Caught in the Snap: when photographers get framed

If you’ve played around with Murder in the Manor, you will know that it features eight rooms from Preston Manor. Other than the stories that bring them to life, the rooms are empty. But look around the Morning Room, and you may catch a glimpse of a mysterious figure reflected in a mirror.

Still from the Murder in the Manor website

Although Preston Manor has a reputation as a haunted house, and there has been at least one ‘ghost’ accidentally caught on camera, there is nothing supernatural about this image. The figure is Richard Sams of Say Digital, who conducted the panoramic photography that is used on the website. As the mirror was an unavoidable feature of the room, he has captured his own reflection while shooting. Moreover, if you explore the room further you can find a second image of Richard — look behind you when you enter the room.

Of course, Richard is not the first photographer to be caught by a mirror. In early 1915, Brighton photographer AH Fry suffered a similar problem while recording the Royal Pavilion’s use as an Indian Military Hospital during World War One.

Red Drawing Room of the Royal Pavilion Indian Military Hospital, 1915. (BH411228)

Fry wasn’t directly captured on this occasion, but if you look closely at the mirror on the far wall you can see two military figures  who were presumably accompanying the photographer.

Detail of BH411228

What’s striking about these small accidents is how they reveal the context in which a photograph was taken. Photographs often present themselves as objective windows on the world, but for any photograph to be made a whole series of personal decisions and actions needs to be taken. Understanding how a photograph came to be taken can often shift our appreciation of what it tells us.

Fry’s photograph of the Red Drawing Room is a good example of this. Taken as a whole it shows the benevolent care given by the British Empire to its wounded Indian troops: the luxurious decoration of the room, the neat sheets, and the white doctor on hand for his patients. But the reflection in the mirror reminds us that the photographer is accompanied by two military minders, and that this image is produced for strategic ends: principally to maintain Indian loyalty to the British cause.

But the best example we hold of a photographer caught by his own camera is this spirit photograph from 1886. Purporting to show a shrouded ghostly hand that has mysteriously appeared on a portrait of an elderly woman, close examination reveals the arm and neckline of the living person faking the scene. A copy of this photograph is presently on display in a small exhibition on spirit photography at Preston Manor, and I wrote a short piece about it back in 2010.

Spirit photograph, 1886 (HA900406)

As far as I’m aware, the Morning Room is the only area of Murder in the Manor in which Richard can be glimpsed. But if you spot the photographer or any anomalies elsewhere on the site, do let us know in the comments below.

Kevin Bacon, Digital Development Officer

George Fleming Richardson — geologist, curator and poet

While history celebrates the individual scientists and artists who change our understanding of the world, it rarely remembers the assistants who make this pioneering work possible. Perhaps it’s time to spare a thought for George Fleming Richardson, who supported the work of local palaeontologist Gideon Mantell.

When Mantell exhibited his collection in Brighton in 1837, Richardson acted as curator. He followed the collection when it was acquired by the British Museum the following year, and became an assistant in its department of minerals. He also took notes from Mantell’s lectures which he published as The Wonders of Geology in 1838. Richardson published several other works on geology, but he also maintained a parallel literary career as a poet. One example of his work can be found in The Book of Sussex Verse, copies of which can be found in Brighton History Centre. Probably dating from his time with Mantell in Brighton, the poem is Richardson’s attempt to capture the eastern promise of the Royal Pavilion.

Book of Sussex Verse, 1914

Brighton. The Pavilion.

Imperial palace, that art seen to smile

In Eastern splendour, on our English land,

As if, from China’s shore, or Egypt’s strand,

Some pow’r unknown had borne thy magic pile!

O, I would roam around thy turrets, while

They bask in moonlight beauty, while Romance

Wakes the high visions of the holiest trance,

And bids her fairest forms the night beguile.

Then shall mine erring fancy rove anew

O’er themes all wild and wondrous, that belong

To Arab story, or to Persian song,

And deem awhile their false enchantments true;

Like gentlest dreams to sleeping suff’rers borne,

To charm throughout the night, and vanish with the morn.

G.F. Richardson

Sadly, neither Richardson’s poetic nor scientific careers proved sufficient to sustain him. Financial problems drove him to suicide in 1848. Richardson’s  scientific rather than his literary work seems to have been better regarded in his lifetime; he became a fellow of the Geological Society in 1839. But it’s worth noting that this poem was still remembered over sixty years after his death, when The Book of Sussex Verse was first published in 1914.

