Two pioneering photojournalists, Christina Broom and John Thomson, are set to be honored with blue plaques at their former homes for their groundbreaking work capturing street life and political upheaval.
Christina Broom, one of Britain’s first female press photographers, documented the suffragette movement in the early 1900s. Despite starting photography later in life with a box camera, Broom’s work appeared in male-dominated newspapers and she even sold postcards of her photos from a stall beside Buckingham Palace.
Her images of soldiers heading off to World War One and members of the Royal Family, as well as her portraits of suffragette activists like Christabel Pankhurst, showcased her talent for capturing significant moments in history.
On the other hand, John Thomson, a Scottish-born photographer, focused on capturing the impoverished characters living on the fringes of late 19th Century society in London. His photographs of street characters like ‘Hookey Alf of Whitechapel’ and the ‘mush-fakers’ of Clapham aimed to raise awareness among the Victorian middle classes.
Thomson’s work also extended to his travels in Asia, where he took the first known photographs of the temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. His innovative mix of photos and text documented cultural life in Singapore, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and China, paving the way for a new form of journalism that brought stories and images to a wider audience.
Both Broom and Thomson were at the forefront of photography during a time when it was not as accessible as it is today. Their contributions to photojournalism will be commemorated with blue plaques at their former residences, recognizing their significant impact on the field.
