Thomas Wedgwood - Gunville Photography Pioneer

Although he was born in Staffordshire, photographic pioneer, Thomas Wedgwood spent five years, from 1800 to 1805, living at Eastbury House in Tarrant Gunville.

Regarded by many as ‘the first photographer’, he was a member of the famous Stoke-on-Trent potteries family, the Wedgwoods. Throughout his life he suffered from poor health which is probably the reason he moved to the Dorset countryside.

He used paper and white leather coated with silver nitrate to make his first images. However, he did not know how to ‘fix’ the images and they would continue to darken on exposure to light. They could only be preserved if kept in darkness and he would show his work to friends in the light of a candle.

Thomas Wedgwood suffered from a mysterious illness and spent much of his lifetime searching for a cure. Sadly he died in 1805, aged just 34, and his will is held by the National Archives in London. Another Dorset born man, Henry Fox Talbot , who was born at Melbury, would take the development of photography on further but that is another tale.

(Illustration: Thomas Wedgwood)

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