Ministers of ‘The Black Art’: the Engagement of British Clergy with Photography, 1839-1914
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Ministers of ‘the Black Art’: the engagement of British clergy with photography, 1839-1914 Submitted by James Downs to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English in March 2018 This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Signature: ………………………………………………………….. Abstract 1 Ministers of ‘the Black Art’: the engagement of British clergy with photography, 1839- 1914 This thesis examines the work of ordained clergymen, of all denominations, who were active photographers between 1839 and the beginning of World War One: its primary aim is to investigate the extent to which a relationship existed between the religious culture of the individual clergyman and the nature of his photographic activities. Ministers of ‘the Black Art’ makes a significant intervention in the study of the history of photography by addressing a major weakness in existing work. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the research draws on a wide range of primary and secondary sources such as printed books, sermons, religious pamphlets, parish and missionary newsletters, manuscript diaries, correspondence, notebooks, biographies and works of church history, as well as visual materials including original glass plate negatives, paper prints and lantern slides held in archival collections, postcards, camera catalogues, photographic ephemera and photographically-illustrated books. Through close readings of both textual and visual sources, my thesis argues that factors such as religious denomination, theological opinion and cultural identity helped to influence not only the photographs taken by these clergymen, but also the way in which these photographs were created and used. Conversely, patterns also emerge that provide insights into how different clergymen integrated their photographic activities within their wider religious life and pastoral duties. The relationship between religious culture and photographic aesthetics explored in my thesis contributes to a number of key questions in Victorian Studies, including the tension between clergy and professional scientists as they struggled over claims to authority, participation in debates about rural traditions and church restoration, questions about moral truth and objectivity, as well as the distinctive experience and approaches of Roman Catholic clergy. The research thus demonstrates the range of applications of clerical photography and the extent to which religious factors were significant. Almost 200 clergymen-photographers have been identified during this research, and biographical data is provided in an appendix. Ministers of the Black Art aims at filling a gap in scholarship caused by the absence of any substantial interdisciplinary research connecting the fields of photo- history and religious studies. While a few individual clergymen-photographers have been the subject of academic research – perhaps excessively in the case of Charles Dodgson – no attempt has been made to analyse their activities comprehensively. This thesis is therefore unique in both its far-ranging scope and the fact that the researcher has a background rooted in both theological studies and the history of photography. Ecclesiastical historians are generally as unfamiliar with the technical and aesthetic aspects of photography as photohistorians are with theological nuances and the complex variations of Victorian religious beliefs and practices. This thesis attempts to bridge this gulf, making novel connections between hitherto disparate fields of study. By bringing these religious factors to the foreground, a more nuanced understanding of Victorian visual culture emerges; by taking an independent line away from both the canonical historiography of photography and more recent approaches that depict photography as a means of social control and surveillance, this research will stimulate further discussion about how photography operates on the boundaries between private and public, amateur and professional, material and spiritual. 2 Ministers of ‘the Black Art’: the Engagement of British Clergy With Photography, 1839-1914 Table of Contents Abstract......................................................................................................................2 List of contents..........................................................................................................3 List of illustrations.....................................................................................................6 Abbreviations...........................................................................................................10 Introduction............