Notes on

Alfred Henry
Rushbrook

1867-1937

By his son, Dr Frank Rushbrook CBE

It is good that the photography of Alfred Henry Rushbrook is now being appreciated, and that this brief account of his life and photography has been written by somebody in such a good position to write it - his son, Frank, who worked for his father from 1929 until 1937.

Frank is now trying to locate photographs taken by A H Rushbrook, held in public collections and elsewhere. If you know of any, please e-mail so that I can pass on the news to him.

Frank wrote:

London, 1867

Alfred Henry Rushbrook was born in 2 Vine Place, West Ham, London, on 2nd February 1867. Nothing is known of his early days except that he left school aged 13 years and became an apprentice photographer.

The name of the photographic firm and its location is unknown, but possibly in Barking where Alfred lived, prior to leaving for Edinburgh.

Move to Edinburgh

At around eighteen years of age he wanted to leave London and set up business as a photographer in some other and distant place. To this end he went to Kings Cross Railway Station in the City to decide where he would like to settle.

Whilst in the Station he spotted a poster with a kilted piper standing in front of Edinburgh Castle, and there and then decided that this was where he would establish his new life.

First Studio

Nothing is known about Alfred's first few years in Edinburgh following his arrival in 1885, other than that he clearly established a highly successful business - at its peak he employed over 20 people in his workshop called Grange Photo Works at 161 Causewayside, Edinburgh.

This was a considerable number of employees for a photographic business in these days and serves to illustrate just how successful he was. This studio stood in a small part of the site now occupied by the National Library of Scotland.

Work for the Trade

In the early stages Alfred, although doing a lot of private commercial photography, worked mainly for the trade in the form of small photographic businesses throughout Scotland and a large part of the North of England.

These photographers would send their plates to Edinburgh and Alfred would make the requisite number and size of prints.

Retouching

The business also specialised in retouching¹ negatives for those photographers who could not carry out this skilled task.

Hannah Sherwood Hunter, who had attended the Edinburgh Art College, joined Alfred's firm as an artist and shortly after, on 12th October 1898, became his wife. Sherwood (as she was always called by Alfred) was a master at retouching and she continued to do this work throughout their married life.

Frank: Apprentice Photographer

They set up home in 73 Findhorn Place in the Southside of Edinburgh and had three girls, Claire, Dorothy and Freda and three boys. Henry (Harry), Alan and Frank (the author of this document).

Frank, in 1929 and 14 years of age left George Heriot's School to join his father in the Nicolson Street Studio as an apprentice photographer.

Alfred: Sportsman

In his younger days Alfred was obviously a considerable sportsman. There are photographs showing him in boxing gear, probably taken in his London days. Another early photograph shows him astride a racing bicycle, again probably in London.

Later there were a number of newspaper cuttings about his exploits as a swimmer having won events whilst a member of the Edinburgh Warrender Baths. Many more included his name as a member ot the Warrender water polo club.

Alfred was a keen fisherman, both salmon and trout, which sport he must have taken up in his Edinburgh days.

Alfred: Dog Breeder

He was a great dog lover, with Airedales his chosen breed and became a highly successful breeder. Annually, for many years he entered dogs for Crufts in London and The Scottish Kennel Club, in Edinburgh, gaining many awards.

Apart from the UK he also sold some of his champion dogs to a number of overseas countries, including the USA and Argentina. The dogs, apart from one old favourite dog or bitch which would live at home, were kept in kennels at the Causewayside premises.

Alfred: Shooting

He was also a keen shot, with friends who would invite him to organised shoots. He had a beautiful Holland & Holland 12 bore shot gun which today would be worth a considerable sum. (Unfortunately, some time after Alfred died, his wife Sherwood sold this gun to an Edinburgh gunsmith for a few paltry pounds.)

Photography

Alfred was an outstanding photographer in all manner of commercial subjects; the Forth Rail Bridge during the construction stages being but one example of the thousands of plate negatives stored in his studio.

Interestingly, he had very little interest in portraiture, that is apart from wedding photographs, which were for him very much bread and butter affairs².

Portraiture

Running a photographic business was far from easy in the difficult economic times after the 1914/18 War.

Around 1926, Alfred closed his Causewayside premises and purchased a studio in Nicolson Street, Edinburgh. The reason for closing the original premises was that the Carbon process³, which had been his main source of income, had dramatically reduced and he believed that it was necessary to diversify the business to include portraiture.

But, sadly nation-wide, portraiture would encounter appalling conditions through massive unemployment in the Depression of the 1930s.

