Roger Fenton

Born in Rochdale in 1819, the son of a local mill owner and banker.

He photographed Queen Victoria and her royal estates.

Fenton's enduring claim to fame is that he was the first official war photographer. In 1853 he was commissioned by the British Government to create a photographic record of the Crimean War. The government was under attack for its incompetence in the conduct of a war that was claiming large numbers of lives, mostly through disease and inadequate provision for the harsh conditions under which the troops were forced to live. The cold alone was responsible for a significant proportion of the deaths. In fact, only 20% of the British fatalities were the result of war wounds. In essence Fenton was dispatched in an effort by the government to improve its public relations.

Fenton took 350 images of the war which form this ground breaking collection. However, compared with war photographers who followed in Fenton's footsteps, his choice of subjects did little to inform us of the reality of the battlefield. Perhaps influenced by his actual mandate, not to photgraph the dead Fenton reserved his documentation of the Crimea to images taken well away from any action.