It took the amateur photographer of these “Trees at Mount Edgecumbe Park” more than two and a half hours to produce the final print (1856)
Appropriately, Edgecumbe was the home of Caroline, a half-sister of Henry Fox Talbot, a well-known British photography pioneer. I am not sure whether Fox Talbot and the photographer of the "Trees" were acquainted - they were both born within a year of each other - nor indeed whether he had been a guest there at the time. What I do know is that he created quite a few other images of the house - including the ones shown below - several years later.
(1858)
(1864)
The photographer in question is something of an enigma. His name - I think - was Benjamin Browning. He was born in 1799, studied medicine at Glasgow University and soon entered the ranks of the Royal Navy as a Staff Surgeon 2nd Class. As far as I can make out he didn’t join the Navy to see the world - as the saying goes - and in fact he rarely saw the sea and as a result hardly ever travelled abroad.
He managed to marry several times, although I don’t really know the reason why. Aged 39, Browning Senior was appointed surgeon of the New Juvenile Prison Establishment at Parkhurst in the Isle of Wight. It was “New” at the time in the real sense of the word. It had opened in 1838 - the year he joined it - and it was considered to be one of the toughest prisons in the UK.
New Juvenile Prison Establishment at Parkhurst in the Isle of Wight
Although not a coincidence anybody would be inclined to celebrate, his son Benjamin Benedict Browning, was also born that year - a result of his father's union with his third wife Emma.
According to the Isle of Wight census of 1850 Benjamin was still working in the prison. Some time previously he appears to have made friends with another amateur photographer who also happened to be a surgeon. His name was George Dansey. George was married to a girl called Mary and was 8 years younger than Browning. Apart from being a surgeon, Dansey was also a keen natural historian. He made a name for himself by discovering and naming a new species of Eukaryotic algae - Mastogloia danseyi - presumably only of great interest to those who actually know what a diatom is.
George and Mary Dansey several years after having married - It is impossible to tell who took the photo but it might just have been Browning Senior.
From left, Mary Frances, Edith and Freddy (Date unknown)
Perhaps as a result of the closeness of the relationship between the two families, in 1858 Benedict Browning Junior married the Dansey’s eldest daughter Mary Frances - a double joy for him as that same year, he too became a medical practitioner just like his father and his father-in-law.
Photographs of Benjamin Browning junior and his wife Mary Frances - the photographer was probably either Benjamin’s father or his father-in-law (1863)
It was probably in 1865 that Browning senior put together an album of around 100 photographs, a handful dating from 1847 but with a majority taken from 1861 to 1864. Curiously Benjamin made no effort to arrange the photos in chronological order or by topic or place. For example the three photographs of Mount Edgecumbe shown above come from this album and are all placed arbitrarily distant from each other.
The same can be said for the two photos of Browning junior and his wife - there is actually a third one very similar to these two in the album but they are by no means found next to each other even though the two shown above were almost certainly taken on the same day.
Captions, sometimes written carelessly in pencil, are often absent and in the majority of cases the photos are tagged with the initials BB, G.Dansey, or with both. The information offered by the University of Harvard who owns the actual album suggests that it was Dansey who “took the image”, and that Browning senior “printed it”. They do not offer any reason for such an interpretation - which I would argue is probably incorrect.
Browning senior’s parents lived in a house in the Isle of Wight known as Clatterford. I suspect that the Browning senior may eventually have inherited the place. Unfortunately photographs that appear in the album only show us its rather extensive gardens, his grandparents and perhaps one or two of their servants.
By 1876, both Browning senior and George Dansey had died within months of each other. Browning junior survived them.
A casual search through the photographic records reveals numerous examples of photographs taken in America, especially in New York and Chicago, all of them attributed to a Benjamin Browning active in 1850s to 1860s. They are credited as having been taken in 1893 a date which is easily confirmed by cross-referencing the date with the subject matter. Browning senior was long dead in 1893 but his son would have been 55 years old.
Browning took several photographs of the World Fair in Chicago which took place in 1893 (Getty Museum)
Whoever compiled the album and however messy and difficult to interpret its contents, the most interesting bit from my point of view is that it contains nine different photographs of Gibraltar all dated 1861, all of them historically important if only because they are some of the oldest ever taken - especially by an amateur photographer.