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President of the Bristol Camera Society

Born in Scotland, John Beattie was a travelling photographer and lecturer in phrenology and electricity who settled in Bristol in the 1850s. Throughout the 1860s until 1868 he ran a photographic business with Cyrus Voss Bark (d.1913). In the 1861 census he was recorded as an "artistic photographer" working at 25 The Triangle, Bristol. John Beattie paid a license to the Clifton Suspension Bridge Company to sell photographs and stationary from a wooden souvenirs kiosk located by the Clifton tower on the bridge from 1866 to 1875.

Francis Bedford initially worked as an artist and lithographer before taking up photography in 1853. He received several Royal commissions and was the first photographer to be appointed on a Royal Tour in 1862. From the late 1850s onwards he produced numerous stereoscopic photographs which documented important sites from across Britain. These were popular and sold in their thousands. Sometimes his wife and two sons feature in his topographical photographs.