William Vacher, banker and photographer, Shanghai
Collection
Identifier
VH01-019
Copyright
© Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution
Notes
University of Bristol - Historical Photographs of China reference number: VH01-019. Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution reference: L03826-005f. Portrait of William Herbert Vacher (c.1826-1899), aged about 33. The photograph has been cut to an oval shape. William Herbert Vacher (c.1826-1899) was born in London. He became a merchant banker and a prominent freemason, spending more than twenty years in China. He lived in Shanghai from 1851 to June 1863, working as the representative (later a partner) of Gilman, Bowman & Company (Tae-ping), a British tea trading hong. Vacher was gifted amateur photographer, and a friend of the Shanghai photographer Robert George Sillar. Several photographs, including many portraits, taken in and around Shanghai, and signed with Vacher’s initials, are in two photograph albums once owned by the Vacher family and now held by the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute, Bath, England. It is probable that many other photographs in these two albums (HPC refs: VH01 and VH02) were also taken by Vacher. This portrait of William Vacher is by an unidentified photographer. See 'History of Photography in China, 1842-1860' by Terry Bennett, pages 68-71.
Caption in album or on mount
W. H. V. 1859
Location
Date
1859
Material
Paper
Media
Black and white photograph
Repository
Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, Bath
