1011
Thoms was a keen amateur photographer with a par-
ticular interest in architectural photography. A member
of the Photographic Exchange Club, his photographs in-
cluded pictures of Herne’s Oak and of Pevesney Castle.
Consequently, for the fi rst fi ve years of its existence,
Notes and Queries was an important forum for discus-
sions upon the refi nement of the various photographic
processes. Before the Photographic Society of London
and the numerous local photographic societies estab-
lished themselves, it provided a means for enthusiasts
to exchange and disseminate new technical advances.
Almost two hundred entries on photography are listed
in the index to the fi rst twelve volumes. In its edition
of November 4, 1854, the Athenaeum noted that “Our
contemporary, Notes and Queries, seems to be mak-
ing itself the special organ of photographic discussion
and intelligence.” Similarly, Thoms himself described
the success of the journal in furthering the cause of
photography:
The shadow of a doubt that we once felt as to the propriety
of introducing the subject of Photography into our col-
umns, has been entirely removed by the many expressions
of satisfaction at our having done so which have reached
us... (9 October 1852, 347)
The photographic coverage of Notes and Queries
began in September 1852. Thoms asked his friend and
fellow antiquary Hugh Welch Diamond to contribute a
series of letters on the archaeological benefi ts of using
photography to record old monuments and buildings.
Diamond would later be a founder member of the
Photographic Society of London and a future editor of
the Photographic Journal. Many other notable ama-
teur practitioners contributed to the journal during the
early 1850s. These included Philip Henry Delamotte,
Frederick Scott Archer, Edmund Kater, Sir William
Newton, and George Shadbolt, founding member of the
Photographic Society of London and future editor of the
Liverpool and Manchester Photographic Journal.
The issues raised in Notes and Queries were primar-
ily of a scientifi c nature. Diamond and Delamotte both
published details of the different experiments they used
for taking collodion photographs. The pages of Notes
and Queries are thus a valuable guide to the diffi culties
experienced by early photographers, and their ingenious
attempts to solve the problems they faced. However,
the advent of specialist photographic journals, along
with the establishment of the collodion process, meant
that the number of entries on photography declined
substantially after 1855.
John Plunkett
See also: Archer, Frederick Scott; Photographic
Exchange Club and Photographic Society Club,
London; Delamotte, Philip Henry; Wet Collodion
Positive Processes; and Wet Collodion Negative.
Further Reading
Algar, F., and Wilfred H. Holden, “W.J. Thoms: Our First Editor.”
Notes and Queries 198 (1853): 125, 223.
Notes and Queries. The Waterloo Directory of English Newspaper
and Periodicals, vol. 5, edited by John North, 3567–3570,
Waterloo: North Waterloo Academic Press, 1997.
Seiberling, Grace, and Carolyn Bloore, Amateurs, photography
and the mid-Victorian imagination, Chicago: Chicago UP &
International Museum of Photography, 1986.
Spurgeon, Dickie A., “Notes and Queries,” British Literary Maga-
zines: The Victorian and Edwardian Age 1837–1913, edited by
Alvin Sullivan, 281–285. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Thoms, William J., “The Story of ‘Notes and Queries’.” Notes
and Queries 5th series, vol. 6 (1876): 1, 41, 111, 221, and
vol. 7 (1877): 1, 222, 303.NOTMAN, WILLIAM & SONS
(1856–1935)
Canadian photographers
In December 1856, William Notman, fl eeing arrest in
Scotland, opened a photography studio in Montreal.
Daguerreotypist Thomas Coffi n Doane, in business
from 1848, had offered to sell his operation but Notman
established a new fi rm producing ambrotypes, tintypes,
and albumen prints. By his death in 1891, Notman had
built the most successful nineteenth-century photogra-
phy enterprise in North America. At its peak in 1874,
the Montreal studio alone, with a staff of thirty-seven
men and eighteen women, produced fourteen thousand
photographs. Notman’s specialty was portraiture. Mon-
treal citizens and distinguished visitors, from Sitting
Bull to the Prince of Wales, were portrayed in Notman’s
elegant house style. Notman’s was also popular for
complex composite photographs, studio tableaux of
hunting and sporting scenes, especially in winter, and
Canadian landscape views.
An accomplished photographer and skilled business-
man, Notman sought out opportunities to position his
work prominently in Canada and the United States.
His fi rst major commission in 1858 was to document
an engineering feat: the construction of the Victoria
Bridge at Montreal, a two-mile long tubular steel railway
span, the longest in the world. In honour of a visit by
the Prince of Wales to inaugurate the Victoria Bridge in
1860, Notman produced the Maple Box Portfolio, a pre-
sentation album featuring fi ve hundred photographs and
stereographs of Canadian views and bridge construction.
Two editions were made: one for Windsor Castle, one
for the studio. After the royal family accepted the gift,
Notman claimed the title Photographer to the Queen,
although there is no documentation that the honour was
offi cially bestowed.
In 1868, Notman opened his fi rst branch studios, in
Ottawa and Toronto followed by branches in Halifax
and St. John, New Brunswick. While Montreal remained