Important Events
Details of Important Events referred to on this site. - This page will be amended as the site develops.
1838 Charles Wheatstone presented his stereoscope to the Royal College of London.
1839 Louis Daguerre Invents the Daguerreotype process.
1840 Opening of the Bradford Mechanics Institute building at the corner of Leeds Road and Wells Street.
1841 William Henry Fox Talbot patented the Calotype process.
1842 Richard Beard offers licences to use the Daguerrotype process. Topham and Pritchard take a licence for Leeds and Edward Holland takes the licence for Bradford and surrounding districts.
1842 The first photographic studio, The Leeds Photographic Portrait Gallery, 27 Park Row opens to the public on Thursday the 14th April 1842. Due to the available light and other factors of course portraits take about one minute.
1844 Peter Skeolan, Itinerant profilist and later photographer offering likenesses in Bronze, Shade and Colours from Mr Taylor's bookseller, 26 Westgate, Bradford.
1846 Canadian born Oliver Sarony, at this stage an itinerant photographer visits Bradford, taking Daguerrotypes for a few days only.
1851 The Great Exhibition - Stereotype of Queen Victoria on display.
1851 The Wet Collodion Process (Wet Plate) introduced by Frederick Scott Archer.
1852 Formation of The Leeds Photographic Society.
1852 Oliver Sarony promoting new process of Enamelling portraits which he claimed 'makes them perfectly durable, so they may be washed without injury and preserved without glass.'
1853 Beard's Patent rights for the use of the Daguerrotype process in England and Wales expires.
1854 Introduction of the Carte de Visite by Disderi of Paris. Up to twelve individual photographs could be taken on a single wet plate reducing costs significantly making photographic portraits affordable by the general public.
1855 Joseph Bottomley a gravestone cutter by trade sets up his photographic studio in Hall Lane, Bradford.
1855 Charles Henry Braithwaite, a master butcher, starts working for Baume as a canvasser, a year later he sets up his own studio business in Albion Street in partnership with Joseph Navey.
1856 Edmund Wormald a warehouseman and artist goes into business with William Child setting up a studio in Great George Street just behind where the town hall is being built.
1858 Opening of Leeds Town Hall by Queen Victoria. Photographs of the town hall by Child and Wormald presented to the Queen.
1858 Fox Talbot uses photographic engraving on copper or steel plate.
1858 Beard and Sharpe producing photographs on Ivory on receipt of the negatives from photographic artists or amateurs.
1859 Thomas William Appleton, a linen draper opens his first permanent photographic studio in Bradford at the top of Manor Row.
1859 Desderi's portrait of Napoleon III starts Cartomania and the beginning of collecting celebrity portraits.
1860 Mayall's Royal Album raises the profile of the Carte De Visite portrait. Millions of Carte De Visites are now being sold every year.
1860 Bradford Photographic Society established
c1860 Edmund Wormald photographing John Fowlers Steam Ploughs
1862 Oliver Sarony opens a studio in Leeds in partnership with the Dickinsons.
1864 Joseph Wilson Swan's improved carbon process patented
1864 Woodbury Process patented by Walter Bentley Woodbury
1865 Sarony hands the Leeds Studio over to his employee J J Hobbiss who had worked for him for several years. The financial arrangements are unclear.
1866 Methodist Ministers conference held in Leeds. Appleton involved in taking portraits and creating a composite image of 40 ministers and laymen including Isaac Holden.
1867 Cabinet portraits introduced by F R Window, Photographer, Baker Street, London
1867 Opening of the Bradford Wool Exchange Building
1868 Swan sold his patent rights to the carbon process to John Robert Johnson and Ernest Edwards who established the Autotype Company
1868 Leeds Fine Arts Exhibition at the New Leeds Infirmary. Series of stereotypes of the exhibition produced by Edmund Wormald.
1869 The New Leeds Infirmary completed
1870 Laying of the foundation stone of the new Bradford Mechanics Institute, ceremony photographed by Joseph Bottomley.
1870 Laying of the foundation stone of Bradford Town Hall
1870 J J Hobbiss moves out of Leeds, his stock in trade is sold and many thousand negatives are sold to Edmund Wormald under the authority of a bill of sale from Oliver Sarony.
1871 Introduction of the Dry Plate simplified the photographic process and reduced exposure times.
1872 James Hertz killed when he fell from a moving train in Leeds station, His wife takes over the business
1873 Platinotype Process patented by William Willis Jnr,1st June
1873 Opening of Bradford Town Hall
1873 Albert Sachs leaves the employment of the Hertz studio setting up his own studio in Westgate, Bradford.
1874 Yorkshire College of Science opened, eventually becomes Leeds University.
1874 West Riding of Yorkshire Photographic Society established in November 1874. Many Leeds, Bradford and Halifax professional photographers joined this group to share ideas and techniques and have manufacturers present new products and services. Local photographers would present papers to the society.
1874 Leon Lambert's carbon process patented
1875 The Yorkshire Exhibition of Arts and Crafts at the Old Cloth Hall, Leeds opened by His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh.
1875 October. Lambert attends meeting of West Riding of Yorkshire Photographic Society to promote the carbon printing process. Albert Sachs at that meeting.
