Carbon Print of Major-General Edward McLaughlin

MAJOR-GENERAL EDWARD McLAUGHLIN (1838-1912), my great-grandfather, is wearing drill order uniform with a white patent leather pouchbelt. His jacket, which is fastened all the way down the front with hooks and eyes, has a field officer's ornament on the sleeves. The pillbox forage cap is topped by a gold braid decoration reserved for the Royal Artillery.

The picture above is about the same size as the original photograph which was printed a century and a quarter or so ago, although its glossy perfection makes it look as if it was made yesterday. The photographer, Ernest Baudoux, who worked in Jersey from 1869 until 1894, had come from France. He specialized in carbon printing, a process patented in 1864 by an Englishman, Joseph Swan, but used mostly by the French.

In carbon printing a sheet of paper is coated with light-sensitive gelatin containing a pigment, usually carbon. The sheet is then exposed to daylight under a negative. The process is difficult and laborious, making carbon prints about twice as expensive as platinum and up to five times more costly than silver. Because pigments are used instead of dyes, the prints last longer than those made by any other process.

Edward posed at the same sitting for the carte de visite shown right, made with a camera that took eight photographs on one plate. His card with a carbon print pasted on it was a luxury. Most cards were albumen prints costing only a shilling (5p) each, like this one taken earlier.

There was a craze for collecting them in the 1860s. More than 100,000 portraits of Queen Victoria were sold. Cards for personal use always named the photographer on the back, and often on the front too, but the sitter's name had to be added by hand - and frustratingly often this was not done.

© 2006 G. Harry McLaughlin.
Reproduction or transmission, in whole or in part, for other than personal use is prohibited without advance permission from Dr. G. H. McLaughlin.