Nicolson Street Studio

Alfred claimed thereafter that he made a terrible mistake in moving to the studio in Nicolson Street and that he was "sold a pup" by the then owner, Yerbury of Churchhill, Edinburgh whom he thought was his friend.

Apparently the projected financial returns for the studio were far below that promised by Yerbury. Money was always short and Alfred had great difficulty in meeting his bills.

Studio Lighting

The Nicolson Street studio, about 30 by 20 feet, was upstairs and was constructed entirely of glass. There were a number of backcloths which were interchangeable according to the subjects to be photographed.

A number of theatre type lamps were housed in a gantry overhead and portable spot lights on wheeled bases, each fitted with a white gauze to diffuse and soften the light.

Commercial Photography

The premises contained a large reception room where albums of photographs were displayed, along with framed photographs on the walls. Most of the albums were of commercial subjects, such as the Roadhouse situated at what was called the Edinburgh Turnpike, now the Gala Casino at the Maybury roundabout.

The architects were Patterson and Broome who designed the structure in Art Deco/International style; of an ocean liner. This was around 1935 and was the biggest project undertaken by Frank (Alfred's son) up to that time, using 15x12 inch plates and providing a large number of prints and 20x16 inch enlargements when the premises reached completion all, of course, in black and white.

Scottish Highlands

One beautiful album on show in the studio contained photographs taken in the Scottish Highlands during a rare holiday taken by Alfred and Sherwood.

Mostly these were views of mountains and lochs but one really striking picture was of Highland cattle grazing in the quiet shallows of a Highland loch. The water being so still, mirror like, that the beasts' images were brilliantly reflected - the reflections being almost as sharp as the actual subject.

Rosyth Dockyard

Amongst the framed pictures was one showing Admiral Madden and his officers and men - about three thousand in all - taken on the after deck of the battleship Hood? Renown? in Rosyth Dockyard. The huge guns are facing the camera with some of the ratings sitting astride the guns.

It is not known whether this photograph was taken during or after the 1914/18 War. This again was taken on a 15x12 inch plate and the detail was quite extraordinary, even the farthest distant crew-member could be clearly recognised. The print was on carbon paper and sepia coloured.

RL Stevenson

There was also a superb photograph of Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson, the famous author of around fifty books.

King George V

Another framed picture was that of King George V with guests taken in Holyrood Palace, and Alfred told a very funny story about this photograph. It was his practice after developing the glass plates to place them to dry overnight in a wooden plate rack, which stood on a disused fireplace hearth.

Apparently there were a number of mice in the Causewayside premises and to his horror when he came into work the next day he found that they had nibbled some of the gelatine from the comer of the two most important plates.

The Tower of London loomed but Sherwood the artist saved the day by airbrushing and retouching the plates so that no sign of the damage remained and no-one was any the wiser

Death of A H Rushbrook

Alfred Henry Rushbrook died in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary on 13 August 1937.

About one week before and suffering excruciating stomach pains, which had just suddenly and without warning started, he had to be rushed to the Royal Infirmary by Frank in a hired car. (Ambulances were not all that easy to get in those days.)

He underwent an operation carried out by a surgeon he had known for many years.⁴

Forth Rail Bridge

Alfred took many photographs during the construction of the Forth Rail Bridge, some of which remain in the family to this day. But it is sad to say that nearly all of these fascinating old photographs and negatives became a casualty of the Second World War.

Frank joins the Fire Service

Following his father's death in 1937, with the business in photography steadily going from bad to worse, Frank was invited by the Firemaster to join the Edinburgh Fire Brigade and set up a photographic department for the purpose of training the expanding service.

His mother, knowing full well the business position, generously agreed to put a young man in to run the business and Frank joined the Edinburgh Fire Brigade in 1938.

Sale of the Business

The new manager was doing quite well and giving Sherwood a small income but some six months after the start of World War II he was called up to the forces. This left her with no alternative but to sell the business, which she did to a Mr K W Murray.

This, of course, meant that Frank had no further access to the Nicolson Street studio. The loss of the work of Alfred's professional life in Edinburgh has to be one of the saddest recollections of Frank's life and still today engenders feelings of guilt.

What has survived?

Each of the thousands of glass plates were indexed and fully captioned. Perhaps some of these negatives might still exist in one or more of the Edinburgh galleries or museums and Frank intends to make enquiries from a number of these.

For example, the Writers' Museum in Lady Stair's House, off the Lawnmarket, Edinburgh, holds Europe's finest Stevenson's artefacts, including many photographs. The museum is run by Edinburgh City Council but unfortunately is mostly kept under lock and key.

