Trees of Great Britain and Ireland

Over 120 years ago Henry John Elwes and Dr Augustine Henry embarked on an epic project to create a comprehensive catalogue of British and Irish Trees. This monumental work was published in a series of seven volumes, containing 2022 pages, 412 main photographs and recorded over 500 species of tree. This new book is first to focus on the previously overlooked role of photography in the original, including 64 litho-printed reproductions, contextualised with an essay by photographic historian and writer, Michael Pritchard.

The original project was underpinned by the Victorian fascination for recording the world, new printing techniques and the application of photography for art and science. The original volumes contained collotype reproductions of the photographs, selected for its wide tonal range and ability to retain detail. However, despite photography forming an integral part of the publication only a few photographers were credited. Those credited are from photographs supplied from the owners or neighbours of particular estates and Elwes’s typescript discussing the making of the book, only passing reference is made to the photography and to two photographers, Mr Wallis and Mr Foster. Closely directed by Elwes, the photographers would have approached their subjects objectively to record photographs taken to show the shape and characteristics of the tree, context, or occasional details. Scale was indicated with the inclusion of a person or group or people. Those same instructions regarding composition and approach were likely given to other uncredited photographers who contributed it an attempt to lend the project a typological uniformity.

‘The tree was common motif for photographers and photographs were widely exhibited, from the earliest exhibitions such as the 1852 Society of Arts exhibition to the later society and club shows held across Britain from the 1880s. The growth of pictorialist photography espoused by Henry Peach Robinson from the end of the 1850s gathered pace from the 1870s, further reinforcing the tree as a subject for photography. Trees were largely unaffected by movement, except with full leaf canopies in wind, were central to a photograph or used as a framing device. Photography’s technical limitations had little effect on the photographer securing a successful photograph. More substantively, the tree spoke to the Victorian sense of the picturesque. Gnarled trunks and branches, changed across the seasons. It was a relationship that was integral to the landscape and spoke to a past that, by the end of the century, was changing under the modernisation of agriculture.’ 

Michael Pritchard 

Several trade editions of the original project have been published in the past but none with close attention to the faithful reproduction of the photography. This new edition is litho-printed to emphasise the tints and gradients of the original collotypes and introduce the work to contemporary dendrophiles.

Michael Pritchard completed a PhD in history of photography and then prepared the Kodak Historical Collection at the British Library for public access. He was Chief Executive at the Royal Photographic Society 2011-2018 and director of programmes until 2023. He now consults in photographic history for institutions, photographers and archives. He edits The PhotoHistorian and British Photographic History blog.