Scenes in Our Village
Some time in the 1850s TR Williams produced a series of fifty-nine stereoviews entitled ‘Scenes in Our Village’ which presented a romanticised vision of 19th century English rural life. As …
Course: Stereoscopy: An Introduction to Victorian Stereo Photography
Dr Brian May on TR Williams: Scenes in Our Village
In this short video, Dr. Brian May CBE, Director of The London Stereoscopic Company, expresses his enthusiasm for stereo photography and solves the mystery of the church, seen through the …
Thomas Richard Williams
Thomas Richard Williams (1824-1871) was born in Blackfriars, in the City of London. He was apprenticed to the London daguerreotypist Antoine Claudet whose own interests in photography and the development …
Duboscq’s stereo daguerreotypes
Photo historian Denis Pellerin looks in more detail at some of (Louis) Jules Duboscq’s stereo-daguerreotype still life compositions and talks about how Victorians spent their evenings viewing stereo images. As …
Louis Jules Duboscq
Louis Jules Duboscq (1817-1886) was a French instrument maker, inventor, and pioneering photographer. Apprenticed in 1834 to Jean Baptiste Françoise Soleil, a Parisian optician, he later married one of Soleil’s …
Sir David Brewster and Louis Jules Duboscq
In this video, photo historian Denis Pellerin explains how Sir David Brewster and Jules Duboscq came together to develop the lenticular stereoscope, which was exhibited at the Great Exhibition in …
William England
William England (1816 or 1830-1896) was the chief photographer for the London Stereoscopic Company between 1858 and 1863, after which he operated independently. He was an extremely skilled photographer, especially …
Francis Frith and the Near East
Francis Frith (1822-98) trained as a merchant, but decided after an illness to take some time off, travelling first in Egypt and then the Middle East. The photographs he took …
Around the World
From the safety and comfort of their armchairs, 19th century Britons could enjoy famous sights from around the world, through their stereoscope. They would have looked at these, in the …
The Victorian Stereo Sensation
In this video Denis Pellerin discusses how Victorians enjoyed stereo images and introduces the concept of ‘armchair travel’. This is the second of three videos recorded at the National Museums …
Stereoscopes: cabinets
As we have seen, stereoscopes came in a range of sizes and were tailored to suit the pockets of almost everyone. Image: ‘Natural’ stereoscope, by Hirst & Wood, J Wood, …
Stereoscopes: hand-held
David Brewster’s lenticular stereoscope was developed by a number of manufacturers hoping to benefit from the huge demand for stereo images. George Lowden (1825-1912) of Dundee made Brewster’s prototype stereoscope, …
Making a stereo image
Before the invention of stereo photography, only hand-drawn or printed designs or engravings could be used to create a stereoscopic, 3D effect. Stereo images were created by making two photographs …
The stereoscope
Stereoscopic vision had been at the forefront of experimental science since English physicist Sir Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875) demonstrated it at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of …
What is stereoscopy?
‘Stereoscopy’ derives from the Greek stereos meaning ‘firm’ or ‘solid’ and skopeō meaning ‘to look’ or ‘to see’ = seeing something firm, solid, three-dimensional or 3D. We are used to …
These articles are from the online course:
Stereoscopy: An Introduction to Victorian Stereo Photography