Restrictions on Access
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
UCLA Catalog Record ID
Preferred Citation
Processing Information
Biography/History
Scope and Content
Related Material
Online Items Available
Contributing Institution:
UCLA Library Special Collections
Title: Photograph albums of Alfred Capel Cure
Creator:
Capel Cure, Alfred, 1826-1896, photographer.
Identifier/Call Number: LSC.94/22
Physical Description:
2 albums
(ca. 300 photographic prints) : salt paper, ambrotype ; 33-34 x 26-29 cm (albums)
Photographs are mounted on leaves of white paper, with ms. captions indicating date, location, and other subject information.
A numbered list of the photographs in Vol. 2, in the same hand, is affixed to inside back cover of the album.
Vol. 1 half-bound in brown leather and marbled paper boards, with gilt rules along corner pieces and backstrip; rebacked spine,
with original black leather spine label preserved, bearing gold-stamped title "Photographs." Vol. 2 is half-bound in green
leather and scuffed green marbled boards, with ornamental embossed borders along corner pieces and backstrip; spine rebacked,
with gold-stamped spine title "Album of Alfred Capel Cure. 2." Capel Cure's engraved bookplate, with his crest and motto ("Fais
que doit arrive que pourra") on front pastedown. Bookplate of C.K. Ogden in upper left-hand corner of front pastedown.
Spec. Coll. copy: each album housed in its own modern beige cloth clamshell box with velcro closure; box titles in black:
"Photographic Experiments" (v. 1) and "Album of Alfred Capel Cure" (v. 2).
Date (inclusive): 1850-1856
Abstract: Early photographs of castles and country houses, landscapes, and portraits in England, Gibraltar, and Ireland, taken between
1850 and 1856 taken by Alfred Capel Cure.
Physical Location: Stored off-site at SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact UCLA Library Special Collections
for paging information.
Language of Material:
English
.
Restrictions on Access
Open for research. STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact UCLA Library
Special Collections for paging information.
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
Property rights to the physical object belong to the UC Regents. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the
creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright
owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
UCLA Catalog Record ID
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Photograph albums of Alfred Capel Cure (Collection 94/22). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles
E. Young Research Library, UCLA.
Processing Information
Collections are processed to a variety of levels depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user
interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, and competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides
a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive
processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.
We are committed to providing ethical, inclusive, and anti-racist description of the materials we steward, and to remediating
existing description of our materials that contains language that may be offensive or cause harm. We invite you to submit
feedback about how our collections are described, and how they could be described more accurately, by filling out the form
located on our website:
Report Potentially Offensive Description in Library Special Collections.
Biography/History
Alfred Capel Cure was an officer in the British Army, and an early pioneer of photography. His uncle, the painter and photographer
Robert Henry Cheney (1800-1866), taught him photography, and in 1850, Capel Cure began making salt prints of architectural
subjects--manor houses, cathedrals, abbeys, and churches. Capel Cure was initially commissioned into the 55th Regiment of
Foot, and later, as a member of the Grenadier Guards, he fought in the Crimean War, where he was wounded in the attack on
the Redan at Sebastopol. He attained the ranks of Lieutenant-Colonel (1858) and Colonel (1863). Capel Cure died July 29, 1896,
in an accidental explosion while dynamiting tree roots in his park.
Scope and Content
Volume 1, with ms. title "Photographic Experiments, 1850-1851," contains some of Capel Cure's earliest photographs of medieval
manor houses and castles in the English countryside, particularly Derbyshire, Shropshire, Sussex, and Hertfordshire, many
of which have long since been demolished. Included in Vol. 1 are views of Stokesay Castle, Wenlock Abbey, Badger Hall (Capel
Cure's family home), Millichope Park, and Chetwynd Park in Shropshire; Ashridge and Down Hall in Hertfordshire; Stoke Edith
and Hereford Cloister in Hereford parish; Darley Abbey Hall, the paper mill in Darley, and Duffield Bridge in Derbyshire;
Powis Castle, with its distinctive terraced gardens, located in Powys, Mid Wales; Shrubland Hall in Suffolk; and Holland House,
Kensington, London. Vol. 2 contains photographs taken between 1850 and 1856, many of them views of British Army garrisons
and barracks in Gibraltar and Ireland. Photographs from 1851-1852 include several views of Casemate Barracks from the Montague
Cavalier station at the British garrison in Gibraltar, some with uniformed fellow soldiers in the shot, as well as several
views of Capel Cure's summer house in Gibraltar. There are many photographs from 1853 and 1854 of the British barracks at
Roscrea, Templemore, Athlone, and Shannonbridge in Ireland, and portraits of soldiers stationed there, many of whom served
with Capel Cure in the 55th Regiment of Foot, and later, in the Grenadier Guards. He has noted in some of captions which comrades
were killed, when, and where (Crimean War--Balaklava, The Alma--1854). Capel Cure also photographed civilians around the barracks,
such as a knife grinder, barracks gate boy, chimney sweep, rag boy, and beggars, and included many views of nearby landmarks,
such as Corville Abbey, Rosecrea (1853), the Rock of Cashel, Cashel Cathedral, King Cormac's Chapel, Culdee Chapel and Round
Tower in Clonmacnoise on the River Shannon south of Athlone (1853), and Loughmoe Abbey just south of Templemore (1854). There
are also numerous views of Badger Hall, photographed with family, friends, and dogs "Pharaoh", "Jet", and "Flush", during
1854; and several portraits of the photographer himself. The photographs dated 1856 include a series of shots of Exeter Cathedral,
and Greenstead Church (the oldest wooden church in the world), Bovinger Church, Blake Hall in Essex, and Battle Abbey and
Pevensey Castle in Sussex. Capel Cure's experiments with photography are evident in two views of Roscrea Castle from 1852:
one made with a single lens, the other with a double lens. He also identifies two ambrotypes he made in 1854, using the collodion
wet plate process.
Related Material
Online Items Available
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Sussex (England) -- Photographs.
Gibraltar -- Photographs.
Photograph albums -- England -- 1850-1856.
Ambrotypes -- England -- 1854.
Photographs -- Ireland -- 1850-1856.
Photographs -- Gibraltar -- 1850-1856.
Photographs -- England -- 1850-1856.
Salted paper photographic prints -- Ireland -- 1850-1856.
Salted paper photographic prints -- Gibraltar -- 1850-1856.
Salted paper photographic prints -- England -- 1850-1856.
Rosecrea (Ireland) -- Photographs.
Athlone (Ireland) -- Photographs.
Templemore (Ireland) -- Photographs.
Ireland -- Photographs.
Great Britain. Army -- Barracks and quarters -- Photographs.
Great Britain. Army -- Military life -- Photographs.
Great Britain. Army. Regiment of Foot, 55th (Westmorland)
Architecture, Medieval -- England -- Photographs.
Architecture, Domestic -- England -- Photographs.
Country homes -- England -- Photographs.
Derbyshire (England) -- Photographs.
Shropshire (England) -- Photographs.
Hertfordshire (England) -- Photographs.
Suffolk (England) -- Photographs.
Capel Cure, Alfred, 1826-1896 --Homes and haunts --Photographs.
Capel Cure, Alfred, 1826-1896 --Photographs.
Ogden, C.K. (Charles Kay)
Exeter Cathedral --Photographs.