Oldham in royal photo link

UP for auction . . . the photograph of Prince Albert

One of the last photographs of Queen Victoria’s tragic husband, Prince Albert, was taken just a fortnight before his death by a trail-blazing Oldham-born cameraman named John Jabez Edwin Mayall.

Now, 150 years later, a print of Mayall’s photograph of Prince Albert is up for sale and is expected to fetch between £400 and £600 at Bloomsbury Auctions in London on May 18.

Mayall was 48 when he took the image on December 1,1861. A fortnight later, the prince (42) was dead. But what is not revealed in the auction catalogue is Mayall’s fascinating link with Oldham.

According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Mayall was born in Oldham on September 17,1813. His real name was Jabez Meal. He moved to the Huddersfield area in 1841 as a flax spinner, then emigrated to America, where he and an English friend set up a photographic studio.

He returned to Britain and by 1847 had set up his own studio in The Strand, London.

The ODNB says: “It was at The Great Exhibition in 1851 that Mayall’s reputation was firmly established.

“He was popularly believed to be an American. His work received an honourable mention from the jurors and attracted the attention of Prince Albert, an enthusiastic patron of photography. He invited Mayall to photograph the Queen and other members of the Royal Family.”

Mayall later moved to Brighton, set up a studio on the seafront and became mayor in 1877. He was twice married and was a father-of-seven. He was 87 when he died in 1901.