With his photographer’s tent, his glass plates and chemicals and Dallmeyer camera, he made numerous forays into the scenic heart of the Scottish highlands and islands, as well as many other sites on the UK mainland (as far south as the English Channel) and even parts of Northern Ireland. Throughout, Wilson demonstrated technical and commercial acumen, and claimed to have sold over half a million pictures by 1864. At the time of his death in 1893, the company he founded employed 40 staff and had become the largest and best known photographic and printing firm in the world.
Over 40,000 of Wilson's photographic plates still exist today, largely due to the meticulous washing and chemical treatments he insisted on. Aberdeen University is in possession of some 38,000 of these, which were donated by an Aberdeen photographer, the late Archibald J.B. Strachan, in 1958; details of which can be found here.
The images and text in this book come from this double set of lantern slides which was produced in the late 1880's. Individually hand coloured onto the glass plates, these images capture the Western Isles and their way of life in evocative details. Published here for the first time as a complete set, many of the images, particularly of St Kilda and its inhabitants are iconic, well known among enthusiasts of Western Isles history. However, these contemporary hand coloured slides are rarely seen and present a new light on life in the Western Isles, produced fifty years before colour photography came to Scotland.
Photo: Queen Victoria on 'Fyvie' with John Brown at Balmoral, by George Washington Wilson, 1863; medium: carte de visite, size: 9.20 x 6.10 cm; from the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland
