Cecilia Glaisher
Cecilia Glaisher (April 20 1828 - December 28 1892) was a British amateur photographer, artist, illustrator and print-maker, working in the 1850s world of Victorian science and natural history.
Early life and marriage
Cecilia Louisa Glaisher (née Belville) was born on April 20th, 1828, in Greenwich, Kent. Her father, John Henry Belville (1795-1856), was an assistant astronomical observer at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, and author of A Manual Of The Barometer (London: R. & J.E. Taylor, 1849) and A Manual Of The Thermometer (London: R. & J.E. Taylor, 1850). It is not known whether Cecilia Belville received any formal or scientific education, although an upbringing where the recording of astronomical and meteorological phenomena was part of daily life suggests an awareness of a wider world view than that given to many British nineteenth century females. It is recorded in one of her father’s work books that she had her first painting lesson on April 17th, 1841, from Mr Villalobos.
She married James Glaisher (1809-1903), at All Souls Church, St Marylebone, on December 31st, 1843. The Glaishers had three children: Cecilia Appelina (1845-1932), James Whitbread Lee (1848-1928), and Ernest Henry (1858-1885).
James Glaisher's career is well documented. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1849 and became a member of many other learned societies. He was President of the (Royal) Meteorological Society in 1867-8, the (Royal) Microscopical Society in 1865-9, and the (Royal) Photographic Society during the years 1869-92. He worked at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, from 1836 to 1874, from 1840 as Superintendent of the newly created Meteorological and Magnetic Department, when G.B. Airy (1801-1892) was Astronomer Royal.
It is likely that everything Cecilia Glaisher learnt about photography would have been through her husband, perhaps initially by helping and later collaborating with him, and through contacts with other scientists and photographers in the world the Glaishers moved in, especially at Hartwell House in Buckinghamshire, the home of Dr John Lee (1783-1866). Like many women at the time, Cecilia Glaisher's artistic skills would have been of great use both to her husband and possibly other scientists with whom they mixed.
Women were actively participating in acquiring scientific knowledge,whether by actual research or by carefully recording, classifying, or illustrating specimens. But as science became ‘professionalised’ during the 1850s women were excluded from the majority of learned society meetings where research was discussed and papers read. They were usually permitted only to attend social occasions or ‘scientific conversations’ on carefully selected topics. They were not granted membership to the majority of learned societies, in some cases until halfway through the twentieth century. Recognition and public acknowledgement of contributions by women was the exception.
It is not clear just when Cecilia Glaisher began making images photographically, but by 1855 she is documented as having started work on The British Ferns.
Work
The British Ferns - Photographed from Nature by Mrs Glaisher was planned as an illustrated guide to identifying ferns, with the entomologist Edward Newman (1801-1876), a fern expert and publisher. Made during what has come to be known as the Victorian fern craze, it was to be published as a series at a cost “not to exceed four guineas”. Intended to appeal to the growing number of fern collectors whose enthusiasm was fuelled by increasingly informative and magnificentrly illustrated fern publications, the use of photography, according to the handbill produced by Newman to promote the work, would allow fern specimens to be displayed "with incomparable exactness... producing absolute fac-similes of the objects, perfect in artistic effect and structural details." A portfolio of ten prints, in mounts embossed with Newman’s publishing details, was presented by him to the Linnean Society in London in December 1855. However, perhaps because of an inability to raise sufficient subscriptions, or difficulties in producing prints in sufficient and consistent quantities, the project appears to have been abandoned by 1856.
During the same period Cecilia Glaisher worked in collaboration with her husband on a study of the formation of snow crystals. 151 of her schematic drawings were used to illustrate the paper published by the Meteorological Society, ‘On the Severe Weather at the beginning of the year 1855: and on Snow and Snow Crystals’. Based on sketches made at the Glaishers’ window during the direct observation of snow crystals seen through magnifying lenses, her schematic drawings show snow crystals structures ‘perfected’ and re-drawn symmetrically to represent a classifiable ‘type’. In his book, Snow Crystals, Natural and Artificial, Ukichiro Nakaya describes them as the most accurate observations of snow crystals published before the development of photomicrography. They have been used since 1868 by the Royal Microscopical Society as the basis of the design for its seal and emblem.
Other work made by Cecilia Glaisher at this time consists of a series of leaf impressions on paper to which colour has been added by hand, showing species of leaves at different seasons. These are collected into an album, ‘Leaves of the British forest trees Nature Printed, 1857 CJ Glaisher’, presumably the initials of both Cecilia and James Glaisher.
All known work by her appears to have been made between approximately 1853 and 1858, in which year she gave birth to her third child.
Publications
The British Ferns - Photographed from Nature by Mrs Glaisher. Unpublished project, c. 1855, with Edward Newman.
‘On the Severe Weather at the beginning of the year 1855: and on Snow and Snow Crystals’, by James Glaisher , Esq., Sec. of BMS. Published in the Report of the Council of the British Meteorological Society, read at the Fifth Annual General Meeting, May 22nd, 1855.
Exhibitions
Glasgow: 12 photographs of ferns exhibited at the Photography Exhibition held to coincide with the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting, September 1855.
London: 2 albumen prints of ferns, lent by James Glaisher FRS for inclusion in the Inventions Exhibition held at the Royal Albert Hall in May 1885.
See also
References
http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/59/101059885/
Hannavy, John (2007). Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography. Routledge. pp. 592–594.
Marten, C. ‘Photographed from Nature by Mrs Glaisher: the fern photographs by Cecilia Louisa Glasiher’, MA dissertation, University of the Arts, London, 2002.
Turner, Gerard L'E (1989) God Bless the Microscope! A History of the Royal Microscopical Society over 150 Years. Oxford: Royal Microscopical Society.
Buchanan, William. 'State of the Art, Glasgow, 1855' in History of Photography 13: 2 (April-June 1989) pp. 165-180.
Nakaya, Ukichiro. Snow Crystals, Natural and Artificial, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1954, pp. 2-3.