Fardon, George Robinson^{[1, 2, 3, 4]}

1807 - 1886  (78 years)

• Name	Fardon, George Robinson
  Birth	13 Dec 1807	Birmingham, Warwickshire, Eng., UK   [5]
  Gender	Male
  Business Address/Year	1861-Oct 1863	Victoria, BC
  	Address: Government St. Fardon's Photographic Gallery Victoria, BC Canada
  Business Address/Year	1863	Victoria, BC
  	Address: 68 Government St. Fardon's Photographic Gallery Victoria, BC Canada
  Business Address/Year	Oct 1863-Jul 1871	Victoria, BC
  	Worked at this address until at least Jul 1871
  	Address: Langley St. at Yates St. Fardon's Photographic Gallery Victoria, BC Canada
  Death	20 Aug 1886	Victoria, BC   [6]
  Burial	22 Aug 1886	Ross Bay Cemetery, Victoria, BC   [7, 8]
  Association	Shakespeare, Noah (Relationship: Employee)
  Association	Fardon's Photographic Gallery (Relationship: Proprietor)
  Person ID	I236	Camera Workers | F, vol. 1, 1858-1900
  Last Modified	5 Jul 2022

  
  

• Photos » Slide Show		Photographer G.R. Fardon. Image courtesy of BC Archives, item no. G-03088.
  		Photographer Noah Shakespeare. Photographed by G.R. Fardon. Image courtesy of BC Archives, Visual Records call no. B-01413.
  		Victoria from St. Nicholas Hotel, BC, Jul 1871. Visible on the building with the sign "Books and Stationery" is a sign below it identifying "Fardon's Photographic Gallery". Photograph by Benjamin Baltzly. Courtesy of McCord Stewart Museum; http://collections.musee-mccord.qc.ca/en/collection/artifacts/I-69901/
  		G.R. Fardon, Victoria from the Songhees lands, 1860 or 1861. This is the leftmost photograph on which his famous panoramic engraving published in the Illustrated London News in 1863 is based. This photograph formed part of a panorama exhibited at the London International Exhibition of 1862. Image courtesy of BC Archives item F-09568 (HP012183).

  
  

  Documents » Slide Show		G.R. Fardon's ad, Victoria Colonist, 4 Oct 1862, p. 2.
  		G.R. Fardon's ad, Victoria Colonist, 3 Nov 1863, p. 4. This ad first appeared in late Oct 1863.
  		G.R. Fardon's ad, Victoria Colonist, 12 Jul 1865, p. 2. Fardon advises his customers and the public that during his absence his studio will be managed by Noah Shakespeare. This ad first appeared in early Jun 1865.
  		Noah Shakespeare's ad for Fardon's Photographic Gallery, Victoria Colonist, 23 Feb 1866, p. 3. A similar ad was published in the Victoria Vancouver Post.
  		G.R. Fardon news item, Victoria Colonist, 27 Jun 1866, p. 3. About a theft of photographs with a humourous twist.
  		G.R. Fardon's ad, Victoria Colonist, 19 Sep 1869, p. 2.
  		G.R. Fardon's obituary, Victoria Colonist, 21 Aug 1886, p. 3.
  		G.R. Fardon's ad in Joseph Park's A Practical View of the Mining Laws of British Columbia (1864), p. lxvii. Immediately below this ad was one for J.W. Vaughan.
  		G.R. Fardon's ad, Victoria Colonist, 5 Mar 1861, p. 2. This ad is dated 2 Mar 1861.
  		G.R. Fardon's ad, Victoria Daily Standard, 20 Jun 1870, p. 3.
  		Noah Shakespeare's ad for Fardon's Photographic Gallery, Victoria Vancouver Post, 6 Mar 1866, p. 2 and 4. A similar ad was published in the Colonist.
  		G.R. Fardon ad, Victoria Daily Chronicle, 31 Oct 1863, p. 2. The ad is dated 27 Oct and is very similar to an ad which started appearing at the same time in the Colonist.
  		G.R. Fardon ad, Victoria Daily Chronicle, 2 Aug 1864, p. 2. This ad announced the auction on 4 Aug of his Government Street property where his studio had formerly been located.
  		Mechanics' Literary Institute ad, Victoria Colonist, 19 Jan 1865, p. 1. This ad, which appeared as early as Dec 1864, mentions that the institute's rooms are on the first floor (one above ground level) of Fardon's building, which implies his ownership.
  		G.R. Fardon news Victoria Evening Telegraph, 25 July 1866, p. 2. This news item announced his return from England via Portland, OR, on the Fideliter which had left Portland on 23 Jul.
  		G.R. Fardon ad, Victoria Daily Standard, 21 Jan 1873, p. 2. Fardon sold his household effects and his photo studio equipment in preparation for his move to California. He later returned to Victoria but did not take up photography again.
  		G.R. Fardon news, Victoria Daily Standard, 27 Jan 1873, p. 3. Fardon left Victoria a few days after auctioning off his business inventory and his household effects. He returned to San Francisco.
  		G.R. Fardon news, Victoria Colonist, 4 Aug 1864, p. 3. The Colonist version of the Chronicle ad for the auction sale on 4 Aug of his Government Street property where his studio had formerly been located.
  		G.R. Fardon news, Illustrated London News, 10 Jan 1863, p. 12 The photographs on which this engraving was based were created in 1860 or 1861. The Songhees lands are in the foreground with part of the village visible on the far left of the top image.
  		G.R. Fardon imprint from verso of carte-de-visite. The front is a studio portrait of Lieutenant E.H. Verney who was then serving on HMS Grappler. The BC Archives version of this photograph is Item I-61283 (HP007434). This portrait is mentioned in a letter of 17 Mar 1863 from Verney to his father (Pritchard, ed., Vancouver Island Letters of Edmund Hope Verney, 1862-65, UBC Press, 1996, p. 128).

