"Questions of Travel": The Lives of Benjamin Stone and Helen Caddick

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Date:Not Recorded

Description:All text by Dr Andy Green


“From the time I was a very young man, I have been a great traveller ” (Stone, ‘Mainly about People’, 1908).

On a wall of the Local Studies Department of Birmingham Central library hangs a painting of a Victorian gentleman watching over those who come to read about the city’s many histories. You can easily pass this portrait without realizing its significance. Sir Benjamin Stone was perhaps Birmingham’s greatest nineteenth century traveller and photographer. This exhibition is designed to give an insight into the life of Stone, the travels he went on and pictures he bought and created. It will also take into account the work of another important early photographer from Birmingham, Miss Helen Caddick.

Sir John Benjamin Stone (1838-1914), born in Aston, combined many different roles and interests. He was an ndustrialist, businessman, member of parliament, student of folk customs and worldwide traveller. However, Stone’s most significant achievement was to become one of the most prolific photographers of the late nineteenth century. The ‘Stone Collection’ housed today in Birmingham Central Library is estimated to contain 22,000 prints, 17,000 negatives, 50 volumes of collected photographs, 50 volumes of press cuttings, a number of Parliamentary Diaries and several albums of Stone’s social invitation cards. Meanwhile, the large twelve volume Caddick diary collection also represents a lifetime in travel which we can use to explore and learn about the late nineteenth century.

These archive collections have great relevance to us today. They highlight Birmingham’s long history of engagement with global cultures as well as raising important issues concerning how nineteenth century travellers represented ideas of race through the new medium of photography. As will become clear in the following pages, we need to think very carefully about the images they gathered in order to question the underlying political attitudes Stone and Caddick took with them on their travels. If Stone and Caddick used images to bring the world to Birmingham’s doorstep, not all the world was perceived as ‘equal’. Both collectors often saw other cultures through widespread and influential ideas about race which divided the world into crude and narrowly determined categories.



Image: Portrait of Stone in Birmingham Central Library, Local Studies and History.

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Donor ref:Birmingham Central Library (39/842)

Copyright information: Copyrights to all resources are retained by the individual rights holders. They have kindly made their collections available for non-commercial private study & educational use. Re-distribution of resources in any form is only permitted subject to strict adherence to the usage guidelines.