JOHN WHEELEY GOUGH GUTCH (1809-1862)

Details
JOHN WHEELEY GOUGH GUTCH (1809-1862)

South-west English picturesque landscape and rural scenes, 1856

Album containing eight salt prints and nine albumen prints, approx. 6 1/8 x 8 in. or the reverse, eleven with arched tops, each initialled, dated and titled in ink on mount, pencil linear borders, string-bound, paper covers, oblong 4to.
Literature
George Eastman House and D. Wooters, Image, vol. 36, nos. 1-2, Spring/Summer 1993, no. 3

Lot Essay

Titles as follows: 'Waters-Meet Road Lynmouth N. Devon, Sept.1856', 'Glastonbury Abbey. Aug 1856', 'Vicarage. Great Malvern. April 1856', '"Ellerslie" - Great Malvern. May 1856', 'Cheddar. Somerset. April 1856', 'Garnton Lodge. Great Malvern. April 1856', 'Pickersley Lane near Great Malvern. April 1856', 'Cheddar Cliffs. Somerset. June 1856', 'The Old Elm Tree Barnards Green. Great Malvern. April 1856', 'On The Lyn. Lynmouth. N. Devon. Aug 1856', 'Newland Church near Great Malvern. April 1856', 'Knightstone. Weston Super-Mare. June 1856', '"Needy Knife-grinder". April 1856' (illus.), 'Dawlish. Sept.1856', 'Near "Barbarick Mill. Lynton. August 1856', 'Dawlish. Sept.1856' and 'Sidmouth. Sept.1856'.

Having originally trained as a surgeon at the Bristol Infirmary during the early 1830s, J. W. G. Gutch then left medicine to join government service. Whilst on a mission to Constantinople Gutch became seriously ill and was left partially paralyzed. After taking early retirement he became a keen amateur photographer. Like many other well-to-do educated gentlemen who became interested in photography, Gutch experimented (as early as 1842) with different photographic processes and reported his findings in photographic journals. His paralysis made it difficult for him to walk without assistance and moving from camera to darkroom proved problematic so he took to using Frederick Scott Archer's internal processing camera which allowed the negative to be prepared and processed inside the camera instead of needing a separate dark tent. Gutch travelled extensively around Britain capturing the picturesque landscape, ruins and rural scenes. He continued photographing, exhibiting his works and contributing to journals until his death in 1862.

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