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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: PhilGH on Friday 29 October 21 17:47 BST (UK)
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In the 1871 census for Silverdale, Staffordshire I came across an entry for:
William North, age 34, occupation Photo Artist, living in a caravan, place of birth - Leicestershire, Loughborough
I assume William North was some sort of itinerant photographer taking portrait photos but, although Silverdale had significantly expanded in the middle of the nineteenth century as a coal and iron mining community and undoubtedly had a growing middle class, the majority of people in the census for the village were miners or labourers. I can’t imagine many of them had the money or energy to have their photo taken after a long week of hard manual work.
I haven’t been able to find any other trace of William North so have no clues to the type of work he was doing. Has anyone come across him or similar in the middle to late nineteenth century?
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He is on the 1861 in Warwickshire as a lodger - occ painter
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In Midlothian Scotland 1881 - travelling photographer 1891 in Lanarkshire - same occ
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Thanks CaroleW. Until coming across this I hadn’t realised how early commercial photography had developed. It was only 30 years after the invention of the daguerreotype and Fox Talbot’s inventions. Then again if we look back 30 years to photography in 1991 it bears little resemblance to today’s world of digital cameras.