More on George Fleming Richardson

RICHARDSON, GEORGE FLEMING (1796?–1848), geologist, was born about 1796. He acted at one time as curator to the collection of Dr. Gideon Algernon Mantell [q. v.], when it was on exhibition at Brighton in 1837. He also took notes of a series of Mantell’s lectures, which were published as ‘The Wonders of Geology’ (1838).

In 1838, when Mantell’s collection was bought by the trustees of the British Museum, Richardson entered their service as assistant in the ‘department of minerals.’ This post he filled for ten years. During the same period he lectured on geology and kindred subjects, and was elected a fellow of the Geological Society on 22 May 1839. In 1848 pecuniary embarrassments led him into the bankruptcy court, and he committed suicide in SomersTown on 5 July 1848. His geological handbooks were useful compilations; he was less successful in his efforts in general literature. He was author of: 1. ‘Poetic Hours,’ &c., 12mo, London, 1825. 2. ‘Rosalie Berton,’ in ‘Tales of all Nations,’ 12mo, London, 1827. 3. ‘Sketches in Prose and Verse,’ 8vo, London, 1835; 2nd ser. 8vo, London, 1838. 4. ‘Geology for Beginners,’ &c., 12mo, London, 1842; 2nd ed. 1843; reissued 1851. 5. ‘Geology, Mineralogy,’ &c., revised by Wright, 8vo, London, 1858. ‘An Essay on the German Language and Literature,’ by Richardson, is advertised in ‘A Descriptive Catalogue of the Objects … in the Museum attached to the Sussex Scientific and Literary Institute, 1836,’ which last he possibly also wrote. He also translated ‘The Life of C. T. Körner,’ 8vo, London, 1827; 2nd edit. 1845; and at his death he had completed a translation of Bouterwek’s ‘History of German Literature.’

[Athenæum, 1848, p. 704; Gent. Mag. 1849, p. 550; Introd. to Wonders of Geology, 3rd edit.; information kindly supplied by the authorities of the BritishMuseum and by the assistant secretary of the Geological Society; Brit. Mus. Cat.]

John Cooper, Keeper of Natural Sciences

The History of Brighton Museum and Library

Twentieth Century Art & Design Gallery at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, 2008, RG001116

Although the history of the Royal Pavilion has been thoroughly researched by several writers, the history of Brighton’s unique Museum and Library has rarely been explored in detail.

On 15 August 1872, the Brighton Gazette devoted its most lyrical sentiments to the new Museum and Public Library, labelling it “the pride of Brighton”: ‘No Acts of Parliament can so well shape, fashion, or restrain men’s minds and inclination as the beautiful and true in life – we have become wealthy in a few moments as it were – rich in art, in science, in the mysteries of the world…The old stables have disappeared, the court yard, where high-mettled royal steeds have pranced, is gone, and thereon stands the metamorphosed building which is now a fit sharer in which is justly called “the pride of Brighton”.’

The site selected for the Museum and Library was in Church Street, beside the Royal Stables and Riding House (now the Dome and Corn Exchange) which were completed in 1808 by William Porden. At the lower end of Church Street Porden had built only a screen wall, with no building behind it. A tennis court was intended for this space, but never built. Instead, Jospeh Good (the architect of the North Gate) built further stables and coach houses here for Queen Adelaide in 1831. After the purchase of the Royal Pavilion Estate by the town in 1850, this area was used by the Army until 1871, when the Council resolved that a new Library, Museum, and Picture Gallery should be built on the site.

1871-3 

Expanding Art Collections

Design by Philip Lockwood for the Picture Gallery, c.1871. The gallery as built corresponds with design in all respects except the roof, which was constructed in the form of a shallow barrel-vault. CAIL000011.36

Art exhibitions had been held in the Great Kitchen of the Royal Pavilion since 1852, and in 1859 rooms on the first floor of the Pavilion were adapted as a museum. However, as the collections increased it became obvious that new galleries were needed. The work was directed by the Borough Surveyor, Philip Lockwood, who created an entrance which led into a small hall, at the side of which was a Post Office. At the rear of this hall was the large Picture Gallery (now the Twentieth Century design gallery) which, as the Brighton Gazette commented on 15 August 1872, ‘is the room of the building in which “Art” takes its seat’. The gallery was originally top-lit through a double roof, the lower part being glazed with ground glass.

