In The Footsteps of Henry Taunt, a ground breaking new photography exhibition that charts the social and environmental transformation of the Thames over 135 years through 'then and now' images of the river and its surrounds, has been announced by the River & Rowing Museum.
The exhibition will be on view though 20 January 2008.
The exhibition pairs the finest photographs by famous Victorian photographer Henry Taunt together with modern images taken of the exact same locations along the Thames by digital photographers Graham Diprose and Jeff Robins. These 'then and now' images capture the changing river over 135 years from its source near Coates, a tiny village in Gloucestershire down to the Houses of Parliament, London. Taunt's images were sourced from the archives of English Heritage (National Monuments Record), Oxfordshire County Council (Oxfordshire Studies) and The River & Rowing Museum. River Thames Revisited, a new book, accompanies the exhibition.
Taunt is credited with single handedly transforming the popularity of the Thames during the Victorian era through his series of photographs, hand drawn maps and text first created in 1872. His beautiful guide to the Thames New Map of the River Thames sparked a national love affair with the river that remains to this day. The associated tourist boom radically changed the fortunes of towns and villages along the riverbank – creating a landscape and tourist scene still enjoyed today. Without this burgeoning national attraction to the Thames, Jerome K Jerome's Three Men In A Boat and Kenneth Graham's Wind in The Willows might never have been written.
Taunt's photographs depict an idyllic working river, with ferrymen, barges and horses moving people and goods from town to town. Diprose and Robins' images capture a leisure based river and with it associated landscape changes and modern building. One of the most marked changes is the substantial increase in trees and riverside vegetation. During Taunt's time the riverbank would be clear to enable horses, pulling barges, to move freely. As the goods moved from river to road, so the riverbanks returned to their natural habitat, in some cases trees and vegetation completely obscuring Taunt's original view. The modern river is easier to navigate with more locks and fewer flash weirs appearing in the photos than Taunt's pictures.
Netty Rawlings, River & Rowing Museum Curator, said: "This fascinating exhibition shows the contemporary use of photography in both the Victorian era and modern day. The photographers have used the cutting edge tools of their trade separated by 135 years. This unique paring of photographs powerfully demonstrate the beauty and diversity of the Thames from source to the Houses of Parliament, and capture over a century of life on Britain's favourite river."
Graham Diprose, Photographer and Lead Photography Tutor, The London College of Communication said: "One cannot overestimate the impact Henry Taunt had on raising the profile of the Thames and the historical photographic legacy he has left us. His pictures are not only hugely technically advanced for his time but also demonstrate a prodigious talent and awareness of the medium.
"To take these modern images we've used the latest digital equipment to create photographs that will last at least 400 years or more. Together with Taunt's images we hope our photographs provide a unique resource and history of the evolving Thames for generations to come."
River Thames Revisited
The 192 page hardback book of the project River Thames Revisited is being published by Frances Lincoln in October 2007 and contains 70 pairs of pictures of the Thames 'then and now' as well as extracts from Taunt's Victorian guide book to the river, price £25 from all good bookshops and the River & Rowing Museum.
On the 14 June 1842, Henry William Taunt was born into the modest workers dwellings of Pensons Gardens, St Ebbe's. In 1856 he joined the staff of Edward Bracher, one of Oxford's very few photographers, as a general utility hand. Over Christmas 1859 he made a solitary trip up river to Cricklade and back in an out-rigged dinghy. The river was in flood, yet here was the moment of inspiration for all the maps, guides, albums and books that were to follow.
The first edition of Taunt's 'New Map of the River Thames' first appeared in 1872. The books must have been difficult to produce, the river was hand coloured in blue on every one of the 33 maps and each tiny photograph was pasted into position individually. Map pages and printed text then had to be bound together. However it was an immediate success. As sales of the "Illustrated Map of the Thames", various bespoke albums, pamphlets and postcards soared, and so began the Victorian love affair with the River. A magazine called Home Chimes began to serialise an amusing story of the Thames in August 1888 and the book version of Jerome K. Jerome's 'Three Men in a Boat' was published a year later.
In 1893, Henry Taunt was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. This was a considerable honour, no doubt, in recognition of the remarkable feat of cartography and accuracy of measurements that featured in the 'New Map of the Thames'.
Disaster struck in 1894, when the lease came up on his Head Quarters shop at 10 & 11 Broad Street, Oxford and a verbal agreement was not honoured. Taunt was forced to file for bankruptcy. A few months later, he was discharged and began to work on new ideas for further books and guides documenting many of the surrounding counties of Southern England. Production was only halted by the First World War and by 1918 Taunt, now an old man of 76, was left with very little help. He died on 4 November 1922. Many of his glass negatives were smashed up while others were cleaned off for use as greenhouse glass. Fortunately E.E. Skuce, who was the Oxford City Librarian wasted little time in acquiring thousands of surviving negatives, prints and papers. The glass negatives were later transferred to what is now the National Monuments Record while Oxford retained Taunt's original prints.
Graham Diprose
Graham Diprose is lead Tutor in Photography in the School of Graphic Design, at the London College of Communication, the largest college in The University of the Arts, London. Having spent many years as an advertising photographer, he now works with undergraduate and postgraduate students developing skills in all areas of applied and experimental digital and craft photography.He worked with two colleagues and the Museum of London, to remake a ten mile panorama of both banks of the River Thames from London Bridge to Greenwich that mirrored an original commissioned by the Port of London Authority in 1937. It was exhibited in City Hall in the centre of London in 2004 and more recently at the River & Rowing Museum in autumn 2005. A 180 page book of the project, 'London`s Riverscape – Lost and Found' with a forward by Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, has sold its entire print run of 5000 copies.
Jeff Robins
Jeff Robins is a professional photographer with extensive experience of working in the advertising and marketing domain and as a lecturer and consultant to the profession, on digital imaging. His clients have included Nationwide Building Society, British Telecom, Hasbro and Bernard Matthews, along with various design, marketing and advertising agencies. A strong interest in computer technology made it easier for Jeff to embrace the new digital imaging techniques as they developed. Today Jeff teaches alongside Graham on postgraduate courses in digital image-making at the University and is Course Director of a very intensive "Launch your Career in Photography" course, run by Artscom, in the college's professional training area. -- www.rrm.co.uk
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