When English Heritage launched Your Stonehenge: 150 Years of Personal Photos, an 1875 photo of the Routh family’s day out was the oldest family photo contributed to the exhibition. The charity issued a challenge for people to sort through their old photos and find an even earlier image.
Among the pictures sent in was a stereocard from the early 1860s, discovered in the collection of Queen guitarist Dr Brian May. The stereocard was discovered by curator Rebecca Sharpe as she worked through the digitisation of some 100,000 stereographs. Further research by her and her co-curator Dr Denis Pellerin have added to our knowledge of the photographer, Henry Brooks, of Salisbury.
Brooks was a commercial studio photographer and the card is believed to show his wife, Caroline, daughter, Caroline Jane, and son, Frank, in the early 1860s. The card was sold through his shop and this example eventually found its way in to May's collection.
English Heritage is now searching for descendants of Henry Brooks and his family - presumably with a view to recreating the scene some 140 years later. If you think Brooks may a forebear of your family tree, please contact EH at YourStonehenge@english-heritage.org.uk
Rebecca has blogged about the research process and you can read a detailed biography of Brooks based on her and Pellerin's research here: https://stereoscopy.blog/2021/08/03/oldest-family-photograph-of-stonehenge-found-in-the-collection-of-dr-brian-may-to-go-on-public-display-in-3-d/ Both parts of the stereocard can also be seen.
There are, of course, earlier photographs of Stonehenge, such a Sedgfield's views of 1857 but these do not fit the definition of family photographs. Unless you know better...
Dr Brian May has what is believed to be world’s largest collection of over 100,000 in his archive This is now in a charity, The Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy,.to ensure this important resource stays together for future historians.
See: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge/things-to-do/exhibitions/yourstonehenge/
Image: Henry Brooks, Stonehenge with family members, one-half of a stereo pair, c.1860s. Courtesy: Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy.
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