PHOTOGRAPHERS IN WALTON

In the early pioneering years of photography, Walton, being a seaside resort, was home to many fine photographers. Early cameras using glass plates and long exposures to record images were a new invention and as such were used only by experienced professional photographers.

A Frenchman, Louis Daguerre, was the first person to patent a practical form of recording an image onto a  silver plate in 1839. These plates were known as Daguerreotypes and are highly collectable today.

Around the same time an Englishman, William Henry Fox Talbot, was   perfecting the method of making paper negatives and prints. These were known as Calotypes.  Eventually it was discovered how to make glass plates sensitive to light and from the 1840s to 1870s pioneer photographers had to sensitise their glass plates immediately before taking the photograph as the plate would only react to light while it was still wet. They then had to develop them before they dried out. Thus a portable darkroom had to accompany the photographer to wherever they wanted to record a scene. This accounts for the lack of scenic photographs but an abundance of portrait pictures taken during this period as photographers rarely left their studios.

               Click here for an interesting modern day insight into the Wet Plate Collodion Process.

During the 1870s when the dry plate was perfected, photographers became more mobile and the amateur photographer came into existence. The Box Brownie using roll film did not hit the market until 1900.

The advent of the picture postcard combined with a fast and reliable postal service encouraged holiday makers to send  greetings home. Photographers soon realised that printing views, groups, street scenes, portraits and just about anything else as a postcard was a profitable business venture. Some were printed by the dozen others ran into thousands. This is why not every old postcard that turns up today is necessarily a commercial item but could be one of only a few printed individually for the client.

Walton-on-the-Naze supported a number of photographers from about  1860 when former surgeon,Thomas Dunningham, advertised his portrait rooms in Newgate Street. Prior to Dunningham’s business in Walton the only studios in the area were in Colchester. Dunningham was a fine photographer recording not only the local inhabitants but also views of the town’s important buildings.

Kelly’s Directory of 1866 lists William Downes, a former carpenter, as a photographer in Walton and he was followed by Thomas C Brooke who is listed from 1882 to 1888. Brooke, whose descendants are still living in Walton, operated from Brooke’s Bazaar & Library on Marine Parade in the early 1900s. The area nearby, where the first pier was destroyed by the sea and a large area of the coast eroded, is still known locally as Brooke’s Hole.

Another successful photographer in the town was Albert Azulay who had studios in High Street and Newgate Street from 1893 to 1899. This picture taken in 1898 shows his Newgate Street premises advertising six photos for six pence.

John Ashworth Jones is known to have operated from 1899 to 1933 with studios in Newgate Street and High Street. He also had studios in Frinton-on-Sea, Clacton-on-Sea, Chelmsford and Coggeshall. In 1922 he supplied the photographs for the ‘Official Guide to Walton-on-the-Naze’ which was published by C H Weston.

In 1892 Robert Modlen a chemist with the London Drug Store advertised  in the Clacton District Directory as a photographer working from Alfred Place (now Alfred Terrace) . The picture left shows where he worked in Old Pier Street and I guess that he was responsible for this fine portrait of his daughter, Louisa Modlen.

Victor Turner who ran his business as a newsagent and stationer at 29 High Street also had a portrait  studio. He was in business from around 1907 to 1922 and was responsible for many superb photographs of the town and its people. 

In 1921 my old boss, William Frances Putman (better known as Frank), started his business working from a garden shed at his parent’s home at 12, Churchfield Villas. His early work was mainly beach photography with a hut on the Albion Beach. Later he moved into 86-88, High Street where the business expanded as photographic retailers, portrait and wedding photographers and film processing and printing for all of the chemists and other photographers in the area. The High Street location remained until 1989 by which time the business was owned by two former employees, David West and Peter Frost (the author of this blog) who relocated to larger premises in Naze Park Road.

All of the photographs of Walton shown above can be seen online along with 100s more in the Old Walton Archive