Pioneering royal photographers honoured with blue plaques

John Thomson and Christina Broom, who took some of the earliest images of the aristocracy and suffragettes, are celebrated for their work

Two of the earliest royal photographers in British history are to be commemorated with blue plaques honouring their work.
John Thomson, who was appointed as official photographer to Queen Victoria and George V, is to be commemorated by English Heritage, alongside Christina Broom, thought to be the first female press photographer in the UK.
Thomson was made an official photographer to the Royal family by Victoria in 1881, by Royal warrant, and went on to take the key royal images of the 19th and early 20th century.
As well as shooting images of suffragettes and the military, Broom had her photographs of royalty published from 1916 onwards, including a celebrated 1934 image, The Pillars of Empire, showing the then Prince of Wales in profile looking towards the King at Wellington Barracks.
Both pioneering photographers will be commemorated with blue plaques by English Heritage on Thursday. Broom’s will be on her former home in Fulham, while Thomson’s is in Brixton.
Rebecca Preston, English Heritage historian, said: “These two very different photographers were both pioneers in their own right, both working at the forefront of photography at a time when it was not the accessible medium that it is now.
“I am delighted to celebrate them today, each at an address associated with the very pinnacles of their respective careers.”
Other photographers commemorated by the blue plaques scheme include Bill Brandt, Lee Miller, Camille Silvy and Cecil Beaton.
Broom is described by the organisation as the most prolific female publisher of picture postcards in Britain; a prominent photographer of the suffrage movement; the only female photographer allowed into London barracks; and the only photographer permitted regularly into the Royal Mews.
Her plaque at 92 Munster Road, a terraced house from 1896, will be the first blue plaque in Fulham, where she lived and worked for 26 years.
Broom and her daughter Winifred ran her photographic business from the house, after picking up her first borrowed quarter-plate box camera at the age of 40.
Thomson was also known as a geographer, travel writer and explorer, with his Illustrations of China and its People (1873-1874) charting 4,000 miles of travel cited as his “seminal work”.
Thomson and his family moved to what is now 15 Effra Road in Brixton in the 1870s, where he published Street Life in London (1877-1878), capturing the flower sellers of London, Italian musicians and “Hookey Alf of Whitechapel” for the masses.
The plaques will be unveiled on Thursday.