The Whitfield Family

Ada H. Whitfield

Birth: 1866, in Kensington district, Middlesex, England

Father: George Corpe Whitfield

Mother: Laura Caroline (Bishop) Whitfield

Occupation: Artist / Painter

Census:
1881: 15 Alexander Villas, Brighton, Sussex

Sources:

Charlotte E. Whitfield

Birth: 1858/9, in Kensington, Middlesex, England

Father: George Corpe Whitfield

Mother: Laura Caroline (Bishop) Whitfield

Occupation: Teacher of Singing

Census:
1881: 14 Sandringham Gardens Uxbridge Road, Middlesex

Sources:

Eva Margaret M. (Whitfield) Smyth

Birth: 1867, in Kensington district, Middlesex, England

Father: George Corpe Whitfield

Mother: Laura Caroline (Bishop) Whitfield

Married: Hugh St George Smyth, in 1902 in Uckfield district, Sussex, England

Census:
1881: 15 Alexander Villas, Brighton, Sussex

Sources:

George Corpe Whitfield

Birth: 1832/3, in Paddington, London, Middlesex, England

Married: Laura Caroline Bishop in 1857 in Basingstoke district, Hampshire, England. Laura was born in 1834, in Maidenhead, Berkshire, the daughter of a surgeon, and died in 1904 in Eastbourne, Sussex.

Children: Occupation: An early photographer, and later a partner in the Woodbury Permanent Photographic Printing Company.
Lock & Whitfield example work
Example of Lock & Whitfield work at History of Photography in Brighton by David Simkin
George initially established a photographic portrait studio of his own on Regent Street, London, and then, in 1856, joined forces with Samuel Lock to form Lock & Whitfield, a fairly prominent firm in early photography, with studios in London (178 Regent Street) and Brighton (109 King's Road). In an advertisement placed in a Brighton newspaper, dated 20 September 1864, Lock & Whitfield offered to take "carte de visite and every description of photograph, colored or uncolored, on paper, ivory or porcelain." By 1867, Lock & Whitfield had fixed the price of twenty carte de visite portraits at �1.1s.6d. Lock & Whitfield probably employed a manager to run their Brighton studio in the 1860s, but by the time of the 1871 census, George C. Whitfield was living at Upper Rock Gardens, Brighton with his wife and five children. Samuel Lock took up residence in Brighton in 1877, but died 4 years later on 9th May 1881. Lock & Whitfield's Brighton studio was taken over by another chain of photographers, Debenham & Co in 1886. The studio in Regent Street carried the name of Lock & Whitfield until around 1895. Perhaps the most important work of this company is found in the book Men of Mark; A Gallery of Contemporary Portraits (buy used - if you can afford it!) which contains photo portraits of many of the prominent men of late 19th century Britain. Other works can be found at the National Portrait Gallery and the British Library. In the 1860's, Walter Woodbury invented a means of mass producing identical photographs known as the Woodburytype, or Woodbury Process, a photo-mechanical printing process which has true continuous half-tones and to the untrained eye is indistinguishable from an actual photograph. George Whitfield became a partner in the Woodbury Permanent Photographic Printing Company. William Crawford's book on photographic processes The Keepers of Light quotes a visitor to the Woodbury Company in the 1880s noting that eight men in the printing shop each worked seven presses containing four printing moulds each to produce a total of 30,000 portraits in a single day. The presses were mounted on rotating tables so that the worker could turn round the table and attend to each press in turn.

Census:
1881: 14 Sandringham Gardens Uxbridge Road, Middlesex
1901: Watford, Hertfordshire; Age 68; Born in Paddington, London; Occupation: Retired Photographic Plate & Paper Manufacturer

Sources:

George Sydney Whitfield

Birth: 1860, in Kensington, Middlesex, England

Father: George Corpe Whitfield

Mother: Laura Caroline (Bishop) Whitfield

Education: George attended St John's College, in Hurstpierpoint, Sussex. By co-incidence, one of his masters there was Gorge Osmund Lees Thomson who would become his brother-in-law fifteen years later after both had married Plumbe sisters.

