1269
As the carte-de-visite phenomenon died down,
Silvy ended his portaiture studio in London in 1868
and moved back to France. He took up the post of
agent consulaire of the French government at Exeter
from 1868 to 1870 but returned again to France when
the Franco-Prussian War broke out, and served as a
lieutenant in the Eure-et-Loir department. He later
published two pamphlets describing the campaign.
Like many workers in photography in the nineteenth
century, Silvy’s life was ended prematurely by cyanide
of potassium poisoning. Silvy entered an asylum in
1881 and died there in 1910.
Karen Hellman
Biography
Camille Silvy was born at Nogent-le-Rotrou, France,
on May 18, 1834. Silvy studied law and graduated in
1852 taking up a minor diplomatic post. He took up
photography during a trip to Algeria in 1857. Silvy
joined the Société française de photographie in 1858 and
exhibited at the Salon the following year. Like those of
many of his contemporaries, Silvy’s photographs were
made from large, wet collodion glass negatives. Silvy
was known primarily for his landscape scenes taken
around his native town in France but he also made still
life studies. In 1859 he moved to London and established
a portrait studio where he was possibly the fi rst carte
de visite photographer in London. In the late 1850s he
created a series of studies of light and weather, a series
of street scenes, and several photographic reproduc-
tions of early manuscripts. In the 1860s Silvy invented
a cylindrical camera body that could house a rolled
waxed-paper negative and in 1867 demonstrated his
invention with a panorama of the Champs Elysées. He
also invented the idea of a tripod that could keep a lens
horizontal to the ground for surveying. In 1868 Silvy
closed his studio and moved back to France. He took
up the post of agent consulaire of the French govern-
ment at Exeter from 1868–1870 but returned again to
France when the Franco-Prussian War broke out, and
served as a lieutenant in the Eure-et-Loir department.
Like many workers in photography in the nineteenth
century, Silvy’s life was ended prematurely by cyanide
of potassium poisoning. Silvy entered an asylum in 1881
and died there in 1910.
See also: Société française de photographie; Wet
Collodion Negatives; and Cartes-de-Visite.
Further Reading
Hales, Andrea, “The Album of Camille Silvy,” History of Pho-
tography 19 (Spring 1995): 82–7.
Haworth-Booth, Mark, Camille Silvy River Scene, France,
Malibu, California: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 1992.
SIMPSON, GEORGE WHARTON
(1825–1880)
Editor and writer
George Wharton Simpson succeeded Thomas Sutton
and Editor and Proprietor of the fortnightly journal
Photographic News in 1861, a position he held until
his death in 1880.
A prolifi c writer, he contributed essays, in addi-
tion to his own journal, to Photographic Notes, The
Photographic and Fine Arts Journal and the British
Journal of Photography. His writings were reprinted
extensively in The Philadelphia Photographer, The
American Journal of Photography and the Allied Arts &
Sciences, Humphreys Journal and Photographic World
amongst others.
He wrote two important books—The Photographic
Teacher: or What to do in photography, and How to do
It: a Clear and Concise Compendium of the Collodion
Process was published in 1858 by H Squire & Co of
London, and On the production of Photographs in Pig-
ments: containing Historical Notes on Carbon Printing
and Practical Details of Swan’s Carbon Process was
published by T Piper in London in 1867.
He became Vice President of the Photographic So-
ciety of Great Britain, and was also elected to the same
post at the South London Photographic Society.
In his obituary, (BJP, January 15 1880) his early
career as Editor of the Darlington & Stockton Times is
mentioned, as is the fact that he practised as a profes-
sional photographer ‘for some years’ before taking over
the editorial chair at Photographic News.
John HannavySKAIFE, THOMAS (1806–1876)
English photographer and studio owner
Thomas Skaife was born in 1806, marrying circa 1829
and having one son, Wilfred (1830–1862). He operated
photographic studios at various addresses in London
from 1860 until 1867 and exhibited as a miniature
painter at the Royal Academy from 1846 to 1852.
He took up photography in early 1856 and in June
patented a rubber-band powered fl ap shutter to facilitate
instantaneous photography. He became increasingly at-
tracted to instantaneous photography and he produced
a series of stereo photographs for the War Department
showing the trajectory of the shell from a mortar.
His most prominent contribution to photography
was the introduction of his Pistolgraph camera in 1859.
Skaife, inspired by a suggestion made by Thomas Sut-
ton in the Photographic Journal of July 1858, designed
a camera fi tted with one of his own fl ap shutters. He
re-designed the camera in 1859 to make use of 1 inch