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David Octavius Hill (20 May 1802 – 17 May 1870) was a Scottish painter, photographer and arts activist. He formed
Hill & Adamson Hill & Adamson was the first photography studio in Scotland, set up by painter David Octavius Hill and engineer Robert Adamson in 1843. During their brief partnership that ended with Adamson's untimely death, Hill & Adamson produced "the first s ...
studio with the engineer and photographer Robert Adamson between 1843 and 1847 to pioneer many aspects of photography in Scotland.


Early life

David Octavius Hill was born in 1802 in
Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...
. His father, a bookseller and publisher, helped to re-establish
Perth Academy Perth Academy is a state comprehensive secondary school in Perth, Scotland. It was founded in 1696. The institution is a non-denominational one. The school occupies ground on the side of a hill in the Viewlands area of Perth, and is within the P ...
and David was educated there as were his brothers. When his older brother Alexander joined the publishers Blackwood's in
Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
, Hill went there to study at the School of Design. He learned
lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
and produced ''Sketches of Scenery in Perthshire'' which was published as an album of views. His landscape paintings were shown in the ''Institution for the Promotion of the Fine Arts in Scotland'', and he was among the artists dissatisfied with the ''Institution'' who established a separate Scottish Academy in 1829 with the assistance of his close friend Henry Cockburn. A year later Hill took on unpaid secretarial duties. He sought commissions in book illustration, with four sketches being used to illustrate ''The Glasgow and Garnkirk Railway Prospectus'' in 1832, and went on to provide illustrations for editions of
Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy (n ...
and
Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who hav ...
. In the 1830s he is listed as living at 24 Queen Street, in
Edinburgh's New Town The New Town is a central area of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. It was built in stages between 1767 and around 1850, and retains much of its original neo-classical and Georgian period architecture. Its best known street is Princes Stree ...
. In 1836 the Royal Scottish Academy began to pay him a salary as secretary, and with this security he married his fiancée Ann Macdonald the following year. After the birth of their daughter, Charlotte Hill, Ann was invalided, and died on 5 October 1841, aged 36, and was buried with her family in Greyfriars Churchyard in Perth. Charlotte Hill went on to marry the author Walter Scott Dalgleish LLD and is buried in
Grange Cemetery The Grange (originally St Giles' Grange) is an affluent suburb of Edinburgh, just south of the city centre, with Morningside and Greenhill to the west, Newington to the east, The Meadows park and Marchmont to the north, and Blackford Hil ...
. He continued to produce illustrations and to paint landscapes on commission. During this period he lived at 28 Inverleith Row in Edinburgh's northern suburbs. File:David Octavius Hill by Patric Park, 1842.jpg, David Octavius Hill by
Patric Park Patric Park (born 12 February 1811, Glasgow; died 16 August 1855, Warrington) was a Scottish sculptor. Life He was the son of Matthew Park, a mason from a long line of masons, in Glasgow. At age 14, he was apprenticed to Edinburgh mason John C ...
, 1842 File:Bust of David Octavius Hill, Dean Cemetery Edinburgh.jpg, Bust on Hill's grave


Free Church of Scotland

Hill was present at the Disruption Assembly in 1843 when over 450 ministers walked out of the
Church of Scotland The Church of Scotland ( sco, The Kirk o Scotland; gd, Eaglais na h-Alba) is the national church in Scotland. The Church of Scotland was principally shaped by John Knox, in the Scottish Reformation, Reformation of 1560, when it split from t ...
assembly and down to another assembly hall to found the Free Church of Scotland. He decided to record the dramatic scene with the encouragement of his friend
Lord Cockburn Henry Thomas Cockburn of Bonaly, Lord Cockburn ( ; Cockpen, Midlothian, 26 October 1779 – Bonaly, Midlothian, 26 April/18 July 1854) was a Scottish lawyer, judge and literary figure. He served as Solicitor General for Scotland between 1830 an ...
and another spectator, the physicist Sir
David Brewster Sir David Brewster KH PRSE FRS FSA Scot FSSA MICE (11 December 178110 February 1868) was a British scientist, inventor, author, and academic administrator. In science he is principally remembered for his experimental work in physical optics ...
who suggested using the new invention, photography, to get likenesses of all the ministers present. Brewster was himself experimenting with this technology which only dated back to 1839, and he introduced Hill to another enthusiast, Robert Adamson. Hill and Adamson took a series of photographs of those who had been present and of the setting. The x painting was eventually completed in 1866.


