HEADSUP ON STUDIO
DISCOVER A LEGEND
Scarborough once housed a sumptuous studio that was patronised by the highest people in society and said to be the largest and grandest photographic centre in Europe.
The creator was Olivier François Xavier Sarony, born in Quebec in 1820, his name being Anglicised to Oliver some time soon after his arrival in England in 1843.
Before coming to England, he ran a business selling beaver skins for hats, and carrying contraband silk between Canada and New York. While in America he used all his money to buy equipment and trained as a daguerreotypist.
The Daguerreotype process was the first photographic process, and for nearly 20 years, it was the one most commonly used.
He travelled from place to place working as an itinerant photographer in outlying towns and villages, and is known to have worked at different times in Bradford, Chesterfield, Mansfield, Huddersfield, Hull, Lincolnshire, and Doncaster.
During late 1850 and early 1851 he visited Malton where he took ‘many excellent portraits’ and with the kind permission of the Earl of Carlisle in January 1851 he also had the opportunity to take a photograph of Castle Howard. People who perhaps had never had the opportunity to visit a studio before flocked to him to have their likeness taken.
In 1857 he finally settled in Scarborough. He had worked for a while from the building in Alfred Street (now St Martin’s Avenue) which depict colourful 26 stone-carved faces on the right hand side. The building is now apartments and the residents contribuite towards the re-painting of the images which are said to have been based on Sarony’s team of artists. At one time it was the The Fairview Hotel. The new studio that he commissioned architects John and David Petch to build was one of the grandest in Europe; it was reported that it was “an establishment with every convenience for carrying out Photography to perfection,” and opened on July 12, 1858.
Designed to impress his clients, it included a gallery long enough to place the camera forty feet from the sitter with a direct north light.
Built in the Louis XV style, Sarony called the premises Gainsborough House.
It was on the site which is now Albion Street/Oliver Street car park. There were approximately 40 rooms in use and in 1869 about 50 employees.
Scarborough’s annual influx of at the time was royalty, nobility and gentry. The technological innovations that the photographer invented and patented ensured that the business prospered.
A major part of his business was the production of high quality photographs of paintings, for which he exploited the benefits of the new carbon process.
Another important source of revenue was the production of large colour portraits, which were photographic enlargements finished in oils by skilful painters.
In the great storm of 1861 he was also recognised as a hero when he was involved in attempts to save the lives of passengers and crew of wrecked boats in Scarborough’s South Bay. Reports stated: “Mr Sarony and Mr Rutter recovered the body of Lord Beauclerc. They were nearly lost in the process. Mr Sarony was carried by the waves out of sight of the spectators. He was thrown a lifebelt. Three hours passed before circulation to his body was fully restored”.
One of his painters Thomas Jones Barker worked with Sarony in a rather clever attempt to extract even more money from customers.
In 1870, some weeks before the Prince of Wales came to Scarborough, Sarony advertised, ‘A magnificent picture of important dimensions’ which Thomas Jones Barker was to paint showing the Prince on the Spa surrounded by his loyal subjects.
The wording of the announcement was so tactful that it is at first reading difficult to derive its meaning, but those to whom it was addressed knew what it meant — that Sarony, for a fee, would take photographs and pass prints to the artist to be incorporated in the painting. The nearer to the Prince the higher the fee!
The painting now hangs in the Town Hall.
By 1871, when the man who was to become Edward VII visited Sarony’s studio, it was said to be the largest photographic establishment in Europe, but Sarony began to suffer from diabetes and grew increasingly more debilitated.
He collapsed in town one day and died at his home on August 30, 1879. He is buried in Scarborough cemetery with a large memorial stone. At St Martin’s Church in Sarony Square in 1881, his wife Elizabeth married a much younger man.
The famed building fell into disrepair and was bought by Scarborough Council, demolished in the 1920s, became tennis courts, and then the car park that it is today. The business moved to St Nicholas Street but was demolished for the Town Hall extension.
When the annual influx was royalty, nobility and gentry The studio had 40 rooms, 50 staff, now a car park