Notes by Roger Vaughan
W.M. Harrison who was an experienced photographer, worked at Falmouth in the 1880s where he established a studio at 40 Church Street, opposite the Polytechnic Hall. By c.1885 he had already submitted photographs to a number of photographic expositions, gaining medals at seven of them, in England, France and Austria. The earliest negative number I have is 1497b ( c.1884), less than a years work (5000 a year) so the Falmouth studio started around 1883.
His next branch was Coinage Hall Street, Helston by about 1885, his green back plate shows an undraped grecian goddess, I like to think that this was a bit much for the times, for in the next design c.1886, he had her slightly covered up!
He expanded in the 1890s to New Bridge Street, Truro and Next to the Druid's Hall, Redruth. His studios also sold artists materials, paints, brushes and usually picture framing went with this.
c.1884
 c.1885 |
 c.1886 |
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 c.1894 |
 c.1902 |
By 1900 Harrison had obtained 30 prize medals gained in England, France, Austria, Belgium, Holland etc. including:
Exposition Universalle de Vienna 1875
Universalle Internationalle de 1878
Royal Cornwall - First Class [1872 or 1880]
Hayle Industrial Exhibition 1886
Falmouth (3 medals)
Derby [1887]
Cheltenham Photographic Society (2 medals)
Exposition Internationalle 1896
Paris Exposition 1900, Silver Medal
He also had become the photographer to the Druids (hall next door) adding a 'square and compass' logo and the 'heart in the helping hand' logo of the I.O.O.F.M.U. [a mutual friendly society] he probably belonged to both.
Harrison kept a store of glass plate negatives, he states 'Copies or enlargements may be obtained by quoting this number'. Harrison had an estimated 17,000 customers by 1904. In Falmouth there would have been a room with racks containing 17,000 glass plate negatives each numbered and a book with the customer's name - no doubt destroyed since.
I think he should have had many more customers than the 17,000 recorded over the 20 years, one answer is that many studios asked 'if the negative was to kept' perhaps at an extra cost, some customers said 'no' and others would have been passing trade or summer visitors. This was a way to reduce the huge storage problem.
It was usual to sell six or twelve of each CDV pose to every customer. So the 17000 customers actually represents two photograph poses for each number.
To estimate how many actual photographs were developed: 17000 x 2 poses x 6 copies = 204,000 and this is just for the ones that were actually numbered!
Seems a lot? - consider this - eight customers a day each having six copies for 250 working days for a twenty year period amounts to 240,000 so the figures are about right (some had a dozen).
A graph drawn from his numbers shows a straight line geometric increase.
For dating purposes a rough guide is:
| W. M. Harrison 1883 - 0 1884 - 1500 1885 - 2000 1886 - 3000 1888 - 4000 1889 - 5000 1890 - 6000 1891 - 7000 1892 - 8000 1894 - 9000 1895 - 10000 1897 - 11000 1898 - 12000 1900 - 13000 1901 - 14000 1902 - 15000 1903 - 16000 1904 - 17000 Messrs. Opie & Sons |
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Some negative numbers are difficult to read, because a pose letter has been added 'a' or 'b' with the 'b' looking like a six. This may also mean that he used only two poses having glass plates that had room for two CDV exposures on each plate, and probably only one cabinet card. This was not unusual as this
H. & S. of Harrow printed glass negative shows
When Opie took over c.1905 he appears to have changed the numbering system to a 50000 series.
Some of the customers:
 c.1902. Lois Dunn, Ellie Gilbert's mother. so her daughter Ellie Dunn married a Mr Gilbert |
 c.1905. Miss Bull, She may have been a local teacher. Photo probably taken by Opie. |
A visitor to this site has kindly sent me an image of a Chromotype Permanent Photograph taken by WM Harrison and Co, and the address is 9 Berkeley Vale, Opposite the Drill Hall, Falmouth. From the clothes of the lady in the image, this looks about 1885.
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This is quite a new piece of information to me, he would have had to pay for a licence to use this process, and has a so far (to me) unknown studio in Falmouth, and he seems to have had a partner at this time from the 'Harrison and Co'. Perhaps it was the partner who was skilled in this process, however it seems that the demand for these photographs was not enough to keep the studio open for long, or at least we do not have another record of it. Chromotype Permanent Photographs were complex to create and produced an image that is still as good today as the day it was created.
The card back was printed by the well-known company Marion Imp Paris.
Roger Vaughan April 2015
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