Married: Harriet Charlotte Plumbe on 30 June 1886, in Cookham district, Berkshire, England

Children: Occupation: In 1881, an assistant at his father's photographic printing company; in1901 a manufacturer of photographic plates andpaper.In September 1901, the Paget Prize Plate Company was registered, of which George and his father were two of the four directors.
Paget Plate
Screens and Plates required for the Paget color process.
from Early Photography
British Journal of Photography 13 September 1901 p588  
The Paget Prize Plate Company, Ltd—This company has been registered by Stephenson and Co., of 31 Lombard street, E.C., with a capital of £80,000 in £1 shares, of which £48,000 are 6 per cent. preference shares. The objects of the company are to adopt an agreement with G. C. Whitfield, W. J. Wilson, G. S. Whitfield, and E. A. Whitfield, for the acquisition as a going concern of the business now carried on at Watford and elsewhere, under the style or firm of the Paget Prize Plate Company, Ltd., and to carry on the business of inventors and manufacturers of and dealers in photographic apparatus, materials, and accessories of all kinds, chemists and druggists, drysalters, oil and colour merchants, assayers, carpenters, printers, glaziers, lithographers, engravers, designers, and dealers in cements, papers, glass, oil, and paint, pigments, varnishes, drugs, dye wares, and chemical, scientific, and artistic apparatus, etc. There will be no initial public issue. The number of directors is to be not less than two nor more than seven. The first are G. C. Whitfield, W. J. Wilson, G. S. Whitfield, and E. A. Whitfield. Qualification £1000. Remuneration as fixed by the company. Registered office, St. Albans-road, Watford, Herts.

George invented an early colour photography process named the Paget process. This was patented in Britain in 1912 and first sold in 1913 by the Paget Prize Plate Company, and a US patent was issued in 1915 (see below). The sale of Paget colour plates enjoyed moderate success up to 1914 and the timing of the invention meant that Paget colour plates made an important contribution to
Paget Plate example
Detail of a Paget Plate photograph
from Australian War Memorial "Captured in Colour" Exhibition
photography of the First World War and early polar expeditions. In 1920 this plate was renamed Duplex and continued to be sold until 1925 when it was discontinued as the price of the screens became prohibitively expensive. A paper-based Paget process was also briefly sold. Advantages of the Paget system was that Paget plates were more sensitive than contemporary autochrome plates, allowing exposures of around 1/25 second (four times faster than autochrome), plus it was a negative/positive process with a separate colour screen which meant that multiple prints were straightforward to produce. The chief disadvantages of the system were that the colours were considered unfaithful and pale compared to the rich colours captured by autochrome. In 1921, the Paget Prize Plate Company became part of Amalgamated Photographic Manufacturers Ltd.

Official gazette of the United States Patent Office June 1915 p1346   
1.144.575. COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY. George Sydney Whitfield, Watford, England. Filed Nov. 18, 1914. Serial No. 872,813 (Cl. 95—2.)
  1.
The process of producing a combined color record and viewing screen of the kind referred to on a flexible medium consisting in expanding said flexible medium as fully as practicable and maintaining it in such expanded state notwithstanding contrary tendencies, from the time when it is ready to receive the color record until said color record and a corresponding viewing screen are placed in permanent contact.
  2. The process of producing a combined color record and viewing screen of the kind referred to on a flexible medium consisting in causing said flexible medium carrying a light sensitive coating, to absorb moisture until it is thereby expanded to the practicable limit, producing the color record on said flexible medium without intermediate drying and maintaining it in such wet and expanded condition throughout all subsequent treatment until said color record and a corresponding viewing screen are placed in permanent contact.
  3. The process of producing a combined color record and viewing screen of the kind referred to on a flexible medium consisting in coating said flexible medium with a light sensitive coating, drying said coated flexible medium, afterward wetting it with water until it is thereby expanded to the practicable limit, exposing it in such condition through a transparency previously taken through a regular pattern screen corresponding to the viewing screen and maintaining it in said wet and expanded condition through all intermediate treatments until said color record and the viewing screen are placed in permanent contact.
  4. The process of producing a combined color record and viewing screen of the kind referred to on paper, consisting in expanding said paper as fully as practicable and maintaining it in such expanded state notwithstanding contrary tendencies, from the time when it is ready to receive the color record until said color record and a corresponding viewing screen are placed in permanent contact.
  5. The process of producing a combined color record and viewing screen of the kind referred to on paper consisting in causing said paper carrying a light sensitive coating, to absorb moisture until it is thereby expanded to the practicable limit, producing the color record on said paper without intermediate drying and maintaining it in such wet and expanded condition throughout all subsequent treatment until said color record and a corresponding viewing screen are placed in permanent contact.
     [Claims 6 to 10 not printed in the Gazette.]

At his death in 1937, George was recorded as a research chemist.

Death: 21 December 1937 at 6 Richmond Ave, Bexhill-On-Sea, East Sussex, England, aged 77, just 12 days after the death of his wife, Harriet.

