It was a tough life being a landscape photographer in Victorian times. Cameras were big and heavy, photographic plates were fragile and there were large bottles of chemicals to be carried around.
George Washington Wilson knew this only too well. The Aberdonian, who was the royal photographer when Queen Victoria was in Scotland, ran Britain’s most successful photography business during the latter part of the 19th century, sending albums of Scottish monuments, hills and lochs all over the world.
Accompanied by an assistant, Wilson regularly toured the countryside for weeks on end, travelling by horse and cart where there were no railway lines.
A selection of his work and equipment can be seen in a permanent display about Aberdeen’s social history at the city’s Provost Skene’s House museum (tel: 01224 641086), along with toys, models, dolls from Victorian and more modern times and locally produced domestic pottery.
A temporary exhibition running at Provost Skene’s House until the end of April focuses on medieval butchery. As a result of work carried out by the city’s archaeological unit, we know that 13th-century Aberdonians weren’t averse to eating a cut of cat or dog.
