William Johnson, was an official in the Bombay Civil Service who began working with daguerreotypes from a studio on Grant's Road, Bombay c.1852-54. From 1854-60 he worked as a commercial photographer and was editor with William Henderson of The Indian Amateur's Photographic Album (published monthly from 1856-59 under the patronage of the Bombay Photographic Society). He had been a founder member of the Society in 1854. In 1863, Johnson produced The Oriental Races and Tribes: Residents and Visitors of Bombay, which is thought to be the earliest Indian ethnographic work to make use of photographs.