Early Photographs

Abstract

THE June issue of the Alumnus Chronicle of the University of St. Andrews contains an article by Mr. J. H. Head describing a collection of prints by early photographers which illustrate the local development of the art and have been presented to the University by Mr. James Thomson of Inverness. The oldest photographs of the collection are of buildings in St. Andrews produced by the Calotype process about the year 1840. Portraits of St. Andrews worthies, for example, Sir Lyon Playfair and Sir David Brewster, by the process date from about 1850. The majority of the photographs are albumen prints from wet collodium plates taken during the next twenty years, and include portraits, scenery and reproductions of pictures. The article is illustrated by reproductions from paper negatives by Thomas Rodger of a St. Andrews fishing quarter in 1843, and a portrait of Prof. George Day, professor of medicine, 1850, both of which are remarkably good.