| Richard Keene
was born
on 15 May 1825 at Bethnal Green, London, son of Richard Keene and
Priscilla
Kimpton. In 1828, they moved to Derby where Richard senior
became
the manager of Frost & Stevenson's Queen street silk
mill.
Richard
Keene junior was educated at Thomas Swanwick's academy at 25 St Mary's
Gate, Derby, before being apprenticed to Thomas Richardson &
Sons, a
firm of Ashbourne printers, moving to their London offices.
He
subequently
trained in publishing and bookselling at another firm, Simpkin Marshall
& Co., before returning to Derby.
In about 1849
Richard
Keene set up a letter press printing business at 24 Irongate, and by
April
1851 described himself as a printer, publisher and bookseller, although
he still lived at home with his parents in Middle Brook
Street.
He
married Mary Eleanor Barrow (1829-) in 1851, and over the next
seventeen
years they had five sons and four daughters. By 1852, he also
had
premises at 11 Lodge Lane, presumably where the printing works were
housed.
An 1857 trade
directory (White)
includes the following entry, showing that
he
had expanded his repetoire considerably:
| Keene
Richard, printer, publisher and
book-seller; wholesale and retail
stationer
and paper dealer, copper plate printer, machine ruler and bookbinder
for
the trade. Envelopes stamped, dies sunk, and plates engraved
to
order.
Publisher of the Derby Telegraph every Saturday, 22, Irongate. |
In 1861 the
family were
living on the shop premises at 22 Irongate (All Saints parish),
although
in 1881, by which time Richard's wife had died, they had moved to 7
Kedleston
Road, St Alkmund's, and by 1891 to 100 Radbourne Street, St Werburgh's
parish.
|
Richard Keene
(1825-1894), photographed in June 1963 by fellow studio photographer,
James Brennen, copyright and courtesy of the Derby Local
Studies Library
|
|
Although
primarily a
printer, bookseller, stationer and, by 1855, publisher of the
Derbyshire
Telegraph, he developed an interest in photography, and travelled
throughout
Derbyshire with friends, taking pictures of architecture, topography
and
landscapes. He started by selling prints of the high quality
photos
for which he became reknowned, but also set up and operated a
successful
portrait studio from at least 1859, produced private commissions for
firms,
estates and families, and took photos in many other counties.
He
was an associate of Fox Talbot, and his work reportedly included
commissions
by the Royal Family. In 1884 he was a founder member of the
Derby
Photographic Society, he was the recipient of 34 major awards, and he
also
became President Elect of the Photographic Convention of the United
Kingdom.
Although he
was working in an
accountant's office in St Marylebone, London in 1871, Richard
Keene's eldest
son, Richard
Keene Junior
(1852-1899), became a photographer too,
starting off in Siddals Road and Derwent Street (1877), Derby, and in
about 1878 opened
a studio at 52 High Street, Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire.
On his early CDVs, Richard Keene Junior claimed to be
the "inventor
of the New Dry Process."
The London
Gazette of 18 January 1878 includes a notice to the creditors of
Richard Keene, the younger, of Derwent-street, of a meeting of his
creditors at Derby on 7 February 1878, for the "liquidation by arrangement,"
presumably of his photographic business. Another issue of 15
March 1878 contains a notice "of a
bankruptcy petition against Richard Keene the younger, of
Derwent-street, Derby ... Photographer, Carver and Gilder, and Picture
Dealer," concluding that he
was "ordered
that [he] be, and he is hereby,
adjudged bankrupt," on 11
March 1878. On 27 Match 1878,
Thomas Henry Harrison of the Wardwick, Derby, was "appointed trustee of the
bankrupt."
On 24 April
1878, the following auction notice appeared in The Derby Mercury:
Re. R. Keene,
Junr. In Liquidation. Lecture Hall,
Derby. To Picture
Dealers, Photographers, Parties Furnishing, and Others. To be
sold by auction (by order of Mr. T.H. Harrison, the Trustee), on
Tuesday, April 30, 1878, the whole of the stock-in-trade of Mr. R.
Keene, Junr., Picture Dealer and Photographer, Derwent-street (which
will be removed for convenience of Sale to the Lexture Hall, Derby),
consisiting of oval and square gilt and other picture frames,
mouldings, large quantityog oleographs, framed and unframed, chromos,
prints and photographs, mirrors, brackets, picture mounts, straw
boards, scraps for screens, benches and tools for frame making, gold
size and varnish, soda, whiting, glue, magic lantern and slides,
gasometer, gas bags, 10 ft. screen and pair elevators, pressure boards,
jets, limes, oxygen retort, indiarubber tubing, foot lights,
&c. Crates, glass, laboratory stores, a very
excellent
portrait gallery, erected at great cost, contents of gallery, including
cabinet, triplet, and C.D.V. lens, cameras, and printing frames,
together with the shop fixtures, furniture, and other important
items. Sale at Eleven o'clock prompt. N.B. - The
Portrait
Gallery will not be removed, but will be sold at Derwent-street, at the
conclusion of sale of effects at the Lecture Hall.
The final
wrapping up of the liquidation appears to have been later that year,
with the publication in the London Gazette of 11 October 1878 of the
declaration of a dividend in Keene's estate. This matter
appears
to coincide with Richard Keene Junior's move to Burton.
Second son
William Caxton Keene
(1855-1910) studied art
in
London, and became a successful watercolour landscape painter and
engraver.
His third son, Charles Barrow Keene
(1863-1937) became an accomplished
photographer in his own right, was awarded medals for his photographs
and
was made a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society in 1895.
Charles
married Julia Rose Prebury at Camberwell, Surrey in 1888. He
continued
operating the family business with the help of his younger brother Alfred
John Keene (1864-1930) after
his father's death in 1894, until
his own
death in 1937. Alfred, like his older brother William,
painted
in watercolours. The youngest son Henry Keene (1868-) became
a
chartered
accountant.
Another noted
English
photographer, James Willoughby Harrison (1873-1960), trained with
Richard
Keene and, upon Charles Keene's death in 1937, inherited books and
photographic
collections from both. J.W. Harrison's daughter, in turn,
donated
these to the Lambeth
Palace
Library.
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