1000
concentrating on astronomical and microscopical sub-
jects. His ability to enlarge these images while retaining
the clarity of the original was much admired. Most of
Neyt’s extant photographs were made in the 1860s, when
he also joined both the Société française de photographie
(1864–1885) and the Association belge de photographie.
In 1869, a dozen of his photographs of the moon were
presented to the Belgian Royal Academy of Sciences.
Neyt perfected a method of making images through
a telescope attached to a clockwork, enlarging them
to a size of 25 centimeters in diameter with a camera
obscura. Some, or perhaps all, of these lunar images
were exhibited at the 1873 International Exhibition in
Vienna. Although his photographic activity appears to
have slowed after 1870, he remained involved, collabo-
rating in 1887 with Édouard van Beneden on the book,
Nouvelles recherches sur la fécondation et la division
mitosique chez l’Ascaride mégalocéphale (Leipzig, W.
Engelmann), to supply four accompanying photographs
for this work on cellular biology. Neyt died in Oostende
21 September 1892.
Kelley Wilder
NICHOLLS, HORACE WALTER
(1867–1941)
Horace Walter Nicholls was born on February 17, 1867,
in Cambridge, England, the eldest son of Arthur Nicholls
and Charlotte Johnson, both of Norfolk. His grandfather
was John Nicholls, an architect, builder and restorer of
cathedrals, churches and castles. The family home was
Newnham Grove, Grantchester, Cambridge.
Horace learned photography from his father and
uncle, both of whom were listed as professional pho-
tographers by the late 1860s. Arthur not only taught his
son the technical aspects of wet-plate photography, he
maintained that a photographer, even a commercial pho-
tographer, was an artist. Horace learned from his father
that the camera gives one limitless creative potential and
that what some call “tricks” in photography can, with a
clear aesthetic vision, purpose, or wit, produce images
of originality and value. By the age of fourteen, Horace
was listed in directories as a photographer working at
his father’s studio in Sandown, Isle of Wight.
Nicholls daughters spoke of their father’s wanderlust.
When he was about twenty years old, Nicholls saw an
advertisement in a newspaper for a young man to work
for a photographer in Chile. He applied and was of-
fered the job and went on an exotic adventure. Nicholls
returned to England around 1889 and began working at
the Cartland Studio in Windsor. George Cartland held a
Royal Warrant. It was here that Nicholls met his future
wife, Florence Holderness.
After about three years in Berkshire, Nicholls again
became restless and decided South Africa was the next
frontier. It was, in the 1890s, an attractive location for an
ambitious, talented young man; and after Chile, it may
even have seemed a modest choice for someone of Brit-
ish origin soon to be married. Johannesburg, however,
in 1889 was little more than a settlement, with acres of
empty land between makeshift buildings.
Horace Nicholls arrived in Johannesburg in Sep-
tember 1892 and joined the photographic studio of
James F. Goch. He returned to England the following
year to marry, and then sailed with his new wife back
to South Africa in October 1893. Nicholls now dubbed
himself “the Johannesburg Photographer” having
renamed his former employer’s studio “Horace W.
Nicholls, The Goch Studio.” In 1896 he left the stu-
dio to record a year of tumultuous events: a political
crisis, a railway disaster, a dynamite explosion and
a huge fi re (opposite his studio), a railroad accident,
infestation of locusts and a drought. He became the
offi cial photographer for the London-based publica-
tion South Africa. And it was in South Africa, during
the Boer War (1899–1902) that he fi rst established an
international reputation, making sometimes dramatic,
sometimes somber photographs of the confl ict. He
documented the bombardment of Ladysmith, the
movement of troops to frontlines, offi cers relaxing,
the burying the dead and much more. He became one
of the world’s earliest photojournalists.
Nicholls helped establish the “profession,” licensing
his pictures for “one-time use and suing publications
for infringement of copyright.” He was determined, at
the onset of photojournalism that photographers should
be able to make a living in their new profession and
be treated respectfully. It was in the early 1890s the
halftone process for reproducing photographs became
a commercial viability. When Nicholl’s Boer War pho-
tographs appeared in the press, half the visual reportage
was still drawings.
Nicholls was a quirky photojournalist. After his suc-
cess documenting the Boer War, he turned aside from
major events and concentrated on what today might be
called “human interest” stories. He liked to stay away
from the pack of early photojournalists and create his
own subjects. He stated, “The chief aim of my work in
photography is pictorial effect in preference to photo-
graphing anything and everything.” He always tried to
make strong, compelling pictures.
The one subject he could never resist, even if the
fi eld was fi lled with cameramen, was “the Season.”
Ascot, Derby, Henley, Goodwood, Cowes were annual
events he photographed with wit and imagination. Even
though he prided himself on being a journalist, he was
always ready to montage crowd scenes, multiplying the
numbers of people watching the horse race and alter-
ing juxtapositions. He liked multiplying the number of
umbrellas, too, held overhead. A viewer would be mis-