William England at Niagara Falls
William England, The Niagara Suspension Bridge, U.S.A., View from the Canadian Side, 1859, printed later. Albumen silver print with applied colour, 7.7 x 14.7 cm. Gift of Ralph Greenhill, Toronto, 1985. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Photo: NGC
Victorian photographer William England (1816–96) spent his formative years in a village not far from Lacock Abbey, where scientist and photography pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot was then at the forefront of photographic invention. At the age of twelve, England was employed as an assistant in a daguerreotypist’s studio.
By 1854, England had married, moved to London and begun working for the newly formed London Stereoscopic Company. During the mid-1850s and into the 1860s, the company enjoyed unprecedented success, in 1865 declaring itself the biggest supplier of stereoscopic views in Europe. In 1858, the firm had begun producing a “pocket” stereoscopic camera that allowed for a much greater mobility than the larger and heavier traditional apparatus. The following year, the company sent England to North America to obtain photographic views of its many natural wonders.
William England, Clifton Station, Great Western Railway, Niagara Falls, Canada, 1859, printed later. Albumen silver print with applied colour, 7.4 x 14.2 cm. Gift of Ralph Greenhill, Toronto, 1985. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Photo: NGC
With the intention of creating a series that would be called “America in the Stereoscope,” England travelled in 1859 from New York into Canada, eventually making his way to Niagara Falls. Although he photographed a variety of subjects, he was particularly interested in capturing images of engineering and construction alongside landscapes and wilderness scenes.
His views of North America are considered to be some of the first photographs to be widely circulated on the other side of the Atlantic. Images of Niagara Falls and the suspension bridge – in particular, a scene of Charles Blondin crossing the Niagara gorge on a tightrope – were hugely successful (the company sold 100,000 copies worldwide).
William England, The Railway Suspension Bridge from the “Maid of the Mist” Dock, Niagara, 1859. Albumen silver print, 24 x 28.3 cm. Purchased 1985. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Photo: NGC
The Niagara suspension bridge is a spectacular feat of engineering and the world’s first working railway suspension bridge. England photographed it from various vantage points. In at least two instances, he photographed the entrance to the pedestrian bridge, giving viewers a feeling of anticipatory excitement, as if they were about to cross the bridge themselves. In The Railway Suspension Bridge from the “Maid of the Mist” Dock, Niagara, the view is taken from what would later become the docking point for the ferry, England has posed his wife Rosalie, elder son Louis and daughter Marie Rose in the foreground. The roughly hewn logs that would form the base of the dock seem solidly rooted to the ground, while the bridge is visible in the background, stretching across the gorge like a gauzy strand of spider's silk. Seen from a distance, the structure appears impossibly delicate; it is even difficult to imagine that it had been built from wood. The bridge could accommodate two modes of traffic: locomotives on the upper portion, pedestrians and horse-drawn carriages on the lower part.
William England, The Lauterbrunnen Valley, Switzerland, c.1863-70. Albumen silver print, 7.4 x 15.3 cm. Purchased 1972. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Photo: NGC
By 1863, England had left the London Stereoscopic Company, and in 1867 he established a photographic printing studio in London’s Notting Hill neighbourhood. He continued to travel and make photographs. His views of Italy, Switzerland and France won him the reputation as “probably the largest Continental publisher of European views and one of the finest landscape photographers.”
This article by Lori Pauli is adapted from 19th-Century British Photographs published by the National Gallery of Canada. Share this article and subscribe to our newsletters to stay up-to-date on the latest articles, Gallery exhibitions, news and events, and to learn more about art in Canada.
