Sir Benjamin Stone's Parliamentary Pictures
Benjamin Stone
by Roland Parker Stone
1911
NPG x18888
Past display archive
5 August 2006 - 14 January 2007
Room 28 showcase
Free
Sir Benjamin Stone (1838-1914) was a wealthy Birmingham industrialist, Member of Parliament for East Birmingham and above all a passionate, even obsessive, photographer and collector. Reflecting the spirit of his age, he tirelessly advocated the importance of photography in creating an historical record for the national good. He had started collecting photographs in the 1870s, but dissatisfied with what he saw as the lack in evidential precision of much commercially produced photography, he took up photography himself. He photographed not only in Great Britain, recording antiquities, ancient buildings and folk customs, but also on his travels abroad including Scandinavia, Japan and the West Indies.
Knighted in 1892 for his activities in the Conservative Primrose League, he was elected to Parliament for East Birmingham, unopposed, in 1895. He immediately put his newly acquired political and social status to work. In 1897 founded the National Photographic Record Association, which derived its inspiration from the growing number of regional photographic surveys which were founded in the last decade of the nineteenth century, especially the Warwickshire Photographic Survey which was run under the auspices if Birmingham Photographic Society, and of which Stone was President.
On entering Parliament Stone immediately set about recording what he perceived as one of the key institutions in the development of the British character and "historic temple of British liberties". Between 1897 and his retirement from the House of Commons in 1910 on grounds of ill-health. He was interested not just in the individuals from distinguished members of Parliament and Cabinet Ministers to the officers and servants who made the place work, the traditions of the institution, its architecture and the sites where "more things are done that are destined to be remembered in history" than anywhere else. Stone portrayed that all, whether Joseph Chamberlain, then Colonial Secretary, or Frederick Foxton the Forman Painter, with equal directness "the subject looks you straight in the eye, not with the evasive glance of ordinary portraiture. In these likenesses we have visualised for us the real personalities of Parliament without resort to the transfiguring tricks of the professional photographer."
In the last decades of his life Stone was a household name, his photographic exploits at home and abroad reported in the press. He earned various nicknames in the press "Sir Snapshot" or "The Knight of the Camera" and even the suggestion that such was his prolific record-making it was truly the age of "Stone -age man' . He became, in effect, the national photographer, being appointed official photographer to the coronation of George V in 1911. In 1905-6 some of his photographs were published as a fortnightly magazine Sir Benjamin Stones Pictures which made up two volumes, first 'Festivals, Ceremonies and Customs' and second "Parliamentary Scenes and Portraits'. The National Portrait Gallery holds some 2000 of Stone's Parliamentary photographs including portraits of M.P.s of all political persuasions, groups of visitors from all of the world , officers, servants and functionaries. This display gives a taste of this rich and diverse collection.
Joe Chamberlain
by Benjamin Stone
June 1902
NPG x9248
Keir Hardie
by Benjamin Stone
1908
NPG x20358
Sir Thomas Dacres Butler; Nina Helen (née Elliot), Lady Butler
by Benjamin Stone
July 1902
NPG x128584
(all quotes from the Introduction to Sir Benjamin Stone's Pictures Vol 2 Parliamentary Scenes and Portraits.)
A book by Elizabeth Edwards and Peter James accompanying this display and that at the V&A will be available from Dewi Lewis Publishing in October 2006)
Related portraits
- Frederick Foxcroft (NPG x44674)
- Sir Alfred Seale Haslam (NPG x20367)
- Joe Chamberlain (NPG x9248)
- 'The Night Fire Brigade' (NPG x128577)
- 'Luncheon Party on the terrace of the House of Commons' (NPG x128583)
- Sir Thomas Dacres Butler; Nina Helen (née Elliot), Lady Butler (NPG x128584)
- Sir Edmund William Gosse (NPG x19939)
- Keir Hardie (NPG x20358)
- William Chandler (NPG x44608)
- Emily Maria Eardley ('Milly') Childers (NPG x19937)
- 'Visit of Basuto Chiefs to the House of Commons' (NPG x128580)
- 'Mr Henniker Heaton's Luncheon Party to meet Sir John Pilter' (NPG x128578)
- 'Members of the Royal Commission on Coast Erosion and Afforestation, 1906-1911' (NPG x128582)
- 'Lunch party at the House of Commons on the occasion of the presentation of photographs to the "House"' (NPG x128579)
Related sitters
- Ailwyn Edward Fellowes, 1st Baron Ailwyn
- Henry Torrens Anstruther
- Percy Barlow
- C. Bennett
- Sir Arthur Bignold
- James Blyth, 1st Baron Blyth
- Sir William James Bull, 1st Bt
- Nina Helen (née Elliot), Lady Butler
- Sir Thomas Dacres Butler
- Frederick Cawley, 1st Baron Cawley of Prestwich
- Joseph ('Joe') Chamberlain
- William Chandler
- Emily Maria Eardley ('Milly') Childers
- David Robert Daniel
- Edward George Villiers Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby
- Sir Frederick Dixon Dixon-Hartland, 1st Bt
- William James Downer
- William Hayes Fisher, 1st Baron Downham
- Mr Emory
- Robert Lacey Everett
- Frederick Foxcroft
- George Charles Frederick
- John Galvin
- James Louis Garvin
- Edward Priaulx Tennant, 1st Baron Glenconner
- Sir Edmund William Gosse
- C.H. Grimshaw
- Sir (Henry) Rider Haggard
- (James) Keir Hardie (né James Kerr)
- Sir Alfred Seale Haslam
- Sir John Henniker Heaton, 1st Bt
- Sir Robert Henry Hobart, 1st Bt
- Richard George Penn Curzon, 4th Earl Howe
- Thomas John Jehu
- Sir David Brynmor Jones
- Sir John Henry Kennaway, 3rd Bt
- Sir Joseph Lawrence, 1st Bt
- Gordon Leicester
- Harry Hananel Marks
- Mr Marlow
- Sir William Matthews
- C.G. Moody
- John Edward Bernard Seely, 1st Baron Mottistone
- Sir Francis Alexander Newdigate Newdegate
- Alfred Young Nutt
- Patrick O'Brien
- (Montague Horatio) Mostyn Turtle Pigott
- Sir John George Pilter
- Adam Rolland Rainy
- Sir James Rankin, 1st Bt
- Leifchild Stratten Jones (later Leif-Jones), 1st Baron Rhayader
- Sir Alfred Farthing Robbins
- Sir John Fowke Lancelot Rolleston
- Louis de Sadeleer, Baron de Sadeleer
- William Graeme St Clair
- Francis Owen ('Frank') Salisbury
- George Scamell
- Edward John Long Scott
- Sir James Dods Shaw
- Sir Arthur Herbert Drummond Ramsay Steel-Maitland, 1st Bt
- (Frederick) Primrose Stevenson
- Sir (John) Benjamin Stone
- Edward Strachey, 1st Baron Strachie
- Arthur Annesley, 11th Viscount Valentia
- William Hood Walrond, 1st Baron Waleran
- John Ward
- Edward Alfred Goulding, 1st Baron Wargrave