FATHER AND SON AT CAMBRIDGE
[BENN, Anthony, father, and Charles Anthony BENN, son.]
NICHOLS W., MAYLAND, GROOM, J., photographers. Photographic portraits of graduates from Emmanuel College, Cambridge, together with a later album of newspaper cuttings.
Late 1850s–early 1900s.
Album in 4to, ff. [80], containing 42 albumen prints (including 34 portraits, several vignetted or cut to oval, 9 mounted and blind-stamped ‘W. Nichols’, 2 mounted and blind-stamped Mayland, 1 signed Mayland in the negative, 1 carte de visite with photographer’s credit J. Crook, 8 other subjects of which 4 after art or engravings), ranging from approximately 104 x 76 mm (4⅛ x 3 inches) to 184 x 134 mm (7¼ x 5¼ inches), mounted portraits loosely inserted into cut corners of the album pages, other prints mounted directly on the album page; very occasional spots, generally clean interior; bound in half roan with brown cloth-covered sides, renewed marbled endpapers; a very little rubbing and loss to extremities, overall good condition.
[with:]
Folio, pp. [6], 100 (majority blank), containing approximately 135 newspaper cuttings, both loosely inserted and mounted, dated in manuscript in margins, articles occasionally annotated; 3 leaves removed, a little foxing; bound in quarter sheep with red cloth sides, ‘Newspaper Cuttings’ gilt to upper board; tear with some loss at foot of spine.
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NICHOLS W., MAYLAND, GROOM, J., photographers. Photographic portraits of graduates from Emmanuel College, Cambridge, together with a later album of newspaper cuttings.
A charming collection of photographs and newspaper cuttings spanning some fifty years, compiled by a father and son during their Cambridge days, including a letter of thanks from Trinity Hall to the son, Charles Anthony Benn, for his endowment to the college, which now funds the Benn Bursary.
The selection of fine portraits was apparently compiled by Anthony Benn (BA 1859, MA 1865), a student of Emmanuel College, likely as a memento at the end of his degree. The majority are signed by sitters, sometimes including a short greeting. Anthony himself appears in several photographs. The newspaper cuttings were probably complied by his son, Charles Anthony Benn (BA 1890, MA 1906) whilst a student of Trinity Hall. An exam results transcript in the album reveals he was a student of Geology, achieving a second-class examination result and going on to enter Inner Temple in 1892. A large proportion of the articles record Benn’s sporting achievements in middle- and long-distance running. Beyond the athletics field, his achievements included winning second prize for nectarines in the Chippenham Flower Show, and the headline ‘Smash on the Midland. An Express in Collison at Kentish Town’ is marked with the date 1902 and ‘I was in it! C.A.B.’.
In his will, Charles Benn bequeathed property and land to Trinity Hall, the funds from the sale of which run the present-day Benn Bursary. The album includes two letters relating to these endowments, one thanking his wife for the cup that Benn bequeathed to the college and another, from the Master of Trinity Hall, remarking on the generosity of his gift in his will and pondering whether a coat of arms should be arranged in the North Court in his honour.
Both Mayland and W. Nichols were photographers known to be working in Cambridge in the late 1850s and 1860s. William Mayland (1821–1907) is registered as living in Market Street, Cambridge in 1858 and 20 St Andrews Street from 1864, before moving to London in 1869 to form the studio Williams & Mayland with Thomas Richard Williams. William Nichols had a studio at 29 Corn Exchange Street from October 1854 to March 1855 before moving to an address in St Mary’s Passage, becoming Nicholls and Sons in 1864.
On the Benns, see Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses: A Biographical List of All Known Students Volume 2, From 1752–1900 (2011), p. 228.
