HF The History of Photography 600pág

140 The early years of photography
Pl 5 5
portraits taken at his establishment will be entitled to duplicates at half price. '36 The
price of a single portrait was from 1 guinea upwards.
In August 1841 Claudet announced that 'By a new application M. Claudet is
enabled, without any additional charge, to fix the portraits and render them so durable
that they will not fade nor turn black. '37 One wonders what the earlier portraits were
like! Claudet was not the only photographer to experience this difficulty as we shall
see.
With the intention of distinguishing his establishment from Claudet's in the public
mind, Beard designated his pictures 'Patent photographic likenesses taken by
Wolcott's reflecting apparatus' and adopted the term 'Photography' on the ground
that this is 'a name better suited to the principles of English nomenclature than that
of daguerreotype, which, although a favourite word on the Continent, is by no
means suited to our views, as it has no reference whatever to the principles of the
subject' .38
In July 1841 Beard and John Johnson were joined by Alexander Wolcott, who
arrived in London in order to superintend the manufacture of equipment required
for other projected studios, and for this purpose a factory at I Wharf Road, City
Road, was taken over. Encouraged by the excellent business at the Polytechnic
Institution, in 1842 Beard opened two more studios in London, at 34 Parliament
Street, Westminster, on 29 March, and a month later, at 85 King William Street,
City.39
Simultaneously with the opening of the new London studios began the establishment
of a number of studios in the provinces : at Liverpool (Mount Gardens, St
James's Walk) in September 1841, with John Relph as studio manager. The photographic
company paid Beard £2,500 for the licence for Liverpool and ten miles
around; the building was erected on land granted by the Corporation.40 Later a
second establishment was opened at 34 Church Street, Liverpool. Photographic
Institutions were also opened at Southampton in October 1841,41 and at Brighton
on 8 November 1841.42 The proprietor of the latter, on the Marine Parade, was
WILLIAM CONSTABLE, who took the earliest photographic portrait of Prince Albert
on 6 March 1842. William Constable remained the only professional photographer
in Brighton for the next ten years, and during this period many distinguished people
sat to him, including the Duke of Devonshire and the Duke of Parma. In Manchester
a studio was opened at the Exchange on 18 November 184143 under the management
of Richard Nicklin. Lastly, we know of one at the Royal Bazaar, Norwich. Beard's
name does not, however, appear in connection with all these provincial studios for
he sold each business when completed, with the licence, which was sometimes for a
town only, and at others extended to one or several counties. In this way, Beard
assigned to John Johnson 'the sole and exclusive right and privilege of using and
exercising the Daguerreotype invention in the taking of likenesses, or other representations,
in the counties of Lancashire, Cheshire and Derbyshire' on 9 November
1842.44
For Beard photography had become big business. To show how profitable portraiture
was, Beard confidentially explained his price list in a circular letter to
prospective licensees. The very large gains that lay within their grasp was the most
obvious inducement (see table opposite) . The remark about colouring probably
meant that Beard would make no extra licence charge for colouring daguerreotypes,
which he had also patented in March 1842.
It is almost certain that he bought the method, possibly through a third person,
from the Swiss painter and daguerreotypist J. B. lsenring, who was the first to perfect