135
He likely entered professional photography in 1851
or 1852. In his obituary in The Bookseller in 1894, it
was suggested that this change of direction was at the
suggestion of his publishers Day & Son, who may have
seen the value in having a foothold in the emerging
photographic market.
In 1851 Bedford moved to 326 Camden Road,
London, which would be the base for the photographic
business until his death in 1894. By 1853 he had exhib-
ited photographs for the fi rst time—copies of Middle
East lithographs by the artist, David Roberts. The
photography of art objects occupied much of his early
career—interiors of Marlborough House, and repro-
ductions of work from the Royal Collection for Queen
Victoria being signifi cant early commissions.
Like many architectural and landscape photographers
of his day, Bedford’s early images were taken with
a large format camera—his 12 × 10 prints attracting
considerable praise in the photographic press. Later
images were typically also produced in carte-de-visite
and stereoscopic formats. Examples of his photography
appeared in The Photographic Album of 1855, with
views in North Wales appearing in the second volume
the following year.
A further commission from the Queen—to take views
of Coburg for her to present to Prince Albert—came in
1857, the year he joined the Photographic Society of
London, and in the following year, his enthusiasm for
architecture photography resulted in a set of his images
becoming part of the collection of the Architectural
Photography Association. Examples of his work were
published in The Sunbeam, edited by Philip H. Dela-
motte—fi rst published in six parts between 1857–59 and
as a single volume in 1859—alongside such contempo-
raries as Delamotte, Fenton, and Joseph Cundall.
He was elected to the Council of the Photographic
Society in 1858, and became Vice-President in 1861,
before which time he had entered commercial photo-
graphic publishing, with his series of stereoscopic cards,
Chester and North Wales Illustrated. Further series on
Somerset, Devon, Stratford-on-Avon and other areas of
central England, western England and Wales followed
regularly over the following years, printed in his large
printing works adjacent to 326 Camden Road, and pub-
lished in Chester by Catherall & Pritchard.
While photographers like Roger Fenton and Fran-
cis Frith eschewed the low cost carte-de-visite print,
the introduction of the carte era was enthusiastically
embraced by Bedford, and saw many of the subjects
which had already proved successful with both the large
format camera and the stereoscope being republished as
cartes. Extensive series of carte-de-visite prints, often
from cropped-down stereoscopic images, were available
throughout the 1860s, all bearing the legend “F. Bedford
Photographer to H. R. H. The Prince of Wales” over the
Prince’s coat of arms.
By the mid 1860s, Bedford’s catalogue ran to over
9000 images in a variety of formats, including multiple-
view cartes-de-visite, copied from montages of large
format views. Over 10% of his published output was
of Welsh subjects, and the majority of his work was
produced in Wales and the west of England—perhaps
surprising for a photographer who was so fi rmly based
in London. He had a virtual monopoly of stereoscopic
views of Bath, Bristol, Warwickshire, North Wales and
Cheshire, and series of carte-de-visites of the cameBEDFORD, FRANCIS
Bedford, Francis. The
Waterslide, Badgworthy.
The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, The Elisha Whittelsy
Collection, The Elisha
Wittelsey Fund, 1973
(1973.502.6) Image © The
Metropolitan Museum of Art.