| Names: | | | Dates: | 1817 - 1890 | | Active: | UK |
Preparing biographies
Pooley, a complex figure, was a medical practitioner in Weston-super-Mare and taught at the University of Bonn but then returned to his native England. A fellow of the Royal Chemical Society, he found mastering the technical aspects of photography quite easy. In his 1854 book, Notes on the Cross of Amney Holyrood, Gloucestershire, he explained, “the Views were taken by myself, in Calotype, from which the Frontispiece, in coloured lithography, and the Cross in the Church-yard, are executed by Adlard.” The likely basis for one of these plates turned up in a 1970s auction: a print titled At Amney Crucis and inscribed “C. Pooley, Calotype, 1853.” In 1856 Pooley published On Engraving Collodion Photographs, by Means of Fluoric Acid Gas. It is almost certain that he continued to use photography in his antiquarian publications. The lithographs in his 1868 Notes on the Old Crosses of Gloucestershire are signed “C.P. del” and have the look of illustrations based on camera images. The one of Amney Holyrood is clearly derived from his 1853 calotype. In his 1877 Old Stone Crosses of Somerset the illustrations are very similar but by then are signed simply “C. Pooley F.S.A.” Pooley wrote a number of related books on ancient crosses. While antiquarian studies were clearly his passion, other books by him covered a wide range of topics, including mesmerism, spiritual doctrines, and the causes of salubrity in Weston-super-Mare.
Roger Taylor & Larry J. Schaaf Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840-1860 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2007)
This biography is courtesy and copyright of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and is included here with permission.
Date last updated: 4 Nov 2012.
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