During the 19th century, a number of important historical British figures resided in Potters Bar, including Roger Fenton, the world’s first official war photographer. This is his story, including how his work during the Crimean War earned him acclaim and he came to snap the iconic Valley of the Shadow of Death photograph.
Born in Heywood, Lancashire, on March 28, 1819, Fenton’s path to the war-torn landscape of the Crimean Peninsula and the blood-soaked ground of Sevastopol was an unconventional one.
He studied law in London and painted in Paris before taking up the camera in the early 1850s, but when he did, he was unmatched by any other English photographer during the medium’s ‘golden age’.
Venturing around Great Britain, he captured photos of the nation’s churches and abbeys before travelling to Russia in 1852 to photograph the landscapes of Moscow and Kiev.
Fenton would receive recognition for his work in the years that followed, founding the Photographic Society – now known as the Royal Photographic Society – in 1853, and then being appointed the first official photographer of the British Museum in 1854.
Then in 1855, with the Crimean War raging, he was assigned to capture the carnage in the region, a task that would see his work earn widespread recognition – but also leave its toll on him.
In late 1853, Russia attempted to expand its influence into the European territory of the Ottoman Empire, with Britain, France, Sardinia and Turkey forming an alliance to halt their efforts.
After a year of slow progress and little action, the allies launched an attack on the Russian Black Sea port of Sevastopol, leading to the now infamous and bloody 11-month siege of the city.
Critical reporting of the savage fighting in the area, including the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaklava – immortalised by renowned poet Alfred Tennyson – had led to concern among the British public. As a result Fenton was commissioned by publishers Thomas Agnew & Sons to travel to the Crimea and document the war, a mission encouraged by the government.
He set off aboard HMS Hecla in February, landing at Balaklava on March 8 with photographic assistant Marcus Sparling and a large horse-drawn van of equipment.
Due to the size and long exposures of photographic equipment of the era, Fenton was limited to producing pictures of stationary objects such as the port of Balaklava, camps, battlefields, and posed portraits of officers, soldiers, and support staff.
Due to the nature of his commission, he avoided taking pictures of dead, injured or mutilated soldiers.
Fenton stayed in Crimea until late June, and upon his return to Britain, 11 of his photos were put on display by Agnew at an exhibition titled, Panorama of the Plateau of Sebastopol in Eleven Parts.
Among those pictures was an image often cited as the first iconic photograph of war.
Taken on the Woronzoff Road, Fenton captured the vast, expansive landscape, filled with nothing but cannon balls fired during the siege of the port.
Agnew named the photo ‘Valley of the Shadow of Death’, referring to Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade, the name given to the area by British troops and Psalm 23, and it has since gone down in history.
Research in the early 21st century led to questions over the validity of Fenton’s image, with some claiming he set up the picture after another he took shows the area without any cannon balls present.
It is now believed that this photo was taken first, and the second was captured as troops were gathering the balls and rolling them down the hill on the left of the image as to reuse them later in combat.
This now iconic capture and his exhibition earned Fenton critical acclaim, but his time in the Valley of Death left its toll on him.
Depressed by the savage fighting he had witnessed, the photographer also endured the summer heat, broke several ribs in a fall and suffered a bout of cholera, but he did manage to take more than 350 usable large format negatives – with many of these going on show around Britain.
After returning from Crimea, Fenton continued his photography work before selling his equipment and negatives and resigning from the Royal Photographic Society in 1862.
He would move to Potters Bar – then in the county of Middlesex – shortly afterwards, building a now demolished house that gave its name to Mount Grace School, before passing away on August 8, 1869, aged just 50, after battling a week-long illness.
Fenton’s legacy lives on today through his iconic images, and his tireless work to take photography from its infancy to an establish medium that rivalled painting and drawing.
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