Robert Adamson

Robert Adamson (26 April 1821 – 14 January 1848) was a Scottish chemist and pioneer photographer at Hill & Adamson. He is best known for his pioneering photographic work with David Octavius Hill and producing some 2500 calotypes, mostly portraits, within 5 years after being hired by Hill in 1843.

Early years

Adamson was born in St Andrews, one of ten children of Rachel Melville and Alexander Adamson, a Fife tenant farmer. He grew up in Burnside and was educated at Madras College in St Andrews where he showed exceptional talents in mathematics and mechanics, twice winning the prize for mathematics. He became employed at an engineering shop from a young age, and apprenticed as a millwright for several months.

Career

Adamson was keen on becoming an engineer, but ill health led to him pursuing photography. He was taught calotype by his brother, John, and by the physicist David Brewster of the University of St Andrews in the late 1830s. As early as April 1839, Adamson's talents were recognized, and Fox Talbot, the inventor of the calotype, would call his pictures "Rembrandtish". Adamson's brother John, a general practitioner, lecturer, and curator of the University Museum, produced the first calotype in Scotland in 1841.

The young chemist, Adamson, established his photographic studio at Rock House, Calton Hill Stairs in Edinburgh, on 10 May 1843. In June, Brewster recommended Adamson to David Octavius Hill (1802–1870), a painter of romantic Scottish landscapes, who hired him; and they were commissioned in 1843 to make a group portrait of the 470 clergymen who founded the Free Church of Scotland. Hill had desired to make photographic portraits of the founders purely as reference material. This painting, however, would not be completed until 1866, long after his death.