Through fire and water - ‘Lost’ pioneer woman photographer’s negatives found in our library
Fig 1: Catharine Weed Barnes Ward
Fig 2: Ann Pinder and colleagues
Fig 3: 35 mm preserved negatives
by Paul Tritton
During a fire at Maidstone Museum in 1977 about 10% of the collections in our Library were damaged. Our Visual Records Collection alone consists of some 20,000 images in various formats, including thousands of irreplaceable glass plate negatives. No one knows how many were rendered beyond repair and discarded, but hundreds were saved, although details of their provenance were lost.
Now, thanks to the efforts of Ann Pinder and colleagues, many of the surviving negatives have been scanned and conserved. Among them were rare examples of the work of American pioneer woman photographer Catharine Weed Barnes Ward, who lived at Golden Green, near Tonbridge, and died in 1913 leaving 10,000 glass plate negatives of pictures of landscapes and historic buildings.
More than 300 of them illustrated two travel books written by her husband, Henry Snowden Ward, and published in 1904 - 'The Real Dickens Land', describing locations in Kent and elsewhere that were the settings for Charles Dickens's novels; and 'The Canterbury Pilgrimages', featuring places visited by medieval pilgrims as they made their way to Thomas Becket's shrine.
One of the negatives Ann scanned was a view of the ballroom at the Bull Inn, Rochester, now the Royal Victoria and Bull Hotel (featured in the July 2013 Newsletter). Luckily its caption was legible, revealing that it had been taken by Catharine Weed Barnes Ward. Research revealed her collaboration with her husband on 'The Real Dickens Land'. The ballroom photo was found on page 73, captioned with a description from Pickwick: 'A long covered room, with crimson-covered benches and wax candles in glass chandeliers'. Eventually 52 negatives were discovered that exactly matched pictures of places in Kent elsewhere in the book.
Next, the group identified the negatives of 23 of the 33 photographs Catharine took in Canterbury for 'The Canterbury Pilgrimages', and collated more than 100 other negatives of Kent scenes that circumstantial evidence suggests were her work. The images of the Dickens locations are important because they were taken less than 40 years after he died in 1870 and show them much as they were when he wrote his novels.
Catharine was born in Albany, New York State, in 1851. At 35, she started studying photography, intending to make a career in a male-dominated profession. Some medical 'experts' even considered that such 'advanced learning' would overtax young women "before their brains are sufficiently developed". Catharine joined a photographic society at a time when few of them accepted women members, one reason being that the prospect of
Fig 2
They were married in July 1893. In 1901 they moved to Falklands, Golden Green, a large house (now called Leigh Court) in Three Elm Lane. The Wards took time to become part of Kent life. Henry joined the Kent Archaeological Society, built a rifle range in his garden for Hadlow Scouts and Hadlow Church Lads' Brigade, and supported the bellringers at St Mary’s, Hadlow. As specialists in travel photography the Wards were burdened with heavy cameras, tripods and boxes of fragile negatives wherever they went. They travelled to distant and remote locations by train and carriage, starting their journeys from Tonbridge station.
Their happy marriage lasted only 18 years. In October 1911, with engagements to fulfil as the Dickens Fellowship’s Special Commissioner in the USA and Canada, Henry embarked on a five-month tour of North America to coincide with the Dickens Centenary celebrations in February 1912. An hour before he was due to lecture on 'Dickens in America' he was found unconscious in his bed at the National Arts Club in New York City. Blood poisoning was diagnosed and despite an emergency operation he died soon afterwards. Catharine was at his bedside. He was 46. Catharine returned to Golden Green, but due to the shock of Henry’s death, the after-effects of a road accident, and failing health, she was unable to work again. She died at Falklands on July 31 1913, aged 62.
In May 1912, five months after Henry died, Catharine deposited 40 photographic prints, mostly of Canterbury, with the National Photographic Survey and Record’s Kent portfolio in Maidstone Museum. Most of the prints are identical to the pictures she took for 'The Canterbury Pilgrimages' so the negatives recently discovered were probably given to the Society when the prints were deposited. It is possible, though, that more negatives made for this and her other books await discovery.
The negatives Catharine made during a tour of England and Scotland in 1892 are among 2,202 in her archive at the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester, New York State. This was regarded as the only significant collection of Catharine’s negatives to have survived the 100 years that have elapsed since she died, her other negatives being lost or destroyed long ago. However, it now appears that we have the second largest collection of Catharine’s negatives – 75 for certain, more than 200 if the circumstantial evidence can be proven.
While advocating that women photographers should be treated as men’s equals, Catharine fought to abolish so-called ‘ladies’ diplomas and prizes’ in competitions and exhibitions, saying: “Do not admit a woman’s pictures because they are made by a woman but because they are made well”. Catharine rose to the top of her profession, specializing in travel photography. Her pictures of landscapes and buildings of historical importance, many associated with great writers and their works, were published in countless books and periodicals and shown during her lectures to photographic societies.
In 1890 she joined the staff of American Amateur Photographer magazine in New York. Meanwhile, in London, her future husband, Henry Snowden Ward, was editing and publishing his new magazine, The Practical Photographer, and becoming an authoritative writer and lecturer on the works of Chaucer, Dickens and Shakespeare. Catharine and Henry’s paths soon crossed. In November 1892 she surprised her friends back home by announcing her engagement to Henry, described in the New York Times as 'a gentleman of cultivated tastes and an enthusiastic photographer'.
Fig 3
i Catharine’s Kent images are now on our website at http://www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/Research/Libr/VisRec/01/Ward%20Collection%20catalogue%20v3.pdf and http://tinyurl.com/pnpvx3k. Those at George Eastman House are at http://www.geh.org/ar/strip13/htmlsrc/ward_sum0001.html and http://www.geh.org/ar/strip14/htmlsrc/ward_sum0001.html
With thanks to Professor Elizabeth Edwards; Dr Margaret Denny; Alistair Cook; Dr Michael Pritchard (Royal Photographic Society); Christine Baldock and Anne Hughes (Hadlow History Society).