Frank Meadow Sutcliffe (1853 – 1941) Skinner Street

Frank Meadows Sutcliffe

Courtesy of Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society

A nationally and internationally acclaimed pioneering photographer who helped to develop photography as an art form. Sutcliffe worked in Whitby from the mid-1870s until his death. He was also from the early 1920s, secretary of the Literary & Philosophical Society in the town. Most of the photographs for which he is now famous were taken, often out-of-season, for his own satisfaction, his main income was from taking portraits. His photographs include many of the harbour, fishing and fisher-folk, all carefully posed. They provide a detailed and often poignant history of the town during his lifetime. His equipment ranged from the cumbersome brass and mahogany full-plate cameras with their wet collodion process of the late nineteenth century to the hand-held bellows types of this century using celluloid negatives. To view his amazing gallery of photographs and to purchase prints please visit The Sutcliffe Gallery.

Source: Whitby Museum

The blue plaque is fixed to the site of one of his studios in the town.