Christina Broom

Christina Broom aka Mrs Albert Broom

Christina Broom (née Livingston; 28 December 1862 – 5 June 1939) was a Scottish photographer, credited as "the UK's first female press photographer".[1][2]

History

Christina Livingston's parents were Scottish though she was born at 8 King's Road, Chelsea, London, the seventh of eight children. Her father was Alexander Livingston (1812-1875), a master bootmaker and her mother Margaret Fair (1826-1884).[2] She married Albert Edward Broom (1864–1912) in 1889. They had a daughter Winifred Margaret, born 7 August 1890.[3] In 1903, following the failure of the family ironmongery business and other business ventures, Christina borrowed a box camera and taught herself the rudiments of photography. She set up a stall in the Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace, selling postcards of photographs that she had taken. She maintained this stall from 1904 until 1930.[1][2]

When the family moved to Burnfoot Avenue, she used the coal cellar as her dark room. She was assisted by her daughter Winifred, who had left school to assist her mother; Albert wrote the captions for the postcards in his neat script. The postcards sold well: in one night-time session Broom printed 1000.[2]

Christina was appointed official photographer to the Household Division from 1904 to 1939 and had a darkroom in the Chelsea Barracks; she also took many photographs of local scenes, including those at the Palace, as well as The Boat Race and Suffragette marches.

Albert died in 1912 and Christina and Winifred moved to Munster Road, Fulham. Christina took the professional name of Mrs Albert Broom. In the 1920s and 1930s her work was featured in publications such as the Illustrated London News, The Tatler, The Sphere, and Country Life.[2]

Christina died on 5 June 1939 and was buried in Fulham old cemetery.[2] Winifred was instrumental in safeguarding Christina's negatives by having them housed in public institutions.[3]

Collections of her photographs are held at the Museum of London, the National Portrait Gallery, the Imperial War Museum, London, the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, the Royal Maritime Museum, Greenwich, the Guards Museum, London; the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Local Studies Library; the Hammersmith and Fulham Archive and the National Army Museum; Maidstone Art Gallery, Kent; and the Harry Ransom Center and the Gernsheim Collection, University of Texas, both at Austin, Texas, United States.[2]

On 17 December 2009 a collection of some 2,000 of her photographs, mainly of military subjects, was to be offered for sale by auction at Sotheby's in London. The collection was expected to make up to £35,000.[1] It failed to sell and was acquired privately by the Museum of London.[4] In June 2015, the museum opened an exhibition of her photographs entitled Soldiers and Suffragettes.[5]

Further reading

  • Atkinson, D., Mrs Broom's Suffragette Photographs (1990)
  • Inselmann, A. (ed.), A Second Look (1993)

References

  1. 1 2 3 Andrew Levy (17 December 2009). "Images of Great War's lost generation preparing to head off to the Western Front - captured by the UK's first female Press photographer". London: The Daily Mail. Retrieved 2009-12-16.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Shirley Neale. "Broom (née Livingston), Christina (known as Mrs Albert Broom) (1862–1939), photographer". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 2009-12-16.
  3. 1 2 Anna Sparham; Margaret Denny; Diane Atkinson (2015). Soldiers and Suffragettes: The Photography of Christina Broom. Philip Wilson Publishers. pp. 228, 229. ISBN 1781300380.
  4. ↑ http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/exhibition-christina-broom-britain-s-first-female-press-photograp Accessed 27 April 2014
  5. ↑ http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/docklands/whats-on/exhibitions-displays/christina-broom
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