Introduction to the London Stereoscopic Company, (and T. R. Williams)
History of the LSC
Sometime in 1854, at 313 Oxford Street, the ‘London Stereoscope Company’ was born, and under the leadership of Managing Partner George Swan Nottage, by 1856 the company had changed its name, to ‘The London Stereoscopic Company’, and finally in May 1859 assumed the name it was to retain for years to come: the ‘London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company’.
Their business was selling stereo views and viewers to the public, and they were leaders in a boom – a craze – which swept England, Europe, and eventually the United States too, of stereo photographs of every conceivable subject, which, viewed by means of a stereoscope, presented scenes in life-like three dimensions. In a world which had never experienced Television, the Movies, or the Internet, this was understandably a revelation. In February 1856, the London Stereoscopic Company (LSC) advertised, in the Photographic Journal, ‘The largest collection in Europe, upwards of 10,000’ stereo views.
Much of the workings of the LSC in its early years is still shrouded in mystery, and the relationship it had with the pioneering photographers whose work it published remains unclear, but the company was evidently at a peak of production by the end of the 1850s; today’s collections of the finest cards from this period by James Elliott, Alfred Silvester, Mark Anthony, Charles Goodman, and many others always contain large numbers of examples bearing the familiar blindstamps (embossed seals) of the LSC. In the 1860s, one of the LSC’s notable publications of stereo cards was a long series depicting the interior of the 1862 International Exhibition, in what is now Exhibition Road, South Kensington.
When the stereo card craze faded during the late 1860s, the company appears to have continued to do a healthy business, catering for the newer (and, for us, much less interesting) fashion for Cartes de Visite, but this too was fading by 1870. The company subsequently diversified into many areas; Getty images, who much later bought much of the surviving archives of the LSC, say, ‘At its peak, LSC was one of the largest and most diverse businesses, with a global network of offices and staff photographers, selling and licensing images, cameras, equipment, papers and plates.’ It seems that at some point in the continued life of the LSC it fell on leaner times, and the company does not appear to have been able to participate in the second great stereoscopic boom at the turn of the century, dominated by Keystone, and Underwood and Underwood. The company was finally dissolved in 1922. By the 1980s, the London Stereoscopic Company had vanished from view.
[Rights of reproduction kindly lent to us by Paula Fleming]
LSC in the Present Day
Our publishing programme divides into four themes:
1. Books of Victorian Stereo Cards
Our first priority in 2008 was the work of Thomas Richard Williams, photographer of great renown, whose work was among the first to be published by the original London Stereoscopic Company from 1855. There is some reason to suppose that the relationship between the LSC and TRW was not always a happy one (see our T. R. Williams Biography) and if the original LSC behaved at times with less than proper respect and consideration, fortunately we were able to make amends in the 21st Century when under the editorship of Sir Brian and Elena Vidal in 2009 we published ‘A Village Lost and Found’, reproducing TRW’s set of cards ‘Scenes in our Village’ documenting life in the Oxfordshire village of Hinton Waldrist, a way life TRW sought to record in stereo photos because he feared the encroaching railway was soon going to bring it to a close !
Within the T. R. Williams domain on this site, there are three thumbnail galleries – for his three major series of stereo cards and daguerreotypes — ‘First Series’, ‘Scenes in Our Village’, and ‘Crystal Palace’. These galleries are a visual index, a quick resource for identifying almost any T. R. Williams card and are seen in full by scrolling down the page.
In 2013 we produced the ultimate book of 3-D nightmares ‘Diableries’ by Brian May, Denis Pellerin, and Paul Fleming: showing beautifully printed stereos of tableaux featuring skeletons, devils, and risqué satires of Napoleon III, who was not known for his sense of humour and the contemporary photographer-satirists were at considerable risk !
‘Diableries’, was a cult success and has reprinted several times. It was our first book to be published in a foreign language: Parisian publishers La Martinière released a translated edition in 2015. In 2019 we reprinted a ‘complete’ edition, including the cards that had been missing in the first edition.
