Photographs of forgotten faces from the nineteenth century have gone online in a unique new collection by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS).
The RHS has added 756 cards from its collections to its free online archive.
Also known as ‘cartes de visite’, calling cards were a popular personal photo format in the nineteenth century.
They consisted of a portrait photograph mounted on a small piece of card. It was common for people to display the calling cards of their friends in their homes.
The RHS collection includes famous figures of the nineteenth century, such as royal consort Prince Albert, novelist Charles Dickens and naturalist Charles Darwin.
But it also includes important figures from the history of horticulture, including Sir William Hooker, the first Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, and Anne Pratt, a bestselling botanical artist.
Some of the figures in the collection are ordinary people who worked in gardening. They may provide family historians with a unique chance to see a photograph of their ancestor.
Fiona Davison, Head of Libraries at the RHS, said: “We’re delighted to now be able to share our collection of calling cards digitally so people can help make new discoveries about the history of gardening and maybe even the history of ancestors in their own family.”
Separately, the RHS has published a collection of 16 calling cards where the identity of the photograph subjects is not known.
It is now asking members of the public to help identify the photographs.
If you recognise anyone in the photographs, please email libraryenquirieslondon@rhs.org.uk.