Moderate Moresque

The Church Street frontage remained much as it had been in 1808, but Lockwood altered the windows and the main entrance, which became an archway supported by columns with ‘Moresque’ capitals. The Brighton Gazette commented on 16 November 1871: ‘The style adopted of course could be no other than that in which the Pavilion was originally conceived, though forms of a more moderate and strictly Moresque character have been maintained.’ The work cost £6,289, and was executed by the well-known Brighton builders, Cheesman & Co. The Clerk of the Works was Maurice B. Adams, later to become editor of the Building News and a successful architect in his own right. The Art Gallery was opened to the public in January 1873, and the Museum and Library eight months later.

1901-2 

It soon became apparent that the accommodation created by Lockwood was too small – especially when the Lending Library was opened in October 1889. Remodelling was finally begun in 1901 under the direction of F.J.C.May, Borough Surveyor, and the total cost amounted to £50,000.

Paupers and Prisoners

May’s task was to develop the site to the west of the Museum, which had been occupied since 1856 by the Brighton Board of Guardians, who were responsible for providing poor relief. When the Guardians moved out in 1892, their quarters were used as a Magistrates’ Court. The Brighton Herald of 1 November 1902 observed that ‘Brighton’s Home of Art was freed from the weekly procession of applicants for poor relief and from the proximity of the parish bread van…[but] for a while the procession of paupers was only exchanged for a procession of prisoners.’

The ‘west entrance’ to Brighton Library and Museum in 1905, CAIL000011.11

May completely remodelled the library in a style that the Brighton Herald called ‘Persian’. Windows were encrusted with Islamic ornament and the building was surmounted by two copper domes. Two new porches provided entrances to the Library and the Dome: they were highly elaborate and fitted with splendid wrought iron gates. All the wrought iron in the building, including the remodelled staircases, was designed by May and made by W. Saunders of Kemp Town. The entrances were filled with tiling designed by George Elphick and executed by Craven Dunhill & Co. from 1894 onwards. Inside the porch were panels ‘recalling the Moorish design on the Alhambra in Spain’. The staircase and walls were lined with a geometric dado in greens and blues crowned by a rich frieze. The walls of the entrance hall were also decorated with cool green scale-pattern tiles. The screen in front of the staircase, again in the words of the Brighton Herald, ‘must represent the highest degree that faience work has reached in its application to the constructive parts of a building.’

Poisoned Arrows and Poetry

May added several new galleries to the museum. One large room was devoted to ethnography. The Brighton Herald patronisingly commented that ‘it comprises a collection of the war clubs, poisoned arrows, and more peaceful implements of savages.’ Three new exhibition galleries upstairs were given ceilings of vaguely ‘Renaissance’ plasterwork and an advanced system of top-lighting through the sides of the roof.

The new Reference Library on the first floor was admired by the Herald for its ‘specially handsome ceiling, distinguished by three glass domes. The mouldings have that Elizabethan touch that the bookworm likes to see in a library along with old calf bindings and antique bookcases.’ The Lending Library was also praised. When the borrower presented a ticket, ‘the attendant presses a pedal; a wicket gate opens and admits him into a charmed circle, where he can roam at will up and down shelves marked “Theology”…”History”….”Poetry”.’

Critical responses 

Repellent?

The Church Street frontage of Brighton Library, Art Gallery and Museum, as it appeared c1905, CAIL000011.08

The new Library and Museum was opened on 5 November 1902, and although the Library has since switched venues, the design of the Museum in Church Street has remained substantially intact. Modern critics have questioned the building’s architectural worth: Goodhart-Rendel, writing in the Architect and Building News in 1933, remarked that ‘The eastern style…began by Porden, and luxuriated in by Nash…re-appeared, in a rather repellent form, to take possession of the Public Library and Art Gallery.’ Today, perhaps, we are better able to appreciate the architecture of the Museum and Library, and to declare, with the Brighton Herald of 1902, that ‘it adds yet another to the varieties of oriental architecture of which the Pavilion estate is in itself quite a museum.’