Sir John Herschel, 1867

Mrs. Julia Margaret Cameron (1815 - 1879)

RA Collection: Art

Photogravure printed by H.H.H.Cameron and his partner J.C. Smith from negatives by Julia Margaret Cameron for the publication Alfred, Lord Tennyson And His Friends.

The friendship between Sir John Herschel (1792-1871) and Julia Margaret Cameron (née Prattle) began in South Africa in 1837 when the Prattle family and the Herschels were residing in the vicinity of Cape Town. The friendship was to continue after Julia Margaret's move to Calcutta where she married Charles Hay Cameron and her return to Britain some ten years later in 1848.

In the introduction to Alfred, Lord Tennyson and His Friends Henry Herschel Hay Cameron quotes from his mother's memoir Annals of my Glasshouse.

' When I have had these men before my camera my whole soul has endeavoured to do its duty towards them in recording faithfully the greatness of the inner as well as the features of the outer man. The photograph thus taken has been almost the embodiment of a prayer. Most devoutedly was this feeling present to me when I photographed my illustrious and revered, as well as beloved, friend Sir John Herschel. He was to me as a teacher and high priest; from my earliest girlhood I had loved and honoured him, and it was after a friendship extending over thirty-one years that the high task of giving his portrait to the nation was allotted to me.'