Header image, Robert Pols' Early Photographers site

 

 

only search this site


Introduction

Cambridgeshire

Huntingdonshire

Leicestershire

Norfolk

Northamptonshire

Rutland

Suffolk

Links

Publications


Powered By Web Wiz Green Hosting

Directory of Early Photographers, Studio Folder, Sawyer and Bird, Norwich and Elsewhere

The work rate of J R M Sawyer


From time to time during the 1860s, Sawyer’s advertisements referred to the rate at which he was producing cartes de visite.

Norfolk Chronicle, 13th April 1861

Claims an output of 200-300 cartes de visite per week.

Norfolk Chronicle, 26th October 1861:

‘500 per week sent out’.

Norfolk News, 26th July 1862:

‘2000 portraits sent out every month.’

Norfolk Chronicle, 3rd October 1863:

‘Sixty thousand of his Cartes de Visite in the last two years.’

Norfolk Chronicle, 18th June 1864:

‘J R Sawyer has to acknowledge a much larger and increasing amount of commissions and orders.’

Ipswich Journal, 11th November 1865:

‘J R Sawyer’s issue of approved cartes de visite is upwards of 1,000 per week from his studios in Norwich and Ipswich.’

Norfolk Chronicle, 29th February 1868:

'Mr Sawyer now has the enormous number of 24,417 negatives.'

(The Ipswich studio was taken over in 1867 by Walter Smith, who seems likely to have acquired its negatives as part of the business. The figure of 24,417 probably, therefore, represents the archive of just the Norwich studio.)

Norfolk Chronicle, 11th April 1868:

'… about 25,000 negatives.'

Norfolk Chronicle, 26th June 1868:

'… upwards of 25,000 negatives.'

Attempts to assess Sawyer’s work-rate accurately are made more complicated by a change in the units by which it was measured. The earlier figures relate to the cartes themselves (which were sold by the dozen or half-dozen), while the later figures relate to the negatives from which the multiple copies were made. Nevertheless, there can be little doubt about the fast-growing success of both Sawyer and the carte market.


Return to Sawyer & Bird index

Go to home page

Go to Norfolk directory

 

 

 

www.earlyphotostudios.uk is a non-commercial web site for local and family historians, listing photographers operating 1840-1916, in Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Leicestershire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Rutland and Suffolk. The original site was researched and written in 2011 by the late Robert Pols, photo historian and author, and this re-constructed site is dedicated to his memory.


This page was last modified: 04 September 2022, 10:21

contact us

This site is powered by Web Wiz Green Hosting. We have been using their services for many years and are more than happy to recommend them to you.