Photography studio

Hill moved to "Calton Hill Stairs" in 1850. Their collaboration, with Hill providing skill in composition and lighting, and Adamson considerable sensitivity and dexterity in handling the camera, proved extremely successful, and they soon broadened their subject matter. Adamson's studio, "Rock House", on Calton Hill in
Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
became the centre of their photographic experiments. Using the
calotype Calotype or talbotype is an early photographic process introduced in 1841 by William Henry Fox Talbot, using paper coated with silver iodide. Paper texture effects in calotype photography limit the ability of this early process to record low co ...
process, they produced a wide range of portraits depicting well-known Scottish luminaries of the time, including
Hugh Miller Hugh Miller (10 October 1802 – 23/24 December 1856) was a self-taught Scottish geologist and writer, folklorist and an evangelical Christian. Life and work Miller was born in Cromarty, the first of three children of Harriet Wright ('' ...
, both in the studio and outdoors, often amongst the elaborate tombs in
Greyfriars Kirk Greyfriars Kirk ( gd, Eaglais nam Manach Liath) is a parish church of the Church of Scotland, located in the Old Town of Edinburgh, Scotland. It is surrounded by Greyfriars Kirkyard. Greyfriars traces its origin to the south-west parish of Edin ...
yard. They photographed local and
Fife Fife (, ; gd, Fìobha, ; sco, Fife) is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross (i ...
landscapes and urban scenes, including images of the Scott Monument under construction in Edinburgh. As well as the great and the good, they photographed ordinary working folk, particularly the fishermen of Newhaven, and the fishwives who carried the fish in creels the 3 miles (5 km) uphill to the city of Edinburgh to sell them round the doors, with their cry of " Caller herrin" (fresh
herring Herring are forage fish, mostly belonging to the family of Clupeidae. Herring often move in large schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans, i ...
). They produced several groundbreaking "action" photographs of soldiers and - perhaps their most famous photograph - two priests walking side by side. Their partnership produced around 3,000 prints, but was cut short after only four years due to the ill health and death of Adamson in 1848. The calotypes faded under sunlight, so had to be kept in albums, and though Hill continued the studio for some months, he became less active and abandoned the studio, though he continued to sell prints of the photographs and to use them as an aid for composing paintings. In 1862 he remarried, to the sculptor Amelia Robertson Paton, 20 years his junior, and around that time took up photography again, but the results were more static and less successful than his collaboration with Adamson. He was badly affected by the death of his daughter and his work slowed. In 1866 he finished the ''Disruption'' picture which received wide acclaim, though many of the participants had died by then. The photographer F.C. Annan produced fine reduced facsimiles of the painting for sale throughout the Free Church, and a group of subscribers raised £1,200 to buy the painting for the church. In 1869 illness forced him to give up his post as secretary to the RSA, and he died in May 1870. Hill is buried in
Dean Cemetery The Dean Cemetery is a historically important Victorian cemetery north of the Dean Village, west of Edinburgh city centre, in Scotland. It lies between Queensferry Road and the Water of Leith, bounded on its east side by Dean Path and on ...
, Edinburgh - one of the finest Victorian cemeteries in Scotland. He is portrayed in a bust sculpted by his second wife, Amelia, who is buried alongside him.


Exhibitions

Some of his photographs were put on show in Glasgow in 1954 but the first major exhibition of his work was in 1963 in
Essen Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and D ...
, Germany. File:fishwives baiting lines.jpg, Fishwives in
St Andrews St Andrews ( la, S. Andrea(s); sco, Saunt Aundraes; gd, Cill Rìmhinn) is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, southeast of Dundee and northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 , making it Fife's fou ...
bait their lines, 1844. File:Finlay, deerstalker in the employ of Campbell of Islay 2.jpg, Finlay, deer stalker in the employ of Campbell of Islay, 1845 File:Newhaven fishergirls.jpg, Newhaven fishergirls pose with a creel
(between 1843 and 1847)
File:The Pier at Leith by David Octavius Hill c.1860.JPG, The Pier at
Leith Leith (; gd, Lìte) is a port area in the north of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, founded at the mouth of the Water of Leith. In 2021, it was ranked by '' Time Out'' as one of the top five neighbourhoods to live in the world. The earliest ...
, a painting by David Octavius Hill c.1860


References


Further reading

* Macmillan, Duncan (1984), ''Scottish Painting: The Later Enlightenment'', in Parker, Geoff (ed.), ''
Cencrastus ''Cencrastus'' was a magazine devoted to Scottish and international literature, arts and affairs, founded after the Referendum of 1979 by students, mainly of Scottish literature at Edinburgh University, and with support from Cairns Craig, then a ...
'' No. 19, Winter 1984, pp. 25 – 27, * Michaelson, Katherine (1970), ''David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson'', catalogue for Scottish Arts Council exhibitions


External links


Works in the National Galleries of Scotland
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hill, David Octavius British portrait photographers 19th-century Scottish photographers 1802 births 1870 deaths People from Perth, Scotland Burials at the Dean Cemetery People educated at Perth Academy Alumni of the Edinburgh College of Art 19th-century Scottish painters Scottish male painters 19th-century Scottish male artists