I have recently acquired a daguerrotype stereoview of Scottish provenance. It shows three men round a table on which is an early Brewster stereoscope, a Dubosq & Soleil black and white litho view and possibly a daguerrotype stereo, plus some small tools which could be burnishing tools of the gilding trade.
The similarity between the central figure and GW Wilson’s self portraits, prior to the beard, caught my eye. I was delighted to find that the older figure is a reasonable match to John Hay senior (gilder and framer) in Wilson’s composite view of famous Aberdonians (a portrait taken a decade later and after Hay’s bankruptcy). Interestingly, in the composite picture he is the only one with his hand to his face exactly like in the daguerrotype.
The third person in such a group would have to be John Hay junior, Wilson’s partner in 1853-54. Unfortunately I have so far been unable to unearth any likenesses of John Hay junior to complete the set and confirm my identification of the trio.
GW Wilson Self portrait (oil on panel) late 1840s – – mirrored portrait from dag, c.1853 mirrored portrait from dag, c.1853 — – John Hay senior, Gilder and framer, by GW Wilson, c.1862
Wooers’ Alley Cottage, Dunfermline, unidentified photographer, late 1850s
This late 1850s sequential stereoview shows a man in a stove pipe top hat and three women on a bench (and possibly a dog that has moved under the left of the bench) in the gardens of an elegant cottage. The rear identifies the location as Wooers’ Alley Cottage, Dunfermline.
Built in 1837 and demolished c. 1926, this was the home of the highly artistic Paton family.
Joseph Neil Paton, in the top hat, was a well respected damask designer at the time. Over seven hundred of his damask designs are still in the V&A collection. He was also a great collector of Scottish artefacts and opened his home at Wooers’ Alley to the public as a museum. Most of the collection is now in the National Museum of Scotland. The most famous exhibit was Robert the Bruce’s Toe Bone (more correctly his metatarsal) which is now in the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow.
The three women in the picture are likely to be Joseph Neil Paton’s wife, Catherine, and his two daughters, Amelia (1821-1904) and Jemima. Alternatively, one of the women may be Ann Mitchell, the sister of Catherine, who lived with the Patons.
Magnified Image
Three of Joseph Neil Paton’s children became well known 19th century Scottish artists; Sir Joseph Noel Paton, Amelia Robertson Hill (née Paton) and Waller Hugh Paton. They were well connected in society, being friends with Andrew Carnegie, who had emigrated penniless from Dunfermline to America, where he managed to become the richest man in the world! Sir Joseph Noel Paton was Queen Victoria’s ‘Painter and Limner for Scotland’, the artists’ equivalent of poet laureate, and had important artistic links to the Pre-Raphaelite circle. He was best known for painting fairies as well as mythological and religious subjects, many of which are displayed in the major galleries around Scotland.
In 1862, Amelia (pictured), married family friend David Octavius Hill, an Edinburgh-based artist and one half of the famous early photography partnership, Hill & Adamson. She moved into the studio at Rock House, Calton Hill, Edinburgh. She was an accomplished sculptor, exhibiting over 60 works (including a bust of Sir David Brewster) and enjoying several public commissions. Despite her achievements, she was denied membership of the Royal Scottish Academy because of her gender, due to outdated Victorian attitudes towards women at the time. When her husband died in 1870, she sculpted his bust in bronze for his grave in Dean Cemetery, where she later joined him. Her work is the subject of a charming sculpture trail through Edinburgh.
Following the death of Adamson in 1848, Hill mainly returned to painting, but he still continued his interest in photography, pairing up with Alexander McGlashon to exhibit at the Photographic Society of Scotland’s 1861 exhibition, and to publish, in 1862, an album of views entitled “Towards the Further Development of Fine Art Photography”.
It is therefore possible that this stereoview was taken by D.O. Hill, although no record of him working in the medium has yet been discovered. Alexander McGlashon, his photographic partner around the time that this photo was taken, was a renowned stereo-photographer and perhaps initiated Hill in the art.
A fascinating exhibition, ‘The Patons of Wooers’ Alley’, is running until 26th February 2023 at the Fire Station Creative arts centre in Dunfermline.
