Early Images of China

Environmental & Science Education, STEM, Culture, Society, Art & Environment

Ed Hessler

John Thomson was born in Edinburgh in 1837 and left for the Far East in 1862 with a camera and portable dark room. For ten years he captured images from all walks of life in China, Siam (now Thailand) and Cambodia. This collection "form(s) one of the most extensive (photographic) records of any region taken in the 19th Century."

The BBC News has an album of images that he took in China in black and white and some appearing to be in sepia. 

There is an article about him among the photographs which describes his photographic work when he returned. He became "photographer to the Royal Family" in 1881.