  
  

  Headstones

  G.R. Fardon's gravestone, Ross Bay Cemetery, Victoria, BC.

  
  

• Notes

  STATUS: Commercial. BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY: While living in Birmingham, Eng., he had a partnership with Thomas Langley as a leather dealer which went bankrupt in 1836 and was finally dissolved on 1 Sep 1837. Fardon emigrated to New York and is believed to have followed the gold rush to California in 1849. He operated a daguerreotype studio at 146 Kearny St., San Francisco, in 1855-1856 and then at 200 or 203 Clay St. in 1857-1858. His studio was listed for sale in May 1858 and it is presumed he moved up to Victoria shortly thereafter. The first indication of his photographic work in Victoria comes in Jan 1861 when he was assessed for taxes. In Dec 1861 he served on a coroner's jurey during an inquest into the murder of a stoker, Thomas Holmes, from HMS Topaze (Weekly British Colonist, 10 Dec 1861, p. 1). An 1863 ad for his move to Langley St. into a brick building he owned mentioned that he had been in business for three years or since 1860. Primarily a portrait photographer--many photos of early political figures were taken in his studio--, Fardon also practiced landscape work. He was called to serve on a grand jury in Jan 1862 (Victoria Daily Evening Press, 21 Jan 1862, p. 3), and again in Sep 1862 (Weekly British Colonist, 9 Sep 1862, p. 7). Both he and W.F. Robertson were listed as subscribers to the Lancashire Relief Fund (Colonist, 28 Mar 1863, p. 3). He published an album of views of San Francisco in 1856, the first of its kind in North America. His landscape photographs of Victoria are very few; some of these were displayed at the London International Exhibition of 1862. By Dec 1864 a newspaper ad indicated the Mechanics' Literary Institute was housed on the first floor of his building on Langley St. (Colonist, 29 Dec 1864, p. 1). Between Jul 1865 and Jul 1866, when Fardon was in England, his studio was managed by Noah Shakespeare. A photo taken in Jul 1871 by Benjamin Baltzly shows the sign for his studio on Langley St. He retired from photography in Jan 1873 when he auctioned off his household effects, photo studio equipment, inventory and returned to San Francisco a few days later. He resumed photography in Oakland as Bluett and Fardon and was back in Victoria by 1877. Fardon was buried in Ross Bay Cemetery, Victoria. IDENTIFYING MARKS: "G R Fardon, Photographer Victoria V.I." on verso of carte-de-visite; "Fardon" embossed on front of carte-de-visite; some cartes-de-visite have a blank scroll design on the verso; "G.R. Fardon" embossed on front of print mount. REFERENCES: HOW63; MAL68; MAL69; MAL71; (San Francisco) Evening Bulletin, 1858 05 24/2; (Victoria) Chronicle, 1863 11 28/2; (Victoria) Colonist, various references; Fardon (1977 reprint); Schwartz (1978 12); Fardon (1999 reprint); Mattison (1999a); Mattison (1999b); BVIPA GR-1304, file 229 (probate); BVIPA Visual Records Photographer File.

  
  

• Sources

  [S46] COLLECTION: BVIPA. Cartes-de-visite and prints [S1099] Points to the Past (Web site), (Burnaby, BC: BC Electronic Library Network). Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, vol. 12, issue 607, 13 Aug 1836, "Bankrupts, &c." [S1099] Points to the Past (Web site), (Burnaby, BC: BC Electronic Library Network). Thomas Perry, Perry's Bankrupt and Insolvent Gazette, London: F. Griffiths, 1837, "Partnerships Dissolved", p. 564. [S385] Peter E. Palmquist and Thomas R. Kailbourn, Palmquist and Kailbourn (2000), (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000), 223-224. [S924] Ancestry.ca (Web site). Source Citation The National Archives; Kew, England; General Register Office: Society of Friends' Registers, Notes and Certificates of Births, Marriages and Burials; Class: RG 6; Piece: 1137 Source Information Ancestry.com. England & Wales, Quaker Birth, Marriage, and Death Registers, 1578-1837 [S652] BVIPA death registration index. Registration no. 1886-09-004236 (microfilm B13077); digital facsimile URL (accessed 6 Nov 2021): http://search-collections.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/Image/Genealogy/d829a1be-fb87-4ba2-8cb3-062c687a019d [S628] (Victoria) Colonist, (Victoria: Colonist), 21 Aug 1886, 3. "Death of George R. Fardon" Obit. [S832] Find a Grave (Web site). George Robinson Fardon URL (accessed 6 Nov 2021): https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/117743244/george-robinson-fardon