436
to be one of the characters caricatured. Donné was an
early portrait photographer as well as a doctor, and the
fi rst person to make etchings from daguerreotypes,
in 1839—an achievement also featured in Marisset’s
cartoon.
But it is not only as a photographer that Donné is
remembered. He was published widely on a range of
medical topics. He identifi ed the component of blood
which we now know as ‘platelets’ in 1842 and was an
early advocate of natural breast-feeding. Criticising the
widespread practice amongst the Parisian upper class of
using ‘wet nurses,’ and promoting the improved bond
between mother and child which natural breastfeeding
ensured, he published a pamphlet on the subject in the
same year, 1840.
Donné is widely reputed to have taken the earliest
datable portrait in Europe—a fact reported in Spenersche
Zeitung on October 22nd 1839—although the portrait
was of poor quality, he was one of the fi rst to publish
an account of Daguerre’s invention.
A keen microscopist—a subject on which he taught,
wrote and published widely—in 1840, working with
Léon Foucault, he produced some of the earliest photo-
micrographs using the daguerreotype process. The
images were later published, having been used as the
basis for engravings.
John Hannavy
DOWNEY, WILLIAM ERNEST (1829–
1915), DANIEL (DIED JULY 1881), &
WILLIAM EDWARD (DIED 1909)
William Ernest Downey was the head of W & D Downey
of Ebury Street, London, and according to the British
Journal Photographic Almanac (1916, p. 417) was ‘the
doyen of British professional photographers.’ William
Edward Downey was the son of William and Daniel
Downey was a partner in the business. The business was
dominated by W. E. Downey until his death.
William Ernest Downey was a native of South Shields
and started in business on the Tyne. He had, by the time
of his death, been a photographer of Royalty for more
than forty years and had photographed Queen Victoria
in the early 1860s and every subsequent monarch.
Downey fi rst attended the Queen at Balmoral and he
and his assistants accommodated themselves and their
equipment in a labourers cottage on the estate where
they were visited by the Prince of Wales with provisions
and wine. He had recognised the diffi culties they would
have being some distance from the Castle. According to
obituaries Downey was the possessor of sound business
instincts and had been one of the fi rst to recognise the
business opportunity presented by the picture postcard
over the cabinet card and at the height of the postcard
craze was reported to have sold 2½ million cards of a
theatrical beauty.
W & D Downey’s London studio was fi rst recorded
in the London Post Offi ce Directory in 1872 at 61 Ebury
Street, it expanded to number 57 from 1879 until 1890).
The fi rm remained at 61 until 1941 when it was last
recorded in the directories.
The fi rm held two Royal warrants. The fi rst was
granted as Photographers in Ordinary to Her Majesty
on 24 March 1879 and the second, as Photographers to
Her Majesty on 7 June 1890. Downey was apparently
popular and regularly photographed members of the
Royal family, notably at Balmoral and Frogmore for the
Prince of Wales throughout the late 1860s. Their carte-
de-visite portrait of the Princess of Wales with Princess
Louise being carried on her back was one of the most
popular ever issued with sales of over 300,000. In the
1897 the fi rm produced the Queen’s offi cial Diamond
Jubilee portrait.
W. Downey’s son, a partner in the assoiciated fi rm
of J. J. & F. Downey of South Shields received a com-
mand to go to Balmoral in 1897 and took along a
newly completed cinematographic camera designed by
a ‘valued assistant’ in the fi rm Mr T. J. Harrison. The
fi lm of Queen and other members of the Royal family
was projected at Windsor Castle on 23 November with
father and son Downey in attendance. The fi lm was sub-
sequently exhibited by J & F Downey in South Shields
and elsewhere. It was the fi rst fi lm ever taken of the
Royal family The company gained a favoured position
to taking moving pictures of the 1897 Queen’s Diamond
Jubilee procession in London.
Even by 1910 the fi rm was still being called upon
to produce formal portraits and it photographed nine
European sovereigns at Windsor for the funeral of King
Edward VII. According to Downey interviewed in The
Lady’s Pictorial Supplement of 5 December 1896 Queen
Victoria was the greatest patroness photography had ever
had. The possibility of photographs fading had made
her insist upon portrait photographs being printed in
carbon and platinotype, while special photographs had
to be enamelled. Downey also reported that she was
an excellent sitter aiding the photographer as much as
possible to achieve the required effect.
Royal patronage undoubtedly assisted the fi rm which
grew to be one of the premier society photographers of
the late nineteenth century. Their location in London was
important in attracting aristocracy, politicians, military
men, learned men and women and later on celebrities
of the day. Between 1890 and 1894 the publishers
Cassell & Co produced The Cabinet Portrait Gallery
in fi ve volumes illustrated from original photographs
by W & D Downey and their photographs were widely
used in commemorative books such as The Royal Visit
to Wolverhampton (1867) and as frontispieces in, for