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FALLOWFIELD, JONATHAN (1856–2005)
English chemist and photographic chemical supplier

Jonathan Fallowfi eld was born in 1835 and established
himself as a chemist. By 1856 he was advertising as a
‘photographic chemical and material warehouse.’ From
the early 1870s the business primarily sold cameras and
photographic materials for use with the wet-collodion
and, later, dry plate processes offering professional and
studio equipment such as portrait cameras and carte-
de-visite lenses. In 1885 the Fallowfi eld premises and
business was valued at £18,000. Jonathan Fallowfi eld
had a reputation for hard work and he recalled that dur-
ing one period of twenty-four years he only took one
week’s holiday. He died in London on 23 February 1920
leaving an estate of £51,360 13s 7d.
In 1888 the business was purchased by F W Hindley
(1856–1925) who signifi cantly expanded its retail ac-
tivities and in 1890 the business moved to 146 Charing
Cross Road, London, where it remained until 1923.
From the early 1890s the fi rm expanded the range of
equipment offered by it and commissioned products
which it retailed under its own name, most signifi cantly
the Facile camera patented by Frank Miall in 1889,
which was produced in several models until the end of
the 1890s. It is unlikely that it undertook any extensive
manufacturing on it’s own account.
After the 1919 the fi rm concentrated on retailing
equipment made by the major equipment and sensitised
materials manufacturers and its own brand cameras and
equipment disappeared. Jonathan Fallowfi eld became
a limited company in 1921 and by the 1930s the fi rm
had diversifi ed into selling radio equipment. During the
1950s it began to concentrate on British wholesale and
export orders only.
The company remained a wholesale photographic

business becoming part Sangers Photographics Whole-

sale Ltd in 1987 and Sangers Ltd in 1996. The Fallow-

fi eld company exists in name only as part of Quadnetics

Group plc.

Michael Pritchard

FAMIN, CONSTANT ALEXANDRE

(FRENCH, 1827–1888)

French photographer

Constant Alexandre Famin (sometimes confused with

Charles Famin, a painter) was a French photographer

who operated two studios in Paris (5, rue de Fleurus;

20, av. d’Orléans). Famin primarily photographed land-

scape and rural subjects, and was among the group of

photographers to work in the forest of Fontainebleau

and its environs in the late 1850s, 1860s, and 1870s.

His rural photographs, and in particular his studies of

peasants and farm animals, may have been intended as

aids for painters, but even among these, Famin’s eye

for complex, intriguing composition and his sharply

detailed prints distinguish his work from that of other

photographers of rural life. He also appears to have

made architectural photographs at Bourges and Paris.

The bulk of Famin’s known work is represented in the

Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, where, under the rule

of the Dépôt Légal, he made two large deposits of his

work in 1863 and 1874. Though he primarily produced

albumen prints from collodion negatives, a group of

stereoscopes deposited in 1859 at the Bibliothèque

Nationale, Paris, under the name J. Tongue but now

thought to be by Famin, suggests a greater diversity to

his output than previously acknowledged.

Sarah Kennel