George Washington Wilson
George Washington Wilson (7 February 1823 – 9 March 1893) was a pioneering Scottish photographer. In 1849, he began a career as a portrait miniaturist, switching to portrait photography in 1852. He received a contract to photograph the Royal Family, working for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
Also recorded as G. W. Wilson · George W. Wilson · George Wilson
George Washington Wilson
George Washington Wilson · Public domain
- Name
- George Washington Wilson
- Born
- 7 February 1823
- Birthplace
- Alvah, Banffshire
- Died
- 9 March 1893
- Place of death
- Aberdeen, Scotland
- Nationality
- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
- Occupation
- photographer · painter · businessperson
- Fields
- portrait
- Languages
- English
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Documentary summary
George Washington Wilson (7 February 1823 – 9 March 1893) was a pioneering Scottish photographer. In 1849, he began a career as a portrait miniaturist, switching to portrait photography in 1852. He received a contract to photograph the Royal Family, working for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
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Note VALÉORINE
George Washington Wilson (1823–1893) was a businessperson, painter and photographer, of British nationality. The businessperson was born and died in Aberdeen.
The work spans portrait. Languages used include English. Works are held at Art Institute of Chicago, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Minneapolis Institute of Art, among others.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 27 September 2026
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Authority files
wikidata · Q2179710 · wikipedia · George Washington Wilson
In this article
Biography
Biography
He pioneered various techniques for outdoor photography and the mass production of photographic prints as he gradually began to largely do landscape photography in the 1860s.
The recorded working language is English. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are portrait. Work by George Washington Wilson is recorded in the collections of Minneapolis Institute of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Tate, National Gallery of Canada and Museum of Modern Art.
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — George Washington Wilson • Born — 7 February 1823 • Birthplace — Alvah, Banffshire • Died — 9 March 1893 • Place of death — Aberdeen, Scotland
Biography
Biography
Wilson was born in 1823 in Alvah, Banffshire. After studying art in Edinburgh and London, Wilson returned to his native city of Aberdeen in 1849 and established a business as a portrait miniaturist catering to the wealthy families of the North East of Scotland. After some years of mediocre success, Wilson ventured into portrait photography in 1852, setting up a portrait studio with John Hay in 25 Crown Street in Aberdeen. From there, aided by his well-developed technical and commercial acumen and a contract to photograph the Royal Family while documenting the building of Balmoral Castle in 1854–1855, he established himself as one of Scotland's premier photographers working for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1860. Pioneering the development of techniques for photography outside of the studio and the mass production of photographic prints, he moved increasingly from portraiture to landscape photography in the 1860s. He also produced stereoscopic pictures whose main characteristic was that exposures were very short. By 1864 he claimed to have sold over half a million prints. At the time of his death in 1893 (he had handed over the business to his sons, Charles, Louis and John Hay Wilson in 1888) the firm employed 40 staff and was one of the largest publishers of photographic prints in the world, competing with James Valentine, who was also a prolific photographer, with a large company in Dundee. The business survived until 1908, when it was wound up at auction. He died in 1893, aged 70, and was buried in Nellfield Cemetery in Aberdeen.
Identity
Identity
Recognition and collections.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1823
George Washington Wilson was born in 1823 at Aberdeen.
1893
George Washington Wilson died in 1893 at Aberdeen.
Collection
• Illustration — Moroccan couple from Tangier by George Washington Wilson - 1872 Over 40,000 of Wilson's photographic glass plates survive, largely due to the meticulous washing and chemical treatments he insisted on. Aberdeen University is in possession of some 38,000 of these, which were donated by an Aberdeen photographer, the late Archie Strachan, in 1958. They date from the late 1850s down to the early years of the 20th century and cover not only Aberdeen and the North East of Scotland but the whole of Scotland and most of England, as well as parts of Wales and Northern Ireland, Gibraltar, Morocco including Tangier, the South of Spain, and (especially) colonial South Africa and Australia. A further 500+ photographic glass plates can be found in Aberdeen City Council Archives, Gallery and Museums Collection. From about 1870 onwards Wilson relied increasingly on others to add to his stock. Thus all of the Mediterranean Sea views and many of the English and Scottish series are the work of staff photographers, or were commissioned by the company from photographic firms elsewhere in the UK; and the Australian and South African images were added to the firm's stock in the 1890s by Charles Wilson (George's son) and staff photographers such as Fred Hardie. • Illustration — Wilson c.1865 • Illustration — Edinburgh from the Grass Market • Illustration — John Struthers (at left, in top hat) with the Tay Whale at John Woods' yard, Dundee, 1884, photographed by Wilson • Illustration — Queen Victoria on 'Fyvie' with John Brown at Balmoral, 1863, National Galleries of Scotland • Illustration — Wilson's August 1885 photograph of the Glen Tilt looking upstream toward Forest Lodge. • Illustration — Engraving of George Washington Wilson • Illustration — George Washington Wilson's House At Queen's Cross - artwork in Aberdeen Archives, Gallery and Museums Collection
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Taylor, Roger. George Washington Wilson, artist and photographer, 1823-93. London Stereoscopic Co. 2018. 9780957424692.
- 2.Kennedy, Maev. Love of my life: Brian May to launch book on Victorian photographer. The Guardian. 9 August 2018.
- 3.Taylor, Roger. Wilson, George Washington (1823–1893), miniature painter and photographer. 2004-09-23. 10.1093/ref:odnb/38138.
- 4.Alastair J Durie, "Tourism and commercial photography in Victorian Scotland: the rise and fall of G W Wilson & Co., 1853-1908," Northern Scotland, vol.12, 1992.
- 5.Elizabeth Bennett, Photographic treasures in the George Washington Wilson Collection. Aberdeen University Review, no. 167, 1982, 168-170.
- 6.Diane Morgan, Archie Strachan - Photographer, Leopard Magazine (Aberdeen), November 1985.
- 7.Heather F. C. Lyall, Treasures on glass, Leopard Magazine, January 1989, 6-10.
- 8.AUL Publishing in association with the Centre for Scottish Studies, University of Aberdeen. By royal appointment: Aberdeen's pioneer photographer, George Washington Wilson, 1823-1893. 1997. 978-1874078081.
- 9.Charles A Wilson. Aberdeen of Auld Lang Syne: a pictorial retrospect. Henry Munro. 1948.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 1
- Durie, Alastair (1986), "George Washington Wilson: Photographic Innovator and Entrepreneur", in Parker, Geoff (ed.), Cencrastus No. 23, Summer 1986, pp. 21 – 27,
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Wikidata, structured authority record Q2179710: George Washington WilsonWikimedia Foundation
Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
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