Conclusions from my presentation at the on-line conference “Celebration of Stereoscopic 3D”, Nov 2020
I have about 40 examples of ESC images in my collection. The most intriguing is an early instantaneous street scene taken in the Royal Mile in Edinburgh and entitled “The Procession of His Grace, the Lord High Commissioner” dated 24 May 1858. At this early date, photographic exposure times were generally tens of seconds and mechanical shutters were virtually unknown, but this image has clearly been captured in a fraction of a second. Although there is slight blurring of the horses hooves, I believe it adds a dynamic vitality to the composition.
Procession of His Grace, the Lord High Commissioner, ESC, 24th May 1858Procession of His Grace, the Lord High Commissioner, ESC, 24th May 1858 (verso)
George Washington Wilson is celebrated as the first photographer to take instantaneous photographs, a style for which he became rightly famous. But his earliest instantaneous street view (Princes Street, Edinburgh) was taken in the summer of 1859, a full year later than this image. The early Anthony instantaneous views of New York were also from 1859. This stereoview therefore has solid claims to be the earliest known example of an unposed instantaneous street view and as such is a significant and overlooked image in the history of photography. I wanted to find out who was the photographer and the only clue was a small oval blindstamp stating “Edinburgh Stereographic Company” (ESC).
When I first started investigating the Edinburgh Stereographic Company over ten years ago, an on-line search came up with only three hits: a mention on John Saddy’s auction site, an image on Peter Stubbs excellent www.edinphoto.org.uk and a single reference to having exhibited 12 tissue views at the Edinburgh Photographic Society Exhibition in 1858 on Roger Taylor’s useful resource Photographic Exhibitions in Britain 1839 -1865. A visit to the Edinburgh Company Registrars House turned a blank. The photographic librarian at the National Library of Scotland could find nothing. I searched the Edinburgh Post Office directories but it was not listed. The company appeared to have disappeared without trace leaving only a few scattered stereoviews as evidence of its existence.
The stereoviews are wide-ranging in style and subject matter: topographical views of Scotland, portraits, still life and genre.
The Trossachs Hotel, ESC, c.1858Reverend Thomas Guthrie, ESC, c.1857Nature Mort, ESC, c.1858
There are also stereoviews of the eastern seaboard of North America which have a blindstamp providing a New York address of 337 Broadway.
Niagara Falls, ESC NY, c.1858
After much research and many blind alleys, a breakthrough was recently made with the discovery of an address in Slater’s Directory of 1861, which announced “Edinburgh Stereographic Company, Manager John Moffat, 60A Princes Street”. Since then I have also generously been given access to a catalogue of singleton-half Moffat views in the collection of Dr Brian May. This catalogue allowed me to confirm that two-thirds of the views in my collection with the ESC blindstamp are by Moffat, including all the views in this article, except the Niagara view.
So we now know that Moffat took the early instantaneous street view and was the creative force behind the ESC.
His brother-in-law, James Brown Knott, was in New York until at least 1856 before coming back to Edinburgh, where he was to be found in 1860. When Moffat moved to larger premises at 103 Princes Street in either late 1860 or early 1861, it was Knott that took over the 60 Princes Street address associated with the ESC. At the moment, Knott is the prime suspect as being behind the NY arm of the ESC and possibly the photographer of the US views, but, until further sources of information come to light, this is purely speculation.
JB Knott logo from rear of CDV, c.1865
Footnote: by bizarre coincidence, 337 Broadway is called the Moffat Building. It was built by Dr John Moffat, who had made a fortune selling cure-all remedies such as Moffat’s Vegetable Life Pills and Phoenix Bitters. I searched for a family link with the Edinburgh photographer, but discovered that the US quack was a fifth generation American whose family had emigrated from Ulster in the early 1700s. Therefore, there is no direct close family link.
It is a great honour for “Scotland in 3D – A Victorian Virtual Reality Tour” to be selected by “The Scotsman” newspaper as one of its photography books of the year 2019.
We are delighted to see an excellent article “Virtual Reality Victorian Style” published on stereoscopy in the fine on-line magazine “Scotland Correspondent”
Sir David Brewster – Scottish developer and promoter of 3D imaging pictured with his lenticular stereoscope which he first demonstrated to his friends in 1848.
Scotland in 3D 