Stewart, John
1814 – 1887
A Scot by birth, his older sister Margaret (d.1884) was married to Sir John Frederick William Herschel (1792-1871) one of the leading scientists of his day and the man responsible for introducing Henry Fox Talbot, with whom he formed a lasting friendship, to Sir David Brewster. Herschel may have been the conduit for Stewart's subsequent interst in photography and he and his brothers entered the printing business in London, and in 1839 he married a childhood friend from Scotland who was living in France on account of her delicate health. As a result he spent much of his time living in Pau in South-West France which was well-known as a favoured spot for recuperation as well as being a hotbed of photographic activity, with an unusually active group of amateurs working there with waxed paper negatives. Stewart teamed up with Maxell Lyte at Pau and formed an active photographic society and a printing establishment. (vide Taylor, Roger: Impressed by Light, British Photographs from paper negatives 1840-1860, with a Biographical Dictionary compiled by Larry J. Schaaf in collaboration with Roger Taylor, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2009, p.375)
