PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY Letters to William Walker.
Good collection of sixty-seven letters addressed to William Walker, concerning his photographic business. The letters are from a wide cross-section of contemporary celebrities, with a leaning towards the stage and politics. The period covered is largely the mid 1860s, but there are a few strays.
Walker was the son and namesake of the engraver William Walker (1791-1867). This correspondence largely deals with the day-to-day business of making arrangements for photographic portraits, and there are inevitably many letters making and breaking appointments to sit. Other letters comment on the actual pictures and express pleasure (or occasionally the opposite) in the results.
The following is a list of the contents of the file: Sir G.B. Airy, Duke of Argyll, Sir Julius Benedict, A.J. Beresford-Hope, Sir David Brewster, Edward, Viscount Cardwell, Gathorne, Hary, Earl of Cranbrook, Walter Crane (thanks for an article by Cunningham Graham), R.M. Rolfe, Lord Cranworth, 14th Earl of Derby (thanks for photgraphs of the Cabinet), 15th Earl of Derby (Lord Stanley), Countess of Derby, William Farren, Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson, Catherine Gladstone ('The likeness is excellent'), William Ewart Gladstone (asking for a copy of the photograph of the Palmerston Cabinet), Lord de Grey, Sir George Grey, Lady Herbert, Elizabeth (asking for pictures of Lady Mary and 'Miss Nightingale' etc.), Sir J.F.W. Herschel (regarding a sitting, and introducing Walker to the Archbishop of Canterbury), Joseph Jeffeson, [Edmund Kean] (address-wrapper to Kean), Ellen Kean (about a sitting for Charles Kean), Robert Keeley, Earl of Malmesbury (complaining that his photograph has been copied), Charles Mathews (mentioning the illness of his (second) wife [who survived him]), Molly Moore, Lilian Adelaide Neilson, Henry G. Neville, Stafford, Lord Northcote (lamenting the fatal illness of Walker's father, William Walker the engraver), Freeman Marius O'Donoghue (about 'Hamlet' and G.B.S. [O'Donogue wrote Walker senior's article in DNB]), Sir John Pakington, Viscountess Palmerston (complaining about Lord Palmerston's photograph, especially the colouring), Bishop of Peterborough, Sir Francis Ronalds (disclaiming complete priority in the invention of the electric telegraph), Lady Russell, Byam Shaw, Samuel Smiles (a testimonial for Walker), A.C. Tait, Bishop of London, Kate Terry (asking him not to publish any of the double photographs), William Thomson, Archbishop of York, General Sir Frederick Williams, Louise Williams, Charles Wood, Viscount Halifax (paying for photographs), Thomas Woolner ('It is this face of Ld Macaulay that is making me prisoner').
[No: 21630]