instruments, which helps to explain why he chose to be portrayed in portraits with a cello.
John Stewart (1813-1867).. Born in Stranraer and educated at Edinburgh Academy and Edinburgh University. He became a merchant in Liverpool and through marriage inherited Nateby Hall, near Garstang in Lancashire. Stewart was a member of New Club in Princes Street and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries in Scotland. Although there are no photographs traced of or by John Stewart he was a member of the Edinburgh Calotype Club and a founder member of the Photographic Society of Scotland.
William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877).. Like Brewster, Talbot was not a member of the Club. However three of his calotypes are in volume 2, including one of Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, where he carried out most of his photographic experiments during the late 1830s. Born in Dorsetshire, Talbot was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. For his attainments in mathematics he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1831. He was a Liberal M.P. in the first Reform Parliament, but his interests lay largely outside the political sphere. Although best known today for his pioneering work in photography he was also known as a philosopher, classicist, Egyptologist and a transcriber and translator of Syrian and Chaldean cuneiform texts.
Hugh Lyon Tennent (1817-1874). Advocate.
Born in Edinburgh in 1817, he was the younger son of Patrick Tennent (1782-1872),
Writer to the Signet, and Margaret Rodger Lyon (1794-1867). He was the
brother of another member of the Edinburgh Calotype Club, Robert Tennent.
Hugh was a keen sailor and with other members of his family sailed around
the Western Isles in 1838. An account of this cruise is held at the National
Library of Scotland, (shelfmark Acc.12071). After qualifying as an advocate
in 1840 he was appointed Sheriff-substitute of Lanarkshire at Airdrie
in 1853 prior to a similar appointment at Greenock in 1856. The index
to volume one of the Edinburgh Calotype Club albums is in Tennent’s
hand and he was possibly responsible for compiling the album itself. He
was also a member of the Photographic Society of Scotland established
in 1856.
Hugh Tennent was something of a philanthropist – he promoted the work of the Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society, he was also known as a connoisseur of fine art in Greenock. Tennent was part of the family involved with the Tennents brewery in Glasgow, but he spent a lot of his time in Fairlie, which features in many of the photographs. In 1855 Tennent married Agnes Halsey in London. He died in Edinburgh in 1874 and was buried there in the Dean Cemetery.
Robert Tennent (1813-1890). In volume 1, the photographs initialled ‘T’ refer to ‘H. and R. Tennent’. Born in Edinburgh in 1813, he was the elder son of Patrick Tennent (1782-1872), Writer to the Signet, and Margaret Rodger Lyon (1794-1867). He was the brother of another member of the Edinburgh Calotype Club, Hugh Lyon Tennent. Robert was one of a number of family members who sailed around the Western Isles in July 1838. An account of this cruise is held at the National Library of Scotland, (shelfmark Acc.12071). Robert Tennent arrived in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) in June 1839 from Leith and crossed to Port Phillip in October 1839. Along with Charles Hugh Lyon (1825-1905), he held a squatting run of nearly 30,000 acres at Gnarkeet, 100 miles west of Melbourne from 1844 to 1853. Tennent also held 75,000 acres in the Portland Bay district, 20 miles from Gnarkeet, from 1841 to 1848. He married Wilhelmina Meldrum in 1858 at Kincaple, Fife and in his will he left property in Melbourne to his daughters.