779
the Royal Photographic Society of which he had been
a member since 1907. He participated actively in ex-
hibitions and the organisation of the society—he was
twice president from 1923–25 and 1929–31. Exhibition
labels on the reverse of some of his prints in the RPS
collection evidence the breadth of his work and also
provide an itinerary of early 20th century exhibitions.
His sensitively lit nudes and portraits of the late 1920s
recall the meeting with his second wife Florence and
a move from process to pattern. The role of pattern is
particularly noticeable in Snow Roofs (1923) and in other
snow scenes of the same period and, later, in scenes such
as Arabesque (1940), a dappled, sunlight, open market
made from an elevated viewpoint.
Of equal, if not greater importance, is Johnston’s role
in revolutionising the collecting policy of the RPS. He
believed that it was vital to the study of photography
to be aware of what had gone before. In 1923, as Presi-
dent of the RPS, he initiated the role of curator. By his
own account, he built up the collection of photographs
from about 100 prints to 1500 prints. The strengths of
the collection are based on his personal contacts, his
search for knowledge of the process of photography,
his dedication to the society and his continued involve-
ment in collecting. His vision for the collection was to
dominate the next 50 years: his collecting policy and
stewardship of the collection was continued into the
1970s by Florence Johnston.
After his retirement from business, Johnston em-
barked on a history of the RPS. Story of the Royal
Photographic Society was not just an account of the
Society, it was a history of photography—an explora-
tion of the fi fteen years before his own birth. Johnston
continued to maintain a high profi le through his ongoing
enlargement and care of the RPS collection and because
of his popular lectures—Switzerland, Bavaria and Italy,
a lecture tour on the Grand Canyon- always illustrated
by his own, widely admired series of slides.
Dudley Johnston died in Paddington, London in
1955.
Carolyn Bloore
See also: Royal Photographic Society; Dührkoop,
Rudolf and Minya; Evans, Frederick H.; and
Brotherhood of the Linked Ring.
Further Reading
Cox, Bertrand, Pictorial Photography of J. Dudley Johnston
1905–1940, London: Royal Photographic Society, 1952.
Dudley Johnston Archive, RPS Collection at NMPFT.
Harker, Margaret, The Linked Ring, London: Royal Photographic
Society, Heineman, 1979.
RPS Collection (prints) at NMPFT.
Taylor, John with Bloore, Carolyn, Pictorial Photography in
Britain 1900–1920, Arts Council of Great Britain and RPS,
1978.
JOLY DE LOTBINIÈRE, PIERRE-
GUSTAVE GASPARD (1798–1865)
Pierre-Gustave Gaspard Joly de Lotbinière was a
merchant, landowner, traveller, daguerreotypist; born
Geneva, Switzerland, 1798; died, Paris, France, 1865. In
1828, Swiss-born Pierre-Gustave Gaspard Joly, a wine
merchant from the Epernay region of France, married
Julie-Christine Chartier, heiress of the seigneury of
Lotbinière, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence, not
far from Quebec City. In August 1839, he was in Paris
about to embark on the Grand Tour, and like others was
caught up in the “daguerreotypomania” that followed the
disclosure of Daguerre’s process. Equipped by Paris op-
tician N.-M.P. Lerebours to take daguerreotypes on his
travels, Joly de Lotbinière became the fi rst to photograph
the Parthenon in early October 1839. He then continued
to Egypt where he travelled from Alexandria as far as
the First Cataract in company with fellow traveller-da-
guerreotypists Horace Vernet, the Orientalist painter and
Director of the French Academy in Rome, and Frédéric
Goupil-Fesquet, his nephew. His journal and an anno-
tated list of daguerreotypes taken on his travels indicates
he took more than forty daguerreotypes in Egypt and
another twenty-six in Jaffa, Jerusalem, Damascus, and
Baalbek before returning to Paris by way of Rhodes
and Turkey. His original plates are not known to have
survived; however, fi ve of his daguerreotype views of
Greece, Egypt, and Syria were published as engravings
in Lerebours’ Excursions daguerriennes which appeared
in instalments between 1840 and 1844; others were
engraved for Hector Horeau’s Panorama d’Égypte et
de Nubie, published in Paris in 1841.
Joan M. SchwartzJOLY, JOHN (1857–1933)
Inventor
John Joly was born in Bracknagh, Offaly, Ireland on
1 November 1857. His father John Plunket Joly was
Rector of Clonsat (Offaly) and came from an infl uential
family of French descent. His mother Julia, Comtesse de
Lusi was born in Castlejordan, Meath. After his father’s
death in 1858 Joly’s family moved to Dublin where his
education was entrusted to a tutor, John Charles Mahon.
His formal education began at the Protestant Rathmines
School in 1872. He spent a year in France for health
reasons prior to his entrance into Trinity College Dublin
in 1876. He was conferred a Bachelor of Engineering in- After graduation he was appointed to the College’s
Engineering Department where he was to gain a reputa-
tion as an inventor of scientifi c instruments.
In the late 1880s he became interested in the ap-
plication of photography to the various sciences and
to astronomy in particular. He was a member of the