John Jabez Edwin Mayall - Career As A Daguerreotype Artist in London (1846-1860)

Career As A Daguerreotype Artist in London (1846-1860)

Upon his return to England in 1846, Mayall worked for a short time with Antoine Claudet at his Daguerreotype Portrait Gallery on King William Street, near the Strand in London. Antoine Claudet (1797–1867) was Richard Beard's main rival in London in 1846.

By April 1847, Mayall had established his own Daguerreotype Institution at 433 West Strand, London. Cornelius Jabez Hughes (1819–1884), who was later to become a photographer to the Royal Family on the Isle of Wight, was employed as Mayall's secretary and chief assistant.

Under the heading 'New Discoveries in Daguereotype' the notice in 'The Times' reads: "In consequence of the new discoveries which he has made . . . he is enabled to take daguerreotype portraits by an entirely new process, of a degree of delicacy, depth of tone, and lifelike reality, never previously attained by himself of any other photographic artists." The advertisement of May 1847 went on to add that the gallery of the Institution, contained "the finest collection of daguerreotype pictures ever exhibited." Many of Mayall's pictures exhibited in the Institution's gallery were daguerreotypes he had made in America, including "panoramas of the Falls of Niagara" and "fine art illustrations of the Lord's Prayer", which had been made four years earlier in Pennsylvania.