John Thomson's photographs, which were taken around 1862, are regarded as one of the best records of a world and way of life, which was shortly to disappear, and represents possibly the most important visual archive of the region in existence today.
John Thomson was born in Edinburgh in 1837 and it is thought that it was here that he first developed an interest in photography. In 1862, he made his first journey to the Far East, deciding first to settle in Penang, where he set up a studio and began to take photographs of the local people.
However, he soon realised that there were far more interesting subjects for his art outside the studio and began to travel extensively throughout the local countryside, photographing people as they were, at work or at rest in their own environment. It is this characteristic of Thomson’s work, his interest in the human existence of his subjects and his sense of involvement and empathy with those that he photographed that was to dominate all his work from then until his death in 1921.
Whether his subject was a beggar or a king, he attempted to capture the individual behind the veneer of social status, thus reflecting his own very deep social values and sense of personal identity. His photographic record of the Far East captured a complete panorama of a world and way of life, which was shortly to disappear, and represents possibly the most important visual archive of the region in existence today.
In 1863 Thomson moved to Singapore, setting up a studio in Commercial Square and trained two local assistants, Akun and Ahong, who would accompany him on almost all his travel throughout the Far East. He visited Hong Kong and Canton on frequent occasions and travelled throughout the Malay Peninsula. In 1865, he set out for Siam and Cambodia with the intention of visiting the old ruined city of Angkor.
In Bangkok he was granted an audience with and photographed the famous King Mongkut and was to remain in Siam altogether for six months, during which time he photographed the city, religious and royal ceremonies and the daily life of the Siamese people. Eventually he succeeded in arranging a visit to Cambodia and after a long and dangerous journey, arrived at the ancient capital of Angkor Thom or “Inthapaturi”, the site of the great Angkor Wat, of which he produced the first photographs ever to be seen.
After returning home to Edinburgh, Thomson set out on his second visit to the Far East in 1867, this time visiting Vietnam, where he stayed for three months, taking photographs in European Saigon and Cholon and arriving in Hong Kong in early 1868. It was at this stage in his life that Thomson began to formulate the idea of building a complete photographic record of China and its people, a task which would take up most of the next four years of his life and take him to some of the remotest parts of China ever visited by an outsider.
He set up a studio in Hong Kong and began to make plans for an enormous circuit of the Chinese mainland. In his first year in Hong Kong, Thomson set about earning a living and issued numerous albums of his photographs, depicting scenes in and around Hong Kong, which today represent some of his most fascinating work. Thomson was to use Hong Kong as his base for several years. From here he embarked on numerous expeditions and excursions into mainland China.
In one 12 month period he visited Fukien province, ascended the River Min, and visited Formosa, Shanghai, Peking, Amoy, the Yangtze, Szechuan, Nanking and Tien-tsin. Thomson’s work began to enter a period of extraordinarily heightened intensity, with a superb series of portraits of noblemen and gamblers, lady’s maids and street-merchants, boatmen and court officials.
He photographed monasteries, tombs, the wide cosmopolitan boulevards of Shanghai, the great metropolis of Peking, the Confucian temples, the Ming Tombs, the Great Wall itself and the remote upper reaches of the Yangtze, on many occasions being the only white man that the inhabitants had ever encountered.
This work was to form the substance of the monumental Illustrations of China and its People, Thomson’s magnum opus, published in four folio volumes in 1873-74. In all, Thomson travelled over 4,000 miles throughout China and the Far East compiling the most important 19th century photographic record of the country and its people ever to be published.
Four years later he began to work on his second great photographic work, recording the lives of the people living on the streets of London, a graphic portrayal of the lives of the under classes. In 1878 Thomson visited Cyprus and the following year settled down to family life in London. In 1881 he received a Royal Warrant, thus making him official royal photographer “By Special Appointment”.
After his death his entire negative collection was sold to Henry Wellcome, an American who had built a hugely successful pharmaceutical firm and the collection remains to this day at The Wellcome Trust in London.