1876 January The Autotype Company purchased patent rights from Lambert for his Lambertype process which he had christened Chromotype
1876 June Albert Sachs producing Permanent Chromotype portraits from his new studio at 20 Manningham Lane..
1876 Albert Sachs produced six Autotypes of Yorkshire views to be included in a book of poems by John Nicholson, the Airedale poet.
1877 Henry Van Der Weyde first to use electric light for portraiture in his Regent Street studio.
1877 Platinotype portraits introduced.
1878 Joseph Bottomley reported as being the first in the provinces to take photos by the electric light, when experiments were being undertaken to light Ashfield Mill, Thornton Road. The Siemens electric light machine was used.
1880 First telephones established in Leeds.
1881 Publication of Historical Notes on the Bradford Corporation by William Cudworth, with Woodbury portraits of eighteen Lord Mayors of Bradford by Sachs and Appleton.
1882 Albert Sachs producing a series of views by the Electric Light.
1882 Prince and Princess of Wales visit Bradford to open Bradford Technical College, they stay at Milner Field. Tree planting ceremony at Milner Field photographed by Appleton.
1882 Bradford Technical College Fine Art and Industrial Exhibition, photos on show from Appleton, Sachs, Bottomley and Passingham. Appleton wins one of the highest awards of silver medal.
1885 Donald Maciver opens his first studio in Leeds with capital of £100
1886 Lectures by Henry Morton Stanley at Keighley and Huddersfield.
1886 Percy Lund sells the Ilkley Free Press and moves to Bradford to set up his works at St John Street, among other things he starts producing photographic journals, albums and selling a full range of photographic equipment and studio props.
1886 Publication of The Photographers World a monthly magazine for the profession begins, produced by Percy Lund, it is circulated worldwide posted from Ilkley Post Office.
1886 Albert Sachs dies in unfortunate circumstances, the business is continued by his brother Oscar still operating under the name Albert Sachs.
c1886 Joseph Bottomley moves to Epworth in Lincolnshire.
1887 Royal Jubilee Exhibition at Saltaire. Photograph of the handing over of the keys to Princess Beatrice taken by Richard James Appleton and Charles Maddison.
1887 Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee
1888 Mains electricity started with the Bolton Road Electricity works in 1888, followed by Valley Road Power Station around 1903
1888 Appleton held licences for Van Der Weyde, Platinotype and Autotype processes.
c1888 John Worsnop gives up his work as artist and photographer due to his failing eyesight.
1888 Louis Le Prince takes some of the world's first moving pictures in Leeds
1889/90 Eastmans presentation of the Kodak Camera and Celluloid film to the photographic section of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society
1889 Edmund Passingham moves to Brighton.
1890 Percy Lund working with Henry Snowden Ward start the Practical Photographer magazine which supersedes the Photographers World.
1890 The partnership between Edmund and Joseph Wormald breaks up, Edmund in debt, his wife and son die.
1891 International Photographic Exhibition at the municipal buildings in Leeds, promoted by the Fine Art Committee of the County Council and the Leeds Photographic Society.
1891 Buffalo Bill arrives in Leeds with his Red Indians, Mexicans, Buck Riders, Cowboys, Riflemen, Horses and 18 Buffaloes. He puts on his show at Cardigan Fields on the 20th June. Charles Henry Braithwaite is fortunate enough to be able to capture his portrait.
1892 Publication of Bradford Portraits and The Leeds Biographer.
1892 The Linked Ring founded. A club devoted to the promotion of pictorial photography.
1894 Joseph Rosemont promotes his Electric Light Studio stating that its the only one in Yorkshire.
1894 The Riley Brothers advertising they were 'The largest and best Magic Lantern outfitters in the World'
1895 Percy Lund sells his Photographic Department to Appleton. Half tone printing becomes popular and Percy produces a series of books on photography.
1895 Cecil Wray patents improvements to the Kineoptoscope
1896 The Adamson electric light adopted by Albert Sachs for his Manningham Lane studio, from then on being promoted as Electric Light Studio.
1896 Photographic Convention in Leeds chaired by Henry Peach Robinson.Group photo by Donald MacIver
1896 Röntgen Rays (X-Rays) The New Photography
1896 Donald MacIver runs into financial problems with debts of over £600, the official receiver is called in.
1896 Heslop Woods goes bust owing over £500 at his court case he refuses to take the oath and 'kiss the book' He later moves to Scarborough.
1896 The Riley Brothers acquire rights to Cecil Wray Kineoptoscope. Cecil Wray demonstrates this to the Bradford Photographic Society on 12th December
1896 Richard James Appleton invents his Cieroscope a means of projecting 'Living pictures'. He demonstrates this to the Bradford Mechanics Institute in December.
1897 Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee and Appleton's film of the event shown to tens of thousands of people in Bradford by means of his Cieroscope.
1897 Ernest Rutherford's lecture on Rontgen Rays at the Bradford Mechanics Institute.
1897 Riley Brothers film of Queen Victoria's visit to Sheffield.
1898 Richard Appleton taking X-Ray photographs at his studio in Manningham Lane
1898 R H White advertising hire of Appleton's Cieroscope for Bazaars and Parties.
1899 The Yorkshire Photographic Union is established, the first president was Percy Lund serving from 1899 until 1903.
1904 City of Bradford Exhibition. May to October 1904 at Lister Park. Opened by HRH Prince of Wales on May 4th. Official Photographer Joseph Rosemont