Page 52 - KBHA BULLETIN 24

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THOMAS DANIEL RAVENSCROFT, PHOTOGRAPHER, 1851 – 1948

A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY, AND ‘THEN AND NOW’ PHOTOS
LAKESIDE TO SIMON’S TOWN

Barrie Gasson

Early photography

Photography was invented in 1839, apparently independently, in England and France. It came

to South Africa in the mid-1840s and the oldest extant photo is of Wale Street in 1852.

Photographic apparatus was heavy and cumbersome. Images were photographed onto glass
plates coated with the sensitive chemical collodion and had to be processed immediately after

exposure. From the glass negatives any number of prints could then be made. The plates
measured 4” x 6”, 5” x 7”, or 8” x 10”, and dictated the size of the camera box. They were very

fragile and required great care during transportation and storage. (Bull & Denfield, 1970).

TDR – The Man behind the camera

This account is drawn from correspondence with Rollo Ravenscroft, Kathy Munro and Felicity

Jervis.

Thomas Daniel Ravenscroft was undoubtedly one of South Africa’s most important
photographers but very little has been written about him. For example, there is no book

equivalent to Hans Fransen’s A Cape Camera which is a tribute to photographer Arthur Elliott,

1870 – 1938. And the Ravenscroft Collection of 1,963 glass negatives, mostly 4” x 6” and 5”
x 7”, that were donated to the Western Cape Archives in terms of his Will, is only about 20%

of the size of Elliott’s 9,404 negatives.

Ravenscroft was born in Malmesbury in 1851 and developed an early interest in photography.

He apprenticed himself at the age of 17 to William Moore a well-known photographer in Cape
Town and quickly mastered all facets of the art. Around 1871, at the age of 20, he married

Elizabeth Magdalena Viljoen of Robertson and the two of them set off around 1873 by ox-
wagon for Krugersdorp and Victoria Falls. (Figs. 2.1& 2.2) There was probably an assistant