Showing posts with label Croydon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Croydon. Show all posts

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Why did George Nichols employ so many photographers?

From Photohistory of Sussex
Photographers
Bob wrote to ask if Thomas Owen Rolph could have worked with George Albert Nichols in Croydon, before George moved to Wormley and later Hitchin. On re-examining the census returns I found an error in FindMyPast indexing and George's 1871 census entry actually continued over the page. The household included one [photographic artist] apprentice and five photographers. If we include George Nichols and neighbour Thomas Rolph we have eight photographers - a very big photographic organisation for 1871. But a search on google and ebay failed to produce any photographs produced by the business, which was taken over by Jesse Holloway a few years later. When George arrived in Hertfordshire he was clearly working on a far smaller scale - did he have financial difficulties that caused him ti leave Croydon?

As this involves out-of-Hertfordshire research I will not be following this up myself - but it would be interesting to know more ...