Norton Brothers, British Guiana, and Everard im Thurn

[James Morley]

Hi, I have a colleague who is studying botanical exploration in Latin America and particularly the work of Everard im Thurn, a British author/explorer/botanist/anthropologist, and it would appear photographer - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everard_F._im_Thurn.

On a major expedition he was accompanied by a photographer from "Norton Brothers". Three images are in the collection at Cambridge and there is a short account of the studio at http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/rcs_photographers/entry.php?id=353

But it would appear that very little information is available about the Norton Brothers studio. I appreciate that this is a forum for British photographers, but I am making the assumption that this studio would have started in the UK.

Can anyone here help with additional sources, or provide advice or where I can research this further?

Many thanks, James

[James Morley]

Doing some further research this evening I have discovered that the Royal Geographical Society appears to have a good number of Thurn images in its collections, so that will definitely be one to follow up.

[Marcel Safier]

There was no British firms that traded as Norton Brothers to my knowledge but there were a number of photographers of that surname, William Henry Norton who worked in the 1850s being the oldest established then John Norton and his son Nathaniel Norton who started in a studio in London the 1860s but they appear in the various censuses from 1871 (I can't find them in the 1861) so I can't account for either of them being in Guyana from 1876-1890 as in the RCS photographer's index. I also can't find any brother to Nathaniel nor one for John that was a photographer either.
Cheers! Marcel
Contributor - Photographers and Great Britain and Ireland 1840-1940
http://www.cartedevisite.co.uk
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