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.
Mary Elizabeth (née Bulteel), Lady Ponsonby
by Speaight Ltd
platinum print, 1906
NPG x4624
by Speaight Ltd, published by J. Beagles & Co
postcard print, 1907
NPG x74450
by Speaight Ltd, published by Rotary Photographic Co Ltd
postcard print, late 1900s
NPG x136530
Prince George, Duke of Kent; Prince John
by Speaight Ltd, published by Rotary Photographic Co Ltd
bromide postcard print, 1908
NPG x138941
Arthur Foley Winnington-Ingram
by Speaight Ltd, published by J. Beagles & Co
postcard print, circa 1908
NPG x197663
Countess of Ilchester with her two children
by Speaight Ltd
matte print on photographer's card mount, circa 1908
NPG x126419
by Speaight Ltd, printed by Rotary Photographic Co Ltd
postcard print, circa 1909
NPG x26735
Nina Mary Benita Douglas-Hamilton (née Poore), Duchess of Hamilton
by Speaight Ltd
photogravure, published 1909
NPG Ax161351
Winifred Anna Cavendish-Bentinck (née Dallas-Yorke), 6th Duchess of Portland
by Speaight Ltd
photogravure, published 1909
NPG Ax161372
Katharine (née Morrison), Lady Gatty
by Speaight Ltd
sepia matte print on photographer's card mount, circa 1910
NPG x68908
Katharine (née Morrison), Lady Gatty
by Speaight Ltd
sepia matte print on photographer's card mount, circa 1910
NPG x68909
Katharine (née Morrison), Lady Gatty
by Speaight Ltd
sepia matte print on photographer's card mount, circa 1910
NPG x68910
bromide postcard print, 1910
NPG x196996
bromide postcard print, 1910
NPG x196997
'H.R.H The Duchess of Albany and her two eldest grand-daughters'
by Speaight Ltd, published by Rotary Photographic Co Ltd
bromide postcard print, circa 1910
NPG x196436
Lois Frances Selfridge (née Baxter) with her grandchild
by Speaight Ltd
bromide print, early 1910s
NPG x199636
by Speaight Ltd
bromide print, 1910s
NPG x199637
by Speaight Ltd
bromide print, late 1910s
NPG x199638
by Speaight Ltd, published by Hudson & Kearns Ltd
photogravure, 20 June 1911, published 1912
NPG Ax135793
Lionel Edward Sackville-West, 3rd Baron Sackville as Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset
by Speaight Ltd, published by Hudson & Kearns Ltd
photogravure, 20 June 1911, published 1912
NPG Ax135798
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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?