Census & Addresses:
1861: St Mary Abbots, Kensington, Middlesex: George Sydney Whitfield, son, is aged 0, born in Kensington, Middlesex
1871: St John's College, Hurstpierpoint, Sussex
1881: 14 Sandringham Gardens Uxbridge Road, Middlesex
1882: 14 Sandringham Gardens, Ealing W.   (Exhibitions of the Royal Photographic Society 1870-1915)
1888: Cleveland Lodge, The Greenway, Uxbridge, Middlesex (from a letter to Annie Plumbe forwarded to the Whitfields while she was visiting there in July 1888)
1891: Bushey, Hertfordshire: George Sydney Whitfield, head, is aged 30, born in Kensington, London
1901: Watford Urban, Hertfordshire: George S. Whitfield, head, is aged 40, born in Kensington, Surrey. He is a Photographic Plate & Paper Manufacturer
1909: Little Cassiobury House, Watford, Hertfordshire   (Men of St. Mary's Watford p81)
1911: Watford Urban, Hertfordshire
1913: Little Cassiobury, Watford, Hertfordshire   (Exhibitions of the Royal Photographic Society 1870-1915)

Little Cassiobury House
Artist's impression of Little Cassiobury House, Watford
picture from Country Life Magazine 13 August 1938
Little Cassiobury House is now the center of an effort by the Friends of Little Cassiobury to secure and preserve Little Cassiobury for the future, and to bring it into public use for the people of Watford.
A History of the County of Hertford: Volume 2 pp446-451
In spite of the modern aspect of Watford there are still a number of interesting relics of former times to be found in the old High Street. At the beginning of the nineteenth century Watford was little more than a long straggling village through which the road ran to Berkhampstead and Aylesbury. In Cassio hamlet at the northern end of High Street [Watford] is Little Cassiobury (Mr. G. S. Whitfield), a charmingly situated eighteenth-century house, built as a dower house by a former earl of Essex.

Sources:

Harriet Dorothy (Whitfield) Finch

Birth: 16 June 1888, in Uxbridge, Middlesex, England

Father: George Sydney Whitfield

Mother: Harriet Charlotte (Plumbe) Whitfield

Married: Clement Robert Finch in 1917 in Watford district, Hertfordshire, England

Census:
1911: Watford Urban, Hertfordshire

Sources:

Laura Gertrude Whitfield

Birth: 1873, in Ealing, Middlesex, England

Father: George Corpe Whitfield

Mother: Laura Caroline (Bishop) Whitfield

Census:
1881: 14 Sandringham Gardens Uxbridge Road, Middlesex

Sources:

Lawrence Dalton Whitfield

Birth: 1868/9, in Ealing, Middlesex, England

Father: George Corpe Whitfield

Mother: Laura Caroline (Bishop) Whitfield

Married: Annie Thomson, in 1894 in Edmonton district, Middlesex, England

Children:
Occupation: Insurance Clerk

Census:
1881: Corn House, Uxbridge, Middlesex

Sources:

Leonard Arthur Whitfield

Birth: 1870, in Ealing, Middlesex, England

Father: George Corpe Whitfield

Mother: Laura Caroline (Bishop) Whitfield

Census:
1881: Corn House, Uxbridge, Middlesex

Sources:

Mabel A. Whitfield

Birth: 1862, in Kensington, Middlesex, England

Father: George Corpe Whitfield

Mother: Laura Caroline (Bishop) Whitfield

Occupation: Governess

Census:
1881: 76 High Street, Winchester, Hampshire

Sources:

Mildred Hester Whitfield

Birth: 1875, in Ealing, Middlesex, England

Father: George Corpe Whitfield

Mother: Laura Caroline (Bishop) Whitfield

Death: 1902, in Eastbourne district, Sussex, England, aged 26

Census:
1881: 14 Sandringham Gardens Uxbridge Road, Middlesex

Sources:

Sydney Philip Whitfield

Birth: 20 May 1890, in Bushey, Hertfordshire, England

Father: George Sydney Whitfield

Mother: Harriet Charlotte (Plumbe) Whitfield

Married: Norah E. Berry in 1920, in Watford district, Hertfordshire, England

Census:
1901: Watford, Hertfordshire; Age 10; Born in Bushey, Herts
1911: Watford Urban, Hertfordshire

Sources:
Return to Chris Gosnell's Home Page

If you have any comments, additions or modifications to the information on this page, please feel free to email me.
Created and maintained by: chris@ocotilloroad.com