Edinburgh Improvement Trust

The only substantial collection of Alfred's photographs (other than family portraits) that Frank has been able to trace is that held by Edinburgh Public Library of 138 silver gelatine photographs depicting the St Leonard's area of the Old Town of Edinburgh, taken in 1927 and 1929, and commissioned by the Edinburgh Improvement Trust.

NOTES

1. Readers might wonder what retouching involved and it is difficult to describe adequately in writing. Putting it simply, the aim was to take out blemishes from faces, for example, bags under the eyes, ageing lines, etc.

This was achieved by placing the glass plate in a holder behind which was an electric lamp. The retoucher had a propelling lead pencil, one end of which had to be kept to the sharpest possible point and this was achieved by means of turning the lead delicately against a piece of fine emery paper.

The offending bags or unwanted hues showed up on the negative as light areas and the pencil was put to work filling these in with carbon in the most minute squiggles and thus making them disappear when the negatives were sent for printing.

The work demanded the operator to have really excellent eyesight. Readers need only to look at old photographs of distant relatives to notice what fine complexions they all had, no matter how old they were at the time - no bags under the eyes, or age lines, can be seen!

Modem photographs will be unlikely to last without fading for a fraction of the time as did these old carbon prints!

2. Wedding parties, almost invariably on Friday or Saturday nights between 6 and 8pm, attended the studio to record their great day. It was a sign of the times that people could not afford to be away from work any earlier, so both the bride and groom would have worked their normal day.

One week's holiday was the norm and perhaps the majority had only the weekend for their honeymoon!

Apart from weddings and new babies, people simply could not afford to have their photos taken professionally. This was the day of the Kodak Brownie and the vast majority of family photos were taken by this simple camera.

Alfred was apparently offered an agency by Kodak in the early part of the century whereby he would be responsible for the developing and printing of all films from the Box Brownie Cameras throughout Edinburgh and the Lothians. Sadly, he could not foresee any future for these toy cameras.

3. It is not known when Alfred began to specialise in the Carbon photographic process which produced prints mainly in sepia but also in other colours, for example green and blue.

It is possible that he had been trained in this process whilst in London but clearly he also used the Calotype process as well.

Basically the carbon process involved exposing sensitised paper to a glass negative which was placed in a frame and exposed to daylight for a given time, which varied according to the intensity of the natural light.

The sensitised paper was then developed in warm water. By means of dabbing with cotton wool which could be rolled tightly when wet to form a really sharp pointed end by which means highlights could be induced at any point of the developing picture - for example in a portrait the eyes or cheeks could be brightened with amazingly effective results.

Where broader based highlights were required he would simply fluff out the cotton wool to cover a wider area. With commercial subjects, like silver trophies, introducing these highlights could be extremely effective.

Another feature of this process was that it was sometimes possible to actually remove some offending feature in picture, something no other process could achieve. That is until the present day with the new digital process.

The great advantage that was possessed by the carbon process was the very long life of the prints, which even when exposed to sunlight, could last for up to a hundred and indeed more years.

Practically every household in the land must still have old photographs of distant relatives, usually in sepia colour, tucked away in a family album and which have still retain an almost pristine appearance for a hundred years and longer.

The few carbon prints which were processed by Alfred after Frank joined the firm were printed in purpose made frames of different sizes according to the glass plates used, which varied from 5x4 inch, 8 1/2 x6 inch, 10 x 8 inch and 15 x 12 inch.

The glass plate was placed in the wooden frame and the carbon paper was placed on the glass plate, the emulsion side against the paper, a hinged wooden board was placed onto the paper, one half to hold the paper from moving and the second half to clip the negative and the carbon paper firmly to the frame.

Then the T frame was turned over with the negative facing upwards to the daylight. Alfred was a wizard in knowing instinctively how long to expose the plate to the daylight even on days where the light fluctuated between direct sunlight and and heavy clouds. Exposure time varied from a few minutes to hours depending on the weather and the subject matter of the photograph.

4. Apparently, Alfred in the early stages of x-ray photography had co-operated with the surgeon in producing 20x16 inch enlargements from the x-ray negatives which were around 15x12 inch and he was the only photographer in Edinburgh who had an enlarger big enough to take these large negatives.

This enlarger ran on rails which were at least 20 feet long and had a 30 inch condenser and was powered by carbon arc. The easel also ran on rails so that the register between negative and the photographic paper was absolutely accurate.

Frank does not recall the actual weight of the glass condenser but only that, as a 14 year old, it was just about as heavy as he could lift when he had to take it out for cleaning, an operation which was carried out using cotton wool and methylated spirits.

By the time Frank joined his father's business the need for these enlargement prints had ceased as surgeons could read and interpret the negative itself.