Early Photographic Resources:

                 ‘Castle Studies and the Early Use of the Camera 1840-1914’

                                                                                      A short essay -  Neil Guy

Online Galleries and Archives for early Victorian photographs:

The Victoria & Albert Museum - http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/t/the-collections/ One of the finest photographic collections in the world. Go to ‘Collections’ & search under name of the castle or name of photographer. Very good for early examples by Benjamin Turner, Francis Bedford and Francis Frith.

The Royal Collection Trust - https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection (search under name of photographer or castle name). Some early photographs by Fox Talbot, Francis Frith, Francis Bedford.

The British Library – online images – http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/index.html

Particularly a section dealing with early illustrated book photographs: http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/earlyphotos/.Their collection contains good quality images that were used by William and Mary Howitt in 1862 and 1864. Search under castle name.

The British Museum - http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/search.aspx . Click the box that states: ‘Images only’. Only occasionally contains photos

The Country Life Picture Library - https://www.futurecontenthub.com/brand/Country%20Life

Classic country Life photographs usually starting from 1897

The National Museum of Wales - http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/art/online/ They hold an important collection by Rev Francis Lockey (1796-1869) who was an amateur photographer in the Bath Photography club. Following his death his paper negatives (calotypes) of various sites in Wales were donated to the Museum. The Museum then printed the negatives in the traditional way - so all the photographs were 1930s prints, printed by the Museum. The work dates from the 1850s to 1861. They were digitised as part of the Esmée project established in 2011. (Esmée Fairbairn Foundation). These are not yet available on-line.

The National Library of Wales - https://www.llgc.org.uk/

Check ‘digital’ & enter castle name.

A subset of images is also available through ‘Digido’ - http://www.digido.org.uk/ . Browse the ‘collection’ box for the collections that specify photographs.

The Royal Commission on the Ancient And Historical Monuments of Wales: http://www.coflein.gov.uk/en/quick_search/

Restrict site searches to images only. Some good early photographs but not necessarily early Victorian.

Historic Environment Scotland https://canmore.org.uk/site/search (ex Royal Commission image database).

Reading Museum (Collections) - http://collections.readingmuseum.org.uk/ . Good for a collection of images by William Russell Sedgefield. (Enter ‘Sedgefield’ in the search box) or go to ‘Topics’ and ‘Pioneering Photographers of Reading’

Birmingham Central Library - http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/centrallibrary Holds the Francis Bedford Collection, but this does not yet appear to be available online.  Go to:

‘Photographic and Special Collections’

Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution. http://www.brlsi.org/node/18262 . The collection includes much of the Rev. Francis Lockey calotypes (negatives) in and around Bath. For his collection of Welsh sites, see below.

The Royal Photographic Society Collection, The National Media Museum, Bradford. http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/.

Go to ‘Collections’ and ‘Search our collection’. Enter ‘castle’. Good selection of early plates by Fox Talbot (‘The Open Door’, Laycock), Roger Fenton, Benjamin Turner, Samuel Smith, and many others. The NMM also has an Album containing 31 photographs of Kenilworth Castle, taken by Frederick Scott Archer, 1851. Ref no: 2003-5001_2_23979

The University of St. Andrews: http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/imu/imu.php?request=browse&browsetype=about . Go to ‘Special

Collections’ / ‘Photographic Collections’. Good for the bulk of the Valentine family archive from their postcard business.

For Fox Talbot images see British Library: http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/invention-of-photography. For the Fox Talbot Museum see: http://foxtalbot.co.uk/ (but not many images displayed online). For the first Fox Talbot image of a castle (Windsor) see:

http://metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/306348 (Metropolitan Museum, New York).

For Frederick Archer images see: http://www.frederickscottarcher.com

For Benjamin Brecknell Turner (1815-1894) see http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/b/benjamin-brecknell-turner-biography/

For Francis Bedford images see the list under ‘Further Reading’ and Birmingham Central Library (above)

For Francis Frith (1816-98) see http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/t/the-collections/ (Early images). For later images see the ‘Francis Frith Collection’: http://www.francisfrith.com/uk/

For Henry Peach Robinson (1830-1901) see http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/1936/henry-peach-robinson-british-1830-1901/

For John Pattinson Gibson (1838-1912) see http://www.amber-online.com/people/24

For James Valentine & Sons see: http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk (as above)

For Reverend Francis Lockey (1796-1869) calotypes (dated to 1849-61) see: http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/art/online/

For Catherine Weed Ward (1851-1913) see: http://www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/07/00.htm.

See also the George Eastman House historic Photography Collections online: https://www.eastman.org/ .This holds an outstanding collection by Catherine Weed Ward

(http://www.geh.org/ar/strip14/htmlsrc/ward_idx00001.html). She spent many years in England (Kent) and Wales and was the first pioneer woman photographer.

Eastman also has a collection by Welshman John Dillwyn Llewelyn (1810-1882) a friend and relation of Fox Talbot through his marriage to Emma Thomasina Talbot. See: http://geh.org/photographers.html

Only search the Castle Studies Group website

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