Watkins, George Herbert, 1828-1916

George Herbert Watkins; b. 1828; d. 1916; photographer; Watkins opened his Regent Street studio in 1856, and produced a series of photographs of distinguished contemporaries, which he published with printed biographies under the title of National Gallery of Photographic Portraits.

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Herbert Watkins; also George Herbert Watkins; Born in Worcester on 12 July 1828, Victorian photographer (George) Herbert Watkins opened his first studio at no. 179 Regent Street in the mid 1850s, later moving to no. 215 by 1858. His portraits were first shown at the 1856 Exhibition of the Photographic Society in London. Additional portraits shown in the 1857 Exhibition included his now famous study of Charles Dickens writing at his desk.

In 1857 Watkins began contributing to Herbert Fry’s serial, a National Gallery of Photographic Portraits. Sixteen prints were issued individually by subscription at 4 shillings each, before the project ended in 1858. (These photographs and texts can be seen in Album 39 of the Gallery’s Photographs Collection.) During the 1850s to 1870s Watkins issued many of his portraits as carte-de-visites, as well as pioneering mixed media photo-caricatures in this medium.