1306
If the amateur exchange clubs provided one kind of
alternative to photographic societies, other organisations
also contested for hegemony. Mechanics’ Institutes and
Literary and Philosophical Societies gave time and atten-
tion to photography. During the 1860s James Mudd was
a member of both the Manchester Photographic Society
and the Manchester Lit and Phil (Photographic Section)
were he rubbed shoulders with prominent industrialists
and men of science. In 1863 and 1864, responding to
the economic crisis in the carte trade, the editor of the
Photographic News—George Wharton Simpson—advo-
cated the establishment of a ‘relief fund’ or ‘provident
society’ for photographers (‘A Photographers’ Relief
Fund,’ 589). Though little is known of it (probably be-
cause historians have been overly preoccupied with the
doings of amateur gentlemen) the Solar Club, organised
by Simpson, played an important role in the 1860s. Re-
stricted to 25 members, it brought together the ‘elite of
the metropolitan photographers’ for dinner once a month
along with guests from the arts and the press. The model
may have been the gentlemanly dining club, but this was
no longer an amateur binge. The members of the Solar
Club were key fi gures in professional photography:
editors, proprietors of grand studios and writers for the
trade journals. At one such meeting the alliance between
Alfred Wall and Oscar Rejlander was cemented. There
were, of course, also attempts to unionise the industry,
though nothing concerted seems to have happened until
the early 1890s when Arthur G. Field, Eleanor F. Field
and John A. Randall made a determined push for an
operatives’ organisation.
In his report on the International Exhibition of
1862, published in 1864, Dr Hugh Diamond suggested
that there was ‘scarce a branch of art, of science, of
economics, or indeed of human interest in its widest
application, in which the applications of this art have
not been made useful.’ He offered a list of those who
employed photography in their professional pursuits,
including: people from medicine, law, architecture and
engineering, manufacturers, ethnology, natural his-
tory, archeology and antiquarian pursuits. (Diamond,
‘Report of Jurors,’ 339–46) Lists like this were part of
the professional claim to status and shouldn’t be taken
literally. Nevertheless, photographers increasingly found
forms of institutional support by providing the State and
private organisations with documents. For example:
Fenton, along with the brothers Thurston and Stephen
Thompson, worked for the British Museum during the
1850s and 1860s documenting its holdings; penal pho-
tography was established during the 1870s and came
increasingly to feature as evidence in the law courts;
it also came to play an important role in anthropology
and colonial administration.
As early as 1859, the need for a permanent collec-
tion of photographic portraits was mooted. Lachlan
Mc Laclan took up the idea of a national collection of
portraits in 1863. Three years later the Corporation of
Manchester adopted his plan and appointed him Honor-
ary Curator. Solicitations for pictures appeared in the
photographic press, but, to my knowledge, nothing fur-
ther happened. In 1882 the South Kensington authorities
announced their intention to hold an exhibition survey-
ing the history of photography. The exhibition was to
form the basis of a permanent collection at the museum
and appeals were again issued in the photographic
press soliciting donations of apparatus and pictures.
Organised in less than a month and accompanied by a
series lectures, this exhibition provided the foundation
for the Science Museum collection, and subsequently
the nucleus for the National Museum of Photography,
Film and Television.
Pictorialism represented both a break and continuity
with the established organisations and procedures. The
Linked Ring Brotherhood seceded from the Photograph-
ic Society in 1892 in order to pursue an untrammelled
vision of photographic art. Initially, 28 members were
listed on a ‘Roll,’ rising to 75 at the height of activity.
The organisation assembled monthly at a ‘Union’ for
dinner and published Linked Ring Papers for circulation
amongst the membership. From 1893 it also organised
an annual exhibition, or ‘Photographic Salon,’ which
was fi rst held at the Dudley Gallery, Piccadilly, and then
at the Pall Mall premises of the Royal Society of Painters
in Water Colours. The Linked Ring retained many of the
existing organisational forms, but infused them with the
imagery and values of the Aesthetic Movement and the
Arts and Crafts Guilds. However, Pictorialism was not
confi ned to the elite associated with the Linked Ring:
Amateur Photographer, a journal peddling a softer ver-
sion of the Symbolist aesthetic, appeared between 1884
and 1918, and Pictorialism permeated the new amateur
hobbyists clubs that developed during the later years
of the century. It has been suggested that the number
of photographic societies had declined substantially
by 1880; in 1885, H. Baden Pritchard listed 17 societ-
ies in England and Scotland. (Pritchard, Photography
and Photographers, 101) By 1900 this fi gure has risen
spectacularly to 256. As Peter James has noted, at-
tention to Pictorialism has largely overshadowed the
emergence, around 1890, of the Record and Survey
Movement. (James, ‘Evolution of the Photographic
Record and Survey Movement,’ 205). Instigated by Sir
Benjamin Stone and W. Jerome Harrison a local survey
was initiated to document disappearing monuments,
traditions and old buildings in Warwickshire. Other
local surveys were undertaken and Harrison attempted
to found a national organisation, but he ran foul of the
Photographic Society. Stone, by this time Conservative
M.P. for Birmingham, established the National Photo-
graphic Record Association in 1897, which produced