2014 saw the publication of a book of some astonishing stereo cards from Brian’s collection: ‘The Poor Man’s Picture Gallery’, compiled by Denis Pellerin, reconstructs well‐known Victorian paintings using real actors and staged scenes. This was the only way ordinary folk could see the great painting of the day, and the new Victorian photographers quickly spotted a commercial opportunity. Its launch was celebrated by an exhibition of Brian’s stereos at the Tate Gallery London.
Then, in 2016 we released a book by Denis Pellerin and Brian May on the strange fashion for ‘Crinolines’, structured petticoats, sometimes on a vast and even dangerous scale, alongside an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert museum in London, with a contribution from fashion legend Zandra Rhodes and a piece on Vivienne Westwood, who had created some of Queen’s most extraordinary stage costumes.
‘George Washington Wilson’ by Prof. Roger Taylor appeared in 2018: an illustrated account of the life and work of the leading 19th century Scottish stereophotographer.
2. ‘Queen in 3-D’: Brian May’s ‘autobiography’ of Queen
In 2017 the LSC issued ‘Queen in 3-D’, a book of Sir Brian’s personal stereo photographs of Freddie Mercury and the band, which he started taking in the seventies, and continues today with Adam Lambert as the lead singer. It is extraordinarily enlightening for all readers, being the only book about Queen ever written by a band member !
Available now in German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Czech, Romanian, Hungarian and French, we constantly keep it up to date as Queen emerge from the pantheon of rock to storm the world’s greatest arenas. This hugely successful title launched the LSC as an internationally recognised publishing company. The release of ‘Queen in 3-D’ in paperback took us to over 30 different printings in 10 languages !
3. LSC’s World of Astronomy and Space
We released ‘Mission Moon 3-D’, by David Eicher and Brian in September 2019, celebrating 50 years since Apollo 11’s successful Moon landing. It was a tremendous tribute that legendary Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke wrote a Foreword for us. We were honoured to co-publish with the reputable MIT Press in North America, and partnered New Scientist in the Netherlands in a Dutch translation.
In September 2020 we launched ‘Cosmic Clouds in 3-D’ by David J. Eicher and Brian, with extraordinary 3—D images of the glorious nebulae that pepper the night skies by Finnish artist and acclaimed astro-stereophotographer J.-P. Metsavainio. Again, MIT Press were our North American partners in a large print run. Foreign languagepublishing partners included Eksmo (Russia) and Hunan (China).
Then in 2023 we celebrated the OSIRIS-REx NASA mission to land on asteroid Bennu and return a sample of the surface material to Earth by publishing a companion book ‘Bennu – Anatomy of an Asteroid’, written by the OSIRIS-REx team and edited by Dante Lauretta and Brian. Co-published in North America with the Arizona University Press, the asteroid made headlines worldwide when the sample was successfully parachuted onto the Utah desert on 23 September 2023.
4. Stereoscopy
2021 saw the publication of our definitive history of Victorian stereo photography: ‘Stereoscopy, the Dawn of 3-D’ written by Denis Pellerin and Brian. Described by Brian as ‘perhaps the most important book we have published’ it had to be reprinted in 2022. Later that year we launched the first ever popular album of 3-D photography: Brian May’s ‘Stereoscopy is Good for You — Life in 3-D’ featuring a stereo-team-effort as over 100 photographers from around the world submitted their 3-D memories of lockdown for publication.
Contact us
Please feel free to leave comments, suggestions, and criticisms, questions, or just a ‘hello’ in our Contact page. All will be appreciated. We will be deeply grateful for any information leading to additions or corrections which can be made to this resource. And if you feel you have a better copy of any of the views, please contact us – we would love a scan, which we will be able include here for all to enjoy !
Cheers !
Sir Brian May.
Sources:
Russell Norton, Stereo World Magazine, Volume 16, Number 2, 1989.
The Getty Images Website – gettyimages.com
photoLondon website
David Webb
Bob Pullen
