Francis Godolphin Osborne Stuart of Braemar

1870s F.G.O. Stuart photograph of the House of Commons

One of Britain’s most prolific postcard photographers was Francis Godolphin Osbourne (sometimes Osborne) Stuart, who for obvious reasons went by the name F.G. O. Stuart.

Unlikely as it might seem Francis Godolphin Osbourne was born in or around Braemar, in October 1843 into the family of a gamekeeper on the Mar estate which goes some way to explain the child’s name. The father did, however, or perhaps it was the mother, have the sense to omit D’Arcy (which might have created issues for a young laddie in the Highland village) for it appears the boy was named after the Duke of Leeds then currently renting the Mar estate from its owner the Duke of Fife.  Neither of their seats of close proximity to Braemar.

Seaweed hut

Francis was born at the time men  such as his father’s employer were throwing local people out of their homes and off their farms to create deer forests so they and their friends could indulge in the gentlemanly sport of hunting … for what was the point of owning large tracts of land if not to use it as one’s plaything?

By 1872 100,000 acres of deer forest had been created in the district and the glen people surely disabused of any notion that the land they worked and which had sustained their folk for centuries might belong to them in any way.

Photograph image of a painting of the flotilla at Southampton meeting General Booth of the Salvation Army

Local sheep and cattle farmers and their families were put out, cleared out of houses, communities scattered so deer and the laird’s sheep might graze the muirs instead. The numbers forced out were considerable though you would be hard-pressed to believe that now for little evidence of destroyed settlements, clachans that once rang to the voices of their inhabitants, remain even as rickles of stanes – places on maps and on the tongues of a few remind us where people lived. Braemar and Inverey were all that survived of any size as sporting activities ousted the rest in the interests of restricting hunting and fishing for rich men’s pastimes instead of providing food for hungry bellies.

Adams photograph of the Duke of Gordon Statue in the Castlegate, Aberdeen

Young Francis left home to find work in Aberdeen, as a cabinet maker and photographer with Andrew Adams, photographer of Rettie’s Court.  Adams ran one of several photographic studios in Aberdeen, George Washington Wilson’s being  the most famous. However A. Adams also had a good reputation as a portrait photographer and many went to his photographic rooms to have their pictures taken. It is likely Francis’ carpentry involved making the bulky wooden cases which housed early cameras.

The Temple Bar, London            F.G.O. Stuart

In 1872 Francis was living and working in London and a decade later he settled in Southampton where he established a thriving photography business mostly based on photographing townscapes and village scenes around the south of England. By the turn of the 20th century he was a prolific producer of postcards.   

There’s no doubt Stuart had an excellent eye for composition and it’s little wonder his images proved so popular. He used an excellent German printer, Carl Gottlieb Röder of Leipzig, a music publisher and printer and the first to successfully use lithographic printing for his musical scores, to produce high quality images though you won’t always find the German printer’s mark on cards for many were removed, presumably for political reasons. 

Stuart, who was a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, carried out all kinds of photographic work, including portraiture and his pictures were used in travel guides. During World War One  he became an official war office photographer recording damage to Southampton docks.  Of course by this time he had dropped his German printer for an English one of poorer quality.

A colour tinted version of Stuart’s photograph of the Titanic

The world had changed by the time of Stuart’s death in 1923 – in some ways. Fewer people send postcards increasingly preferring to take their own on smart phones instead but the muirs around Braemar remain empty and the landed estates still reign supreme.