524
on the side of the building housing his studio (Notman
Photographic Archives, McCord Museum, Montreal,
Quebec). Fardon retired from photography in Victoria in
the early to mid-1870s and in 1876 moved to Oakland,
California. He operated a photo studio with William H.
Bluett (Bluett & Fardon), then left the fi eld permanently
upon his return to Victoria in 1877. Fardon died on Au-
gust 20, 1886 and was buried in Ross Bay Cemetery,
Victoria, British Columbia. A very weathered white
marble headstone marks his grave (Block F, plot 32 W
21A) which is near his half-brother A.J. Langley’s grave
(Block F, plot 32 E 21).
Biography
George Robinson Fardon was born in 1807 in Birming-
ham, Warwickshire, England. By the late 1840s he was
living and working in New York City as a commission
merchant. He was in San Francisco, California, by the
mid-1850s. Where or when he learned photography is
unknown. In September 1856 Herre & Bauer published
Fardon’s San Francisco Album, believed to be the fi rst pho-
tographic compilation depicting an American city. Fardon
exhibited some of these views in the Mechanics’ Institute’s
First Industrial Exhibition (1857). The next year he was
awarded a bronze medal for his display which included
portraits on patent leather. Following the discovery of
gold on the Fraser River, British Columbia, Fardon made
a number of trips to Victoria, Vancouver Island, where he
purchased property, chiefl y on behalf of a relative. Fardon
fi rst advertised as a photographer in Victoria in 1861. As
part of the Vancouver Island entry to the London Interna-
tional Exhibition (1862), he submitted at least portraits
on leather taken in Victoria. Although primarily a studio
portrait photographer, Fardon’s outdoor work included
group portraits, buildings and a multipart panorama of
Victoria (London Illustrated News, January 14, 1863).
Following his retirement from his Victoria photographic
in the mid-1870s, he moved to Oakland, California, where
he had a brief photographic partnership with William H.
Bluett (Bluett & Fardon). Fardon subsequently returned
to Victoria where he died on 20 August 1886. He is buried
in Ross Bay Cemetery, Victoria, BC.
David Mattison
See also: Claudet, Frances George; Claudet, Antoine-
François-Jean; and Notman, William.
Further Reading
Fardon, George R., San Francisco Album, Photography Collec-
tions Online, International Museum of Photography at George
Eastman House, http://www.geh.org/.
Fardon, G.R., San Francisco in the 1850s: 33 Photographic
Views by G.R. Fardon, Rochester, NY: International Museum
of Photography at George Eastman House; New York: Dover
Publications, 1977.
Fardon, George Robinson, San Francisco Album: Photographs of
the Most Beautiful Views and Public Buildings, San Francisco,
California: Fraenkel Gallery; New York: Hans P. Kraus, Jr.,
Inc., 1999. With contributions by Rodger C. Birt, Marvin R.
Nathan, Peter E. Palmquist, and Joan M. Schwartz.
Hales, Peter B., Silver Cities: The Photography of American
Urbanization, 1839–1915, Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, 1984.
Mattison, David, “G.R. Fardon’s Portraits on Patent Leather at the
London International Exhibition, 1862: Newly Discovered at
the Victoria and Albert Museum” in Photographic Canadiana
25/3 (Nov/Dec 1999), 4–7.
Nathan, Marvin R., “Treasure on Leather: A Portrait from George
Robinson Farden’s [sic] San Francisco Period” in California
History 65/1 (March 1986), 58–63, 75–76.
Palmquist, Peter E. and Kailbourn, Thomas R., Pioneer Photogra-
phers of the Far West: A Biographical Dictionary, 1840–1865,
Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2000.
Schwartz, Joan M., “G.R. Fardon, Photographer of Early Vancou-
ver [Island]” in Afterimage (December 1978), 5, 21.FARMER, ERNEST HOWARD (1856–1944)
English physicist and photographer
Ernest Howard Farmer was born in Brighton in 1856,
the second son of Robert Farmer, one of Brighton’s early
portrait photographers who had opened ‘Mr Farmer’s
Daguerreotype Rooms’ in the town in 1853. At the
time of Ernest’s birth, the family was resident at 59
North Street, Brighton, described as ‘Mr Farmer’s Old-
Established Photographic Rooms’ despite the studio’s
relatively short existence. By 1859, Robert Farmer was
dead, and Howard, one of three children was brought
up by his mother Harriet. He was the only one of the
three children to survive into adulthood and, by the
1881 Census he was resident in Lambeth, London, his
occupation listed as physicist, with his widowed mother
living at the same address. Harriet’s occupation was
listed as ‘charwoman.’
While still a young man, he became interested in
amateur photography, his scientifi c training fuelling a
curiosity about how the photographic process worked.
After his appointment as a teacher of photography,
Farmer was appointed the fi rst Head of Photography at
the Regent Street Polytechnic, and is remembered as the
inventor of ‘Farmer’s Reducer,’ the mixture of potassium
ferricyanide and sodium thiosulphate which is still used
today to lighten excessively dense negatives and prints.
He published the formula for his reducer in 1883.
John HannavyFENTON, ROGER (1819–1869)
British photographer
Born into the security of a wealthy Lancashire family,
Roger Fenton was under no pressure to pursue a chal-
lenging or fi nancially rewarding career. Despite that, he