Alfred Seaman was a professional Victorian and Edwardian photographer who ran a network of photographic portrait studios in the Midlands and North of England.‘Death of Mr Alfred Seaman’ British Journal of Photography, July 1910 He published a large (2,000 + views) series of

stereoscopic Stereoscopy (also called stereoscopics, or stereo imaging) is a technique for creating or enhancing the depth perception, illusion of depth in an image by means of stereopsis for binocular vision. The word ''stereoscopy'' derives . Any stere ...

photographs of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man. Alfred Seaman was born in Norfolk in 1844. He began his working life as a builder and took up photography as a hobby in the 1860s. He opened his first studio in

Chesterfield Chesterfield may refer to: Places Canada * Rural Municipality of Chesterfield No. 261, Saskatchewan * Chesterfield Inlet, Nunavut United Kingdom * Chesterfield, Derbyshire, a market town in England ** Chesterfield (UK Parliament constitue ...

Derbyshire in 1880 and subsequently ran studios in,

Ilkeston Ilkeston is a town in the Borough of Erewash, Derbyshire, England, on the River Erewash, from which the borough takes its name, with a population at the 2011 census of 38,640. Its major industries, coal mining, iron working and lace making/texti ...

Alfreton Alfreton ( ) is a town and civil parish in the Amber Valley district of Derbyshire, England. The town was formerly a Norman Manor and later an Urban District. The population of the Alfreton parish was 7,971 at the 2011 Census. The villages of Ir ...

, Matlock,

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

Hull Hull may refer to: Structures * Chassis, of an armored fighting vehicle * Fuselage, of an aircraft * Hull (botany), the outer covering of seeds * Hull (watercraft), the body or frame of a ship * Submarine hull Mathematics * Affine hull, in affi ...

and

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

. In 1886, he was a founding member of the

Photographic Convention of the United Kingdom The Photographic Convention of United Kingdom (PCUK) was founded in 1886 and held its first convention in the city of Derby, England, in August of that year. The founding members were a mixture of professional photographers and wealthy amateurs. ...

(PCUK) which held its first convention in

Derby Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby gai ...

. He served on the Committee of the PCUK from 1886 until his death and through this organisation he had links with eminent professional photographers of the day including

Henry Peach Robinson Henry Peach Robinson (9 July 1830, Ludlow, Shropshire – 21 February 1901, Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent) was an English pictorialist photographer best known for his pioneering combination printing - joining multiple negatives or prints to form ...

William Crooke William Crooke (6 August 1848 – 25 October 1923) was a British orientalist and a key figure in the study and documentation of Anglo-Indian folklore. He was born in County Cork, Ireland, and was educated at Erasmus Smith's Tipperary Grammar S ...

William England William England (died 1896) was a successful Victorian photographer specialising in stereoscopic photographs. Life Sources disagree on his date of birth, with dates from 1816 to 1830 quoted by different authors. In the 1840s England ran a London ...

, Alexander Tate and

Richard Keene Richard Keene (15 May 1825 – December 1894) was an early Derbyshire photographer. He was a founding member of The Derby Photographic Society in 1884 and the Photographic Convention of the United Kingdom in 1886 as well as being an early member ...

, as well as the many wealthy amateurs who were members, such as the astronomer Professor Alexander Stewart Herschel. He was married three times and had 9 sons and a daughter. All but one of his sons followed him into the photographic trade and ran studios either under the ‘Seaman & Sons’ title or in their own name. He died in Sheffield in 1910.Bradley, John (2003) ‘The developing business of Alfred Seaman’. Reflections magazine, Vol. 12 No. 133 February 2003. Provides a brief biography of Seaman.

References

External links

*http://www.freewebs.com/jb3d/index.htm Alfred Seaman and the Photographic Convention of the United Kingdom *http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/photos/dbyphotos.html Photographers & Photographic Studios in Derbyshire, England {{DEFAULTSORT:Seaman, Alfred 19th-century English photographers Pioneers of photography People from Chesterfield, Derbyshire 1910 deaths 1844 births Photographers from Norfolk Photographers from Derbyshire