Alfred Seaman

Alfred Seaman was a professional Victorian and Edwardian photographer who ran a network of photographic portrait studios in the Midlands and North of England.[1] He published a large (2,000 + views) series of stereoscopic photographs of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.[2][3] Alfred Seaman was born in Norfolk in 1844. He began his working life as a builder and took up photography as a hobby in the 1860s. He opened his first studio in Chesterfield Derbyshire in 1880 [4] and subsequently ran studios in, Ilkeston, Alfreton, Matlock, Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle, Liverpool, Hull and Brighton.[5]

Alfred Seaman. Detail from a stereoscopic self-portrait circa 1901

In 1886, he was a founding member of the Photographic Convention of the United Kingdom (PCUK) which held its first convention in Derby.[6] He served on the Committee of the PCUK from 1886 until his death and through this organisation he had links with eminent professional photographers of the day including Henry Peach Robinson, William Crooke, William England, Alexander Tate and Richard Keene, as well as the many wealthy amateurs who were members, such as the astronomer Professor Alexander Stewart Herschel.[1]

He was married three times and had 9 sons and a daughter. All but one of his sons followed him into the photographic trade and ran studios either under the ‘Seaman & Sons’ title or in their own name. He died in Sheffield in 1910.[7]

References
  1. ‘Death of Mr Alfred Seaman’ British Journal of Photography, July 1910
  2. Darrah, William Culp (1977) ‘The World of Stereographs’ Pub. Land Yacht Press, Nashville, Tennessee
  3. Bradley, John & Turner, Ian 'Forensic Science and the Attribution of 19th Century Stereoviews' Stereo World, Vol 35, No. 8 March/April 2010 p 20-30
  4. ‘Mr Seaman’s Photographic Establishment’, Derbyshire Times Saturday 29 May 1886
  5. Photographers & Photographic Studios in Derbyshire, England. Brett Payne. Accessed from: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/dbyphotos.html
  6. British Journal of Photography 10 September 1886 p570pp
  7. Bradley, John (2003) ‘The developing business of Alfred Seaman’. Reflections magazine, Vol. 12 No. 133 February 2003. Provides a brief biography of Seaman.
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