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Home John Frearson Materials Frearson Family History  Research Frearson One-Name Study Lectures and Presentations Rugby Cement History Speight Photographers Ashton Family of Lubenham and Sandy The Green Room Plaque |	The SPEIGHT FAMILY of RUGBY - PHOTOGRAPHERS  - Background and Research STOP PRESS - Recent research findings The Photograph that led to the claim of "Royal Patronage" Many Speight mounts included the wording "Under the Patronage of the Queen" - and after Queen Victoria's death in 1901, "Under the Patronage of the Late Queen".  It was suggested that this was due to a request from the Palace for a copy of a portrait of a "Minor Royal" who was at Rugby School.  It was also suggested that it may have been an Abyssinian Prince. Various research, including requests to Rugby School and the Royal Photograph Collection at Windsor turned up nothing.  However, an report in the "Rugby Observer" on a new book "The Prince who Walked with Lions" by Elizabeth Laird, not only told the story of Prince Alemayehu of Abyssinia [now Ethiopia] but included a portrait of the Prince who had attended Rugby School and was befriended by the Queen.  He died young, aged just 18, of pleurisy, whilst he was in Leeds.  He was buried at Windsor Castle on 21 November 1879. The photograph was recognisably by E H Speight., because of the tassels on the arm of the chair that had featured in other studio portraits [see examples below] in the Speight family album.         Portrait of a man by E H Speight showing the tasseled chair arm   Portrait of James Speight - b. 1879, by his father E H Speight - taken in about 1880.   OTHER NEWS - For other 'recent' Stop Press Items and News Updates follow the link Edward Hall Speight, headmaster turned photographer, worked in Rugby from the early 1870s.  His subjects ranged from town scenes to family groups, from the workhouse poor to local worthies, including the Brooke family and their son who was the famous Poet, Rupert Brooke.  Edward Hall Speight had eight children: his six sons and elder daughter all became photographers, as did one of his grand-daughters.  The sons were sent out “with five pounds, a bible and a tin trunk” and set up studios in Market Harborough, Exmouth, Nuneaton, Kettering, Leamington Spa, Redditch and Sutton Coldfield.  To find out more about the family please follow the links. Click here to see the Speight family Research has been carried out on the family and photographic businesses of the Speight family of Rugby and later elsewhere.  The Speight Photographers Research Project has identified a number of individuals, either in photographs taken by the Speight family, or from entries in James Speight's diaries and autograph book and elsewhere. Various Speight archives have been obtained and are being prepared for deposit at the Warwickshire County Record Office. To assist Family History Researchers, this List of Names is detailed on a separate page. Click here for Rugby and other Names in the Speight Archive Thanks to the generous assistance of the Speight family and members of the public, in Rugby, around the UK and as far away as the USA and Australia, and the cooperation of museums, galleries, libraries, archives and record offices, the story of the lives and work of the members of this talented family can now be told. A Research Report and Booklet have now been published. Click here for more details of these publications Lectures are also available on the "Speight Family of Photographers".  This can be a general talk or can focus on the work of the individual photographers and their work in Rugby, Market Harborough, Nuneaton, Kettering or Sutton Coldfield. The author, John Frearson, is a researcher and family historian, living in Rugby, who came upon some photographs by Gulliver Speight, found that he was born in Rugby, and had to know more!  A Research Report and a Booklet have been published by John Frearson Publications. Further details can be obtained from:- John Frearson - johnphfrearson@btopenworld.com    .