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In London, the business of Horne & Thornthwaite fi rst
emerged about 1841, becoming Horne, Thornthwaite &
Wood from 1844, developing into a major force in photo-
graphic retailing in England, both through their premises
in London, and, from the mid 1850s, through extensive
advertising in the emerging photographic press.
By the mid 1840s, Richard Willats, a chemist and op-
tician, was importing Lerebours’ cameras from France
into Great Britain, and even working with the French
manufacturer—suggesting modifi cations and improve-
ments to the design. Within a few years, the fi rm of T &
R Willats became one of London’s leading retailers of
photographic materials and equipment, and the publisher
of both original, and English translations of, several
pivotally important early photographic manuals.
In London, one of Willats’ major rivals in the pho-
tographic market place, George Knight & Sons, also
published instruction manuals as well as supplying
materials.
The back pages of instruction manuals often carried
advertisements for the leading retailers of the day—of-
fering the photographer a ready directory for everything
photographic. Thus, for example, at the back of the 1855
edition of Philip Delamotte’s Manual of Photography,
Andrew Ross offered a wide range of cameras and
lenses from his Holborn premises, as well as papers
and chemicals; Horne & Thornthwaite invited readers
to send for their catalogue; Dinneford & Co listed all
the necessary chemicals for the preparation of wet col-
lodion, and waxed paper; Halifax and Co. of Oxford
Street, and Howard George Wood of Cheapside both
offered a range of British and French papers; and Knight
& Sons advertised Voigtländer’s lenses.
In Manchester, England, John Joseph Pyne, originally
a chemist, opened his fi rst ‘Photographic Depot’ in the
mid 1850s, retailing equipment and ‘photographic ma-
terials from France, Germany, and America.
It is an interesting feature of early British photograph-
ic advertising that foreign goods were sold as if they had
a certain advantage over locally produced equipment
and materials—in London, photographer J.J.E. Mayall
originally advertised his studio as the American Da-
guerreotype Gallery, while in Liverpool, John Atkinson
advertised heavily the imported equipment and materi-
als available from Atkinson’s American Photographic
Stores. Atkinson imported Scovill products—for which
he was the sole English agent in the 1850s, Peck’s union
cases. Skelling’s American Ambrotype Varnish, and
‘American cases, matts and preservers in a hundred va-
rieties’ as well as a range of French products including
Jamin-Darlot camera lenses.
American retailers were similarly heavy in their pro-
motion of British and especially French products.
In America, the most notable pioneers in photo-
graphic retailing included the Scovill Manufacturing
Company which had started retailing daguerreotype
plates in the closing weeks of 1839, and Edward An-
thony, who opened his fi rst studio in New York in 1841
selling daguerreian apparatus and supplies as well as
taking portraits. By 1846 Scovill had established a large
retail outlet in New York and reportedly had become the
largest manufacturer and retailer of daguerreotype plates
in America. In 1847 Anthony moved exclusively into
manufacture and retailing and, in 1854, published the
most comprehensive catalogue of photographic equip-
ment and materials yet produced.
Anthony’s Comprehensive and Systematic Cata-
logue of Photographic Apparatus and Materials,
Manufactured, Imported and Sold was prefaced with
the promise that “Those who purchase of him do so
from the original manufacturer, and not at second
hand, or from a jobber.” Not strictly true, of course,
as Anthony sold a wide range of imported goods for
which he was not the manufacturer—including cam-
eras by Chevalier and by Voigtländer, blue skylight
glasses, and leather daguerreotype cases from France
and Great Britain.
By the early 1860s, the expanding retail market for
photographic equipment and materials in New York City
was dominated by four companies—Scovill, Anthony,
Holmes Booth & Hayden, and J. W. Willard & Co. But
there were many more retailers—the advertising at the
back of the John Towler’s 1864 manual The Silver Sun-
beam occupied almost thirty pages, and demonstrated
just how competitive the market place had become.
With the advent of dry plates, and of manufacturers
producing plates and papers commercially, a separa-
tion gradually occurred between manufacturers and
retailers, and by the late 1870s, the idea of the pho-
tography shop—destined to become a familiar sight in
every town as a one-stop source of everything needed
to practice either as an amateur or professional—had
been established.
Early retailers of photographic images included
George Lovejoy’s bookshop and library in Reading,
England, where images by Henry Fox Talbot and Niko-
laas Henneman were sold in the 1840s.
For many years, the print shop, the bookshop and the
stationers was the most usual outlet for photographs. As
people travelled throughout Europe and the Americas,
specialist shops, often set up by the photographers
themselves, were opened to cater for the demand for
photographs fuelled by a growth in tourism. The route
of the Grand Tours of Europe included many locations
where large format images could be purchased, and
when touring in the Middle East became popular, retail
premises appeared along the banks of the Nile, amongst
them outlets for the works of the Félix and Adrien
Bonfi ls, the Zangaki Brothers, Antonio Beato, Pascal
Sebah and others.