1218
profi ted by it could start on his exploration with a full
scientifi c equipment”
Conclusion
Today we may marvel at the lengths to which our Vic-
torian ancestors toiled to gather photographs of their
world. The Royal Geographical Society was central to
the promotion, use and collection of photographs that
recorded the global reach of Victorian Britain. Indeed,
it was the Society’s central concern—that of geogra-
phy—than underpinned how it promoted photography.
As James Ryan has argued, “much Victorian colonial
photograph, from travel and topography to natural his-
tory, was broadly about geography.”
Time may not have diminished the beauty of these
photographs and we can continue to revel in their aes-
thetic qualities. However, perhaps of greater importance
is that in their glass plates and sepia tones these 19th
century photographs have captured an irreplaceable
record of the world’ people, places and environments.
Steve Brace
Further Reading
Mill, Hugh, The Record of the Royal Geographical Society
1830–1930, 1930.
Ryan, James R., Picturing Empire: Photography and the Visu-
alisation of the British Empire, 1997.
Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, Anniversary
Meeting, 22 June 1874.
ROYAL PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY
The world’s oldest national photographic society, the
Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, formed in
1853 as The Photographic Society, was not the world’s
fi rst photographic organisation. That distinction goes to
The Edinburgh Calotype Club established by a group of
amateurs in 1841. Like the Société héliographique fran-
çaise founded in France ten years later, the Edinburgh
club was a relatively informal grouping, and survived
until 1856 and the formal establishment of the Photo-
graphic Society of Scotland. The Société héliographique
française was disbanded in 1854, its place taken by
the more formal structure of the Société française de
photographie which still exists today.
The genesis of the Photographic Society can safely
be traced back to the discussions in 1851–52 which
prefaced the organisation of the world’s fi rst exclusively
photographic exhibition at the Society of Arts in London
in December of that year. By that time, surprisingly in ad-
vance of London, a photographic society had already been
established in Leeds, and friendships developed through
the informal Calotype Club in London in the 1840s had
also surely underlined the value of such groupings.
The pivotal moment in the organisation of photogra-
phy in 1852 brought together the leading amateurs and
professionals of the day, under the leadership of Roger
Fenton, to organise and mount a huge international
showcase for the new medium. Seven hundred and
eighty four exhibits from seventy-six named photog-
raphers and several more un-named were displayed at
the Society of Arts from December 22nd 1852 until the
end of January 1853. Signifi cantly that event brought
together most of those who would fi gure centrally in the
fi rst meetings of the new photographic society.
One fi gure surprisingly missing from the list of 1852
exhibitors was Antoine Claudet, a key fi gure in the
establishment of the Photographic Society of London.
Despite the widespread published attribution of the idea
of forming a photographic society in London to Fenton,
researches have signifi cantly raised the importance of
Claudet’s input into the project.
An undated document exists in the National Museum
of Photography, Film & Television, Bradford, England,
titled Photographic Society which can tentatively be
dated to some time in 1851. Recent researches (Kam-
lish 2002) strongly suggest that this document—which
signifi cantly predates Fenton’s involvement with the
idea—was written by Claudet.
The document openedIt is proposed to establish, in London, a Photographic
Society on the same principles as the Heliographic So-
ciety which has just been formed in Paris by a number
of Gentlemen.
The Object of this society is the advancement of the
Science of Photography, and the diffusion of all the im-
provements made in the different countries where the art
is practiced with some success.
Every particular branch of science has in London a
centre of action, a place of meeting where its followers
can be brought in contact one with another, where they
may be helped in their private research by the research
of others where they can learn new discoveries as soon
as they are published. It is time after ten years of uncon-
nected and separate labours that Photography should take
a rank among the most important Sciences. It is time to
erect its temple.Kamlish argues that Claudet’s motivation was not
entirely altruistic, that he had recently acquired prem-
ises at 107 Regent Street which were too large for his
immediate needs, and that the establishment of such a
centre for the promotion of photography would be an
appropriate and profi table use for that space.
For whatever reason, Claudet’s proposal remained
unpublished, and probably circulated only to a very few
people. Thus, no action was taken for at least a year.
Claudet’s right to be recognised the originator of the
idea seems well made. Certainly, in Fenton’s obituary
(Photographic Journal, Sept 15 1869, 126) he, Fenton,