Prince kept a picture of the Tipton Slasher
FOR some years, we have been looking into Wolverhampton-based Oscar Rejlander’s early career as a pioneering photographer in Victorian Britain.
One of our most curious and unexpected discoveries came when we visited the Royal Collection of Photography at Windsor Castle, in April 2015.
We were lucky enough to be allowed to examine the personal photograph albums that belonged to Prince Albert, the Prince Consort, which contained thirteen photographs produced by Rejlander, that had been exhibited in national and international exhibitions.
Librarian
The photographs were recommended for purchase for the prince’s collection by his librarian, Dr Ernst Becker.
Our main motive for visiting the collection was to see the Rejlander images. And we made an unexpected discovery in an album from two years before Rejlander rose to fame ...
Rejlander was born in Sweden in 1813, and during his early life paid his way by taking commissions from wealthy aristocrats to produce copies of famous artworks, as well as painting portraits.
He came to England in 1838, initially settling in Lincoln but moving to Wolverhampton in 1842. He seems to have used his membership of the Freemasons to make contacts with the wealthy and influential.
In 1853 he suddenly became interested in photography and went to London to learn the latest techniques. He was sponsored by William Parke, owner of the Wolverhampton Chronicle.
He spent the next two years honing his newly acquired skills and by 1855 entered his first photography exhibition. It was then the Prince Albert’s librarian saw his work and recommended some purchases for the royal collection.
Among the images chosen was one called ‘A Setto’, which portrayed two bare-knuckle fighters squaring up in a quarry in front of a crowd of onlookers. Neither man is identified, but it is our contention that William Perry, the Tipton Slasher, was one of them.
Fame
While we know that Rejlander was living and working in Wolvherhampton in 1855, we do not know that he had any contact with Perry. However, the Slasher was at the height of his fame during the years that Rejlander was developing his photographic skills. He had become Champion of England in 1850 and remained a major figure until a crushing defeat at the hands of Tom Sayers in 1857 – he was a major star in 1855 when A Setto was taken.
If a wealthy enough boxing enthusiast wanted a photograph of the champion pugilist, the only way would have been to commission a photographer to stage the scene. Frustratingly there is no annotation on Prince Albert’s copy of the photograph, so we cannot be sure who the fighters were.
There are remarkably few pictures of William Perry, and most of those that do exist are drawings or prints. Historical records claim that he agreed to pose for no more than two photographs in his life.
He may well have been camera shy because of his knock-knees, which ironically were a major reason for his success – he was almost impossible to knock down. However if a wealthy figure was acting as his sponsor, he might well have commissioned the photograph and Perry would have had little choice in the matter. A letter from Margaret Carr, a Perry relative in the Black Country Bugle dated June 4, 2015, claimed that his sponsor was the Marquess of Waterford.
Margaret Carr also provided evidence to support our case that the photograph is a genuine posed portrait of William Perry.
She believes that in 1855 William was the publican of a renamed public house, the Champion of England in Spon Lane, West Bromwich. He also had a sideline as a haulier, mainly stone and cement. Margaret also provided some interesting information concerning the Marquess of Waterford – he was not just a friend of Perry but also a sponsor, and she believes that the photograph was indeed taken at Waterford’s suggestion.
Engraving
One of the very few images of the Slasher in exisence is a wood engraving which was found only as recently as 2015, in an obscure American newspaper by Martin Collinson, and which appeared on the front page of the Bugle in March 2015.
Margaret Carr believes that this engraving was probably produced from the second photograph that Perry posed for. The engraving appeared in The New York Clipper in 1881, to mark Perry’s death.
Interestingly it fulfils the dress expectations of many critics who expected him to sit in the conventional clothing of the day. The face and the upswept hair at the sides bear a striking resemblance to those of the pugilist on the left in A Set-to.
All of this raises a very interesting question. A Set-to was taken at an early date in the development of photography. In 1855 the speed of lightsensitive chemicals was very slow, requiring exposure times of several seconds. This made it impossible to record sharp images of movement, so Rejlander had to pose the figures. Depending on weather, his exposure would have been around ten seconds.
First?
Was this the very first photograph to have a boxing theme, or even the very first sporting photograph? In all our research to date, we have never seen, nor heard of, a sporting photograph produced by Oscar Rejlander. Prince Albert’s librarian Dr Becker evidently found A Set-to interesting enough to include in his selection for the royal collection.