…..............................................................................................11 1. Literature Review 2. The Scope and methodology of the Research 3. The Archival Quest, 4. Using Biography for Historical Research 5. Photography and the Visual Arts in Christian Traditions 6. Outline of chapters Chapter 1. Clerical Photography in an Age of Progress: Chemicals, cameras and the struggle for cultural authority……..…………………………………………54 1 The role of the clergy in the scientific profession 2 Objectivity, democracy and popular science 3 Photographic networks and clerical connections 4 Case studies: the Revs. W.T. Kingsley and J. L. Sisson 5 Imagination, Representation and the Power of Print 6 Case studies: The Revs. Lambert and Blake: members of The Brotherhood of the Linked Ring 7 Holding Office: clergy and the photographic societies 8 Taking the Train: the railway photographs of the Rev. Malan 9 Conclusion 3 Chapter 2. Visions of the Past: The Photography of Rural Clergy and the Preservation of a Vanishing World………………………...………………………110 2.1. Rev. Thomas Perkins: the Principles of Photography 2.2. The S.P.A.B. and opposition to church restoration 2.3. Bell’s, Books and Candles: architectural writing & photographic illustration 2.4. Perkins and the Dorset Photographic Survey 2.5. Friendship with Thomas Hardy 2.6. Conclusion Chapter 3. Portraits, Piety and ‘Pencils of Light’: Evangelical clergy and photography at the time of ‘the Disruption’……………………..…………………155 3.1. Art of Darkness: Calvinism and Visual Culture 3.2. Sir David Brewster and photography’s ‘dim, religious light’ 3.3.1 Calder Macphail and the Calotype Club 3.3.2. Alexander Keith and photographic evidence 3.3.3. Rev. D.T.K. Drummond and the pursuit of photography ‘under God’ 3.4. The Magic Lantern 3.5. Spurgeon's distrust of the visual sense. 3.6. Archdeacon Thomas Colley and the world of spirit photography 3.7. Conclusion Chapter 4. Sermons in stone: the search for religious meaning in landscapes and ruin……………………………………………………………………….…………. 205 4.1. Priests, Photography and the Picturesque 4.2. The Romish Ruins of Rev. Francis Lockey (1796-1869) 4.3. Figures in a Landscape: Rev. John G Derrick (1852-1907) 4.4. Sermons in Stone: Rev. James Bannatyne MacKenzie (1833-1920) 4.5. The Waywor’n Wanderer: Rev. George Wilson Bridges (1788-1863) 4.6. Biblical Picturesque: Alexander Keith, James Graham, A.A. Isaacs and the Mission to the Jews 4.7. Out of Egypt: Alexander Boddy, William Macgregor and Claude Sutton 4 Chapter 5. Light from the Cloister: Religious communities, diocesan clergy and the uses of photography in the Roman Catholic Church………………………. 260 5.1 Catholicism during the Post-Reformation Era Diocesan Clergy 5.2.1. Fr. John Gray 5.2.2. Bishop Aeneas Chisholm 5.2.3. Mgr. Charles Moncreiff Smyth 5.2.4. Mgr. James Williams 5.2.5. Mgr. William Giles D.D. 5.3. Photography and Papal Rome 5.4. The Benedictines a) Dom Bede Camm b) Dom Odo Blundell 5.5. The Jesuits a) Fr. John Hungerford Pollen S.J. b) Fr. Stephen Perry S.J. c) Fr. Cuthbert Cary-Elwes S.J. d) Fr. Frank Browne S.J. 5.6. The Oratorians a) Fr. Anthony Hungerford Pollen Cong. Orat. b) Fr. Robert Eaton Cong. Orat. 5.7. The Dominicans – Fr. Peter Paul Mackey O.P. (1851-1935) 5.8. Conclusion Conclusion.............................................................................................................330 Appendix: List of clergymen-photographers......................................................339 Bibliography...........................................................................................................346 5 List of Illustrations Introduction Fig.1 Monument to Dean Montgomery (1817-97). Pittendrigh McGillivray, 1902. Fig.2 Popish Idolatry. The Pope and Cardinals adoring a piece of wood. (1853-54) Fig.3. The Anglican church of All Saints, Margaret Street, London, designed by William Butterfield. Fig.4. Illustrated pages, including photographs by Rev. Nehemiah Curnock, from The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M. (1909). 1 Fig.1.1 Unknown photographer. Rev. Joseph Bancroft Reade F.R.S. (1801-1870) Fig.1.2. Rev. Calvert Jones. Calvert Richard Jones, Lady Brewster, Mrs. Jones, Sir David Brewster and Miss Parnell (1857) Fig.1.3. D.O. Hill and Robert Adamson, Rev. J.S. Memes (1794-1858) Fig.1.4. Lionel Grimston Fawkes. Rev. William T. Kingsley (1902) Fig.1.5. Rev. J.L. Sisson, Cathedral of Lausanne, Switzerland (1859) Fig.1.6. Rev. A.A. Isaacs, frontispiece to The Fountain of Siena (1900) Fig.1.7. Rev F.C. Lambert, Self-portrait, with montage (1895) Fig.1.8. Cover of The Practical