I have been shown several plates of old Great Yarmouth buildings by a local collector and they are in the same (nearly square) format measuring four inches by three and three eighths inches 10cm x 8.5cm, not quite quarter plate. One thought that I had was that these were once one half of stereo pairs.
The provenance of the plate is fairly good. The plates were given to the present custodian in the 1970s by Sydney Yallop son of Alfred Yallop, a well known Great Yarmouth photographer. Alfred Yallop had taken over Miller's Royal Studio from Mrs Elizabeth Miller in about 1900. Mrs Miller's late husband Wallace Miller had previously been the manager of Sawyer and Bird's Great Yarmouth studio from around 1870.The image shown must have been taken before 1878 as the building shown was demolished in that year to make way for a new town hall.
Does any member of this forum know if this odd size negative format was used by professional photographers in the 1870s?
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