Speaight Ltd
(active 1904-1940), PhotographersArtist associated with 101 portraits
Richard Neville Speaight took up photography at the age of 12 while still at school. He subsequently worked for two years with the camera-makers Sands and Hunter, and at the age of 17 became apprenticed to the theatrical photographers Martin and Sailnow, who were based in the Strand, London, where they took photographs on the stage of the old Gaiety Theatre. In 1896, with his brother, Speaight started the firm of F. & R. Speaight in Regent Street. In 1902 he moved to palatial galleries in Bond Street to become Speaight Ltd. As President of the Professional Photographers Association, Member of the Council and Treasurer, he devoted a huge amount of effort to raise standards and promote portrait photography. A regular exhibitor at the London Salon and RPS, Speaight published his autobiography, Memoirs of a Court Photographer, in 1926, the year in which he took the first official photographs of the future Queen Elizabeth II. In the Edwardian era he was dubbed the 'Photographic Laureate of Children's Photographers'. In 1911 he purchased Alice Hughes's collection of 50,000 original negatives of aristocratic portraits of children and their mothers to add to his similar collection of work numbering more than 100,000. This archive, which weighed more than 17 tons, was destroyed during World War II.
by Speaight Ltd, published by Rotary Photographic Co Ltd
bromide postcard print, 1911
NPG x196949
by Speaight Ltd
bromide print, 1912
NPG x199107
'H.R.H. Princess Arthur of Connaught (the Duchess of Fife) and her bridesmaids'
published by Rotary Photographic Co Ltd, after Lallie Charles, and after Speaight Ltd
bromide postcard print, 1913
NPG x45767
David Richard Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty; John Rushworth Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe
by Speaight Ltd, by James Russell & Sons
hand-coloured bromide prints, published 1916
NPG x135721
Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor (King Edward VIII)
by Speaight Ltd
bromide print, 1917
NPG x199590
Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor (King Edward VIII)
by Speaight Ltd
bromide print, 1917
NPG x199591
by Speaight Ltd
bromide proof print, 1918
NPG x134718
Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone
by Speaight Ltd
chlorobromide print, circa 1918
NPG x199588
by Speaight Ltd
bromide print, 1918
NPG x199592
by Speaight Ltd
bromide print, early 1920s
NPG x199620
'Garden party at the British Embassy in Belgium' (group including Sir George Dixon Grahame)
by Speaight Ltd
bromide print, early 1920s
NPG x199621
Sir (Joseph) Austen Chamberlain
by Speaight Ltd
bromide print, 1920s
NPG x199631
Maria Isabel Regina Aspasia Vaughan (née de Bittencourt), Countess of Lisburne
by Speaight Ltd
bromide print, circa 1920
NPG x199635
Princess Mary, Countess of Harewood
by Speaight Ltd, published by J. Beagles & Co
bromide postcard print, 1922-1929
NPG x17382
Princess Mary, Countess of Harewood
by Speaight Ltd, published by J. Beagles & Co
bromide postcard print, 1922-1929
NPG x17402
George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood
by Speaight Ltd, published by J. Beagles & Co
postcard print, 1923
NPG x17406
'Souvenir of the Royal Wedding'
published by Marlborough Printing Co, after Elliott & Fry, and after Speaight Ltd, and after Frank Arthur Swaine, and after Hay Wrightson, and after Maull & Fox, and after E.O. Hoppé
bromide postcard print, 1923
NPG x193256
by Speaight Ltd
bromide print, mid 1920s
NPG x199324
George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood; Princess Mary, Countess of Harewood
by Speaight Ltd
bromide print, 1923
NPG x199610
Victoria Eugenie ('Ena') of Battenberg, Queen of Spain; Elisabeth of Bavaria, Queen of Belgium
by Speaight Ltd
bromide print, 1923
NPG x199622
Comments back to top
We are currently unable to accept new comments, but any past comments are available to read below.
If you need information from us, please use our Archive enquiry service . Please note that we cannot provide valuations. You can buy a print or greeting card of most illustrated portraits. Select the portrait of interest to you, then look out for a Buy a Print button. Prices start at around £6 for unframed prints, £16 for framed prints. If you wish to license an image, select the portrait of interest to you, then look out for a Use this image button, or contact our Rights and Images service. We digitise over 8,000 portraits a year and we cannot guarantee being able to digitise images that are not already scheduled.
Liz Rollins
04 July 2015, 17:16
I came across a speaight platinum photo of my grandmother and her two sons all in profile and wondered about it. She was Beatrice Tremaine Rollins Dournovo, Princess Adoievsky and they were Douglas and Gordon Rollins. She was born in 1896 in New York. Do you want the photo for this collection?