1275
1811, and was part of the Anglo-Irish landed gentry. His
relationships with Scottish, Irish, and French calotypists
of his time are possible but not documented. He used
Blanquart-Evrard’s wet-paper process, improving it for
the use in hot and dry climates, and he was a member
of the Dublin Photographic society, founded in 1854.
His work was not published and was exhibited only
once, at the Dublin International Exhibition in 1865.
He ended his life tragically, when he shot himself, on
January 29, 1873. His large body of work reveals an
amateur skilled at the early photographic process, with
a good knowledge of other calotypists’ works in Europe
and the Near East.
See also: Calotype and Talbotype; and Travel
Photography.
Further Reading
Nancy C. Barrett, Catalogue of the Photographs of John Shaw
Smith: Annotated and with Description and Analysis, MA
thesis, University of New Mexico, 1981.
Maria Antonella Pelizzari, “The Inclusive Map of John Shaw
Smith’s Photographic Tour (1850–1852),” Visual Resources,
vol. XVI (2000): 351–375.
Roy Flukinger, The Formative Decades: Photography in Great
Britain 1839–1920, Austin: The University of Texas Press,
1985.
Richard R. Brettell, Paper and Light: The Calotype in France and
Great Britain, 1839–1870, Boston: David R. Godine, 1984.
Nissan N. Perez, Focus East: Early Photography in the Near East
(1839–1885), New York: Harry N.A brams, 1988.
Helmut Gernsheim, Masterpieces of Victorian Photography
1840–1900 from the Gernsheim Collection, London: the Arts
Council of Great Britain, 1951.
Helmut and Alison Gernsheim, The History of Photography from
the Camera Obscura to the Beginning of the Modern Era,
London: Thames and Hudson, 1969.
Edward Chandler, Photography in Dublin during the Victorian
Era, Albertine Kennedy, 1983.
SMITH, SAMUEL (1802–1892)
English
Samuel Smith, known locally as ‘Mr. Philosopher
Smith’ on account of his amateur enthusiasm for all
things scientifi c, lived much of his life in Leverington
near Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, England, where he ‘re-
tired’ in the late 1840s after a short but successful career
as a timber merchant. He was an amateur astronomer,
geologist, microscopist and microscope-maker, and
photographer.
He developed his interest in photography c.1851, and
between 1852 and 1864, produced a remarkable body of
work using le Gray’s waxed paper process, sometimes
working with Thomas Craddock. His subjects were the
ships, buildings and industry of Wisbech, and despite
the challenges of the slow waxed paper process, his im-
ages present an evocative picture of the Cambridgeshire
town.
He prepared his waxed paper negative materials in
batches, testing each new batch by photographing Mal-
vern House, his Leverington home. Several of Smith’s
negatives bear annotated exposure details, confi rming
exposure times of between ten and fi fteen minutes.
Thus, for his many views of sailing ships on the River
Nene, low tide was the only time photography was
practicable.
There is no evidence that Smith ever used wet col-
lodion. He stayed with the waxed paper process until the
mid1860s—making him one of the last photographers
in the country to employ paper negatives. After 1864, he
abandoned photography to pursue his other interests.
John HannavySMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
The Smithsonian Institution was established by act of the
United States Congress in 1846. Although this legisla-
tion provided for scientifi c and cultural research with a
library, a museum and an art gallery proposed, much of
the research and collecting for the fi rst decades of the
Institution focused on the scientifi c interests of Secretary
Joseph Henry. Photography was fi rst displayed at the
Smithsonian during an 1869 exhibition documenting
Native American delegations visiting Washington, D.C.,
Ferdinand V. Hayden of the U.S. Geological Survey
and William Blackmore were infl uential in supporting
the exhibition. Alexander Gardner and Antonio Zeno
Shindler of Washington photographed many of the
nearly four hundred portraits which became part of the
Natural History collections. In the same year photog-
rapher Thomas W. Smillie was hired as an independent
contractor to document buildings and specimens in the
Smithsonian. By 1871, Smillie was appointed the fi rst
photographer for the Smithsonian and given a staff
position to run the photography unit in the Department
of Preparation.
Smillie, with the support of Smithsonian offi cials like
Secretary S.P. Langley, Assistant Secretary G. Brown
Goode, and Graphic Arts Curator Sylvester R. Koehler,
expanded the scope of his work to include preparing
Smithsonian traveling exhibitions related to the history
of photography. The fi rst of these exhibitions was sent
to the Ohio Valley Centennial Exposition in Cincinnati
in 1888. Smillie sought examples of photographs and
apparatus from individual photographers (both profes-
sional and amateur) and commercial manufacturers to
illustrate the technical history of the fi eld and contempo-
rary advances. With a broad vision for the newly formed
U.S. National Museum (1881), Assistant Secretary G.
Brown Goode supported collecting efforts documenting
present and past technologies as well as cultural artifacts