George Davison

George Davison: Photography to the People George Davison was born and brought up in Kirkley Lowestoft in the 1850's. His father worked as a shipwright and his mother ran their house, in Marine Parade, as both a family home and a boarding house. Educated at St John's Church School he passed his Civil Service Exams and moved to London to work at Somerset House. Following his marriage and the birth of his children George became interested in photography and joined the first ever Camera Club. He quickly rose to the role of secretary of the club and began exhibiting photographs in the annual Royal Photographic Society Exhibitions. Inspired by the eminent Broadland photographer P H. Emmerson, many of his photographs featured Lowestoft. He demonstrated an interest in simplifying photographic techniques with his image \"The Onion Field\" taken with a lensless pinhole camera. The technique proved divisive, with critics lining up on both sides to love or hate it. As George's social and photographic profile grew he very publicly fell out with Emmerson and found new inspiration in his friendship with Eastman who was looking to set up a branch of his American Photographic Chemicals Business in the UK. George left his job with the Civil Service and joined the new company with a modest salary but with a substantial share in the company, Eastman Kodak. George's role was to popularise photography with inspirational images taken by his photographer friends, large exhibitions and a nationwide network of shops in the innovative and modish Art Nouveau style. Kodak proved instrumental in simplifying photographic techniques and making it accessible to ordinary people and in doing so, George became a a very wealthy man. Driven by passion and idealism rather than profit, George ultimately left Kodak and used his wealth to support socialist endeavours, including Working Men's Colleges in England, Scotland and Wales, before retiring to the south of France, with his second wife and a new family comprising a dozen orphans from the East End of London. He died in the 1930's.