636
of picture recommended is whole plate (8½ × 6½ inches)
while pictures of other sizes could be bound in special
albums, and complete sets of views could be produced
for the public reference libraries.
While this proposal was local in nature, Harrison
saw it as having a general application and this was
refl ected in the fact that a dozen or more photographic
societies copied this example initiating local surveys.
Encouraged by this activity in response to his paper,
Harrison developed his ideas on the scale and scope of
Survey Photography. In 1892 he read his proposal ‘A
Photographic Record and Survey’ to the Royal Photo-
graphic Society (RPS), and in 1893 he presented his
paper ‘On the desirability of an International Bureau:
established to record and exchange photographic nega-
tives and prints’ at the World’s Congress in Chicago.
Although the scheme for a National Survey was thought
to be ‘impracticable, unwieldy, [and] of doubtful util-
ity’ with ‘problematical longevity in its execution,’ his
1893 paper led to the appointment of an International
Committee which considered how his ideas might best
be carried out.
Harrison occasionally contributed articles under
the pseudonym ‘Talbot Archer’ and it was the radical
Talbot Archer that feared the RPS ‘is in too fossilised
a state to furnish the men, the energy, and the funds
that are needed to inaugurate this great movement.’ In
1893 Harrison resigned from the BPS and WPS and
retired from mainstream photographic life, after his
identity was revealed following the RPS’s rejection of
a National Survey. The National Photographic Record
Association (NPRA) was formally established in Sep-
tember 1897 when Stone was elected as its fi rst, and
only president.
Harrison was involved in contributing to the fi rst
Geological Photographic Survey of Great Britain and
the National Collection of Geological Photographs,
initiated by the British Association for the Advancement
of Science in 1899, contains hundreds of examples of
his work.
There was no lack of support for record and survey
photography at a local level and picking up on these
trends in 1906 Harrison presented a paper on ‘The desir-
ability of Promoting County Photographic Surveys’ at
the Annual Meeting of the British Association of the Ad-
vancement of Science. This paper, which may be seen as
one of the defi nitive texts on Survey Photography, traced
the evolution of the movement and acknowledged the
work done by the NPRA. Harrison declared the ‘three
great objects’ of Surveys were to benefi t ‘the individual
photographer, the Scientifi c and Photographic Societies
and the nation generally’ maintaining that survey work
was ‘a liberal education for any man’ for it was impos-
sible to ‘photograph without learning much about the
objects photographed.’ He appended an encyclopaedic
set of ‘Suggestions and Memoranda’ and proposed the
establishment of a Committee to collect, disseminate
and coordinate the work of these surveys. Both he and
Stone were subsequently nominated as members of a
provisional committee, but Harrison never lived to see
the fruits of its labours.
Michael Hallett and Peter JamesBiography
William Jerome Harrison was born at Hemsworth, York-
shire on the 16th March 1845 and died in Birmingham
on the 6th June 1908. While still a child he accompanied
his parents to Australia in the hope of improving his
father’s health, to no avail as his father died shortly after
the family’s arrival. On his return to England Harrison
was educated for seven years at the Westminster Train-
ing College and afterwards for two years at Cheltenham
College. A brilliant pupil, he graduated as Senior Prize-
man and holder of the highest obtainable Government
Certifi cate. He was appointed as Headmaster of a large
boys’ school in Leicester in 1870. His scientifi c educa-
tion may be said to have commenced in 1868 when he
began to study for the examinations of the Science and
Art department. Within the next ten years he carried off
the highest distinctions in chemistry, physics, geology
and physical geography, being a gold medallist in the
last two subjects in 1872. During these years he spent
much time in the laboratories of the Government Science
Schools at South Kensington. In 1872 he was appointed
Chief Curator of the Leicester Municipal Museum
where he established very large and successful science
classes. He was elected a Fellow of the Geological So-
ciety (FGS) in 1876. In 1880 he was appointed Science
Demonstrator to the Birmingham School Board. With a
large staff of assistants, well appointed laboratories and
a Technical School, he directed the scientifi c studies of
about six thousand elder children and some hundreds
of younger teachers. For continuing work in geology he
received the Darwin Medal in 1884. Harrison became a
widely read journalist, contributing articles on a broad
range of subjects to respected publications.
See also: Books and manuals about photography:
1870s; Photographic News (1858–1908); Royal
Photographic Society; Photohistorians; and Stone, Sir
John Benjamin.Further Reading
Hallett, Michael and Peter James, Contribution to the Bibliogra-
phy of Photography as prepared by William Jerome Harrison,
Occasional Papers No. 1, School of Art & Complementary
Studies, City of Birmingham Polytechnic, 1987.
Harrison, W.J., “Some Notes on a Proposed Photographic Survey
of Warwickshire,” Photographic Societies Reporter, 31st
December 1889, 505–15.