19th century photographer honoured with plaque (From Haringey Independent)

Crouch End photographer George Shadbolt honoured with plaque

11:07am Thursday 25th February 2010 in Top Stories By Jack Royston

THE life and work of a pioneering 19th century Crouch End photographer was honoured with a plaque yesterday.

George Shadbolt (1819-1901) is thought to be one of the first people to take a photograph through a microscope and recorded some of the earliest pictures of the area around his old home Cecile House, in Crouch Hill.

Rosemary Wilman, of the Royal Photographic Society, and Keith Fawkes, of the Hornsey Historical Society, unveiled a blue plaque at the building and paid tribute to his contribution to the art.

Mr Fawkes told the Haringey Independent: “He was a pioneer – a very important person to publicise locally. All these local people are very important.

“Crouch End was an interesting area then and these people become more important as the years go by.

“He was one of the pioneers of photography in Victorian times and he was extremely innovative.”

Around 150 years before digital photography revolutionised the process of taking pictures, Shadbolt pioneered early techniques, including methods of enlarging images.

He was an early exponent of combination printing, the practice of combining two separate negatives to create a single image.

During an influential career he spent seven years editing what would later become the British Journal of Photography and founded the Royal Photographic Society, then known as the Photographic Society of London.

His home has been turned into Kestrel House School which provides education for young people with autism.

The plaque, put up at the building at 3.30pm, is one of eight installed in honour of influential local figures as part a community scheme led by John Hajdu, of the Muswell Hill and Fortis Green Association.

Next in line to be honoured is novelist Charlotte Riddell who lived in Green Lanes, Harringay.