Following our last story about a magician in Willesden (see below), Jim Steinmeyer the Los Angeles expert on magicians, asked me if I could look for information about Campbell Gray Ltd who photographed the magicians Harry Houdini and David Devant.
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| Houdini, about 1913, by Campbell Gray (Library of Congress) |
This proved very interesting, and I was surprised to find the man who ran the company lived in West Hampstead at one time.
The firm of Campbell Gray was begun in 1902 by A.J. Campbell and C.E. Gray. The first advert I could find by Campbell & Gray was in the paper ‘Cycling’ of 14 June 1902.
On the 1 January 1904 they amalgamated to form Campbell-Gray and Edwards-Duncan Ltd with four named directors: A.J. Campbell, C.E. Gray, P.T. Edwards and C.W.W. Duncan. The company was registered with £3,000 in £1 shares to carry out a photographic business by A.J. Campbell and C.E. Gray at 17 Cheapside in the City, and by P.T. Edwards and C.W.W. Duncan at 173 Fleet Street.
I found that Campbell & Gray was run by (Charles) Eustace Gray, and A.J. Campbell may have been a financial backer.
They were at 17 Cheapside in the City from 1902 to 1909, and specialized in photography for the theatre and music hall.
The firm was very successful and moved to larger premises at 88 Edgware Road in February 1910. An article in the Music Hall and Theatre Review Feb. 1910, describing the studio said they had 38 assistants, which indicates how much work they had.
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| The new Edgware Road studios in 1910 |
They took over the premises from an existing photographer, Anthony Percival Ltd, who had gone bankrupt and been divorced by his wife for adultery. He had previously lived at 10 Victoria Villas, Kilburn and may have known Eustace Gray.
Campbell Gray Ltd were at 88 Edgware Road from 1910 to 1926.
They had lots of photos in The Tatler from 1902 to 1924, and in other illustrated papers and magazines. By 1910 they were advertising as ‘The Vaudeville Photographers’.
Eustace Gray
Eustace Gray was an interesting man. He was born in 1876 and his father was a commercial traveller from Haringey. In 1891 Eustace was living with his widowed mother and two brothers at 5 Lee Bridge Road, Hackney.
Eustace began as an engraver before he became a photographer. In September 1900 he married Nellie Maisie Hinton, at All Saints Church in St Johns Wood, and he gave his occupation as engraver. He gave his address as The Hampden Club and Pancras. Nellie’s address was 1 Marlborough Hill, St Johns Wood.
In June 1901 when their first son Charles Eustace Gray (junior) was born they were living at 7 Rowhill Mansions in Clapham.
Eight years later when their son Burnett Campbell Gray was baptised in July 1909, they were living at 7 Inglewood Road in West Hampstead. They are shown there in the Electoral Registers from 1910 to 1912. ‘Bunny’ Campbell Gray became an actor.
In addition to running the photographic company, Eustace was a publicist and press man. He also raced motorcars at Brooklands. In 1910 he was the Brooklands press secretary, and he bought an Avis III aeroplane for £50 (today worth about £5,400), at the first aeronautical auction in December 1910. He used this for publicity and photographed people with the plane.
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| Colourised photo of the Avis III aeroplane, 1911 |
The firm photographed King George V, Queen Mary, and the family in 1911 and received a Royal warrant. Also, that year Campbell Gray were the official photographers of the 1911 Festival of Empire exhibition.
Eustace was a publicist for several top music hall stars, and he took photos of Harry Houdini and of his wife Bess.
In 1912 he was the press secretary at the London Palladium, and with Charles Gulliver the owner of the Palladium, he formed the black faced Palladium Minstrels who opened on Boxing Day. It was a huge show with a cast of 150, including an orchestra of 40 banjo players. Gray formed two companies, one which toured and the other which performed at the Palladium. But the appeal of banjo bands and black and white minstrels declined, and the company was voluntarily wound up at a meeting at 88 Edgware Road on 12 May 1914.
In November 1922, at an auction, Eustace Gray, bought the large White City exhibition centre. He was acting as the press secretary for the Moss Empires group of theatres. To the astonishment of the audience, Eustace opened the bidding at a quarter of a million pounds. It was finally knocked down to him for £500,000 (worth £28M today).
In September 1926 Eustace, Nellie and their children, sailed to Auckland New Zealand where he worked as a motor agent importing Morris cars from England. On the passenger list he gave his address as 35 George Street W1, (off Baker Street), and his occupation as journalist.
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| Eustace Gray about 1936 |
He also worked in Australia for the Big Brother Movement which recruited teenage children to New South Wales. It was established in 1925 by Richard Linton, a Melbourne businessman, to sponsor youth migration from Britain to Australia. The ‘Little Brothers’ who were aged between 14 and 18, were supported by the Big Brothers. By 1982 it had sponsored over 12,000 young people.
Eustace Gray retired and died in Auckland on 6 April 1952, and Nellie died there in 1970.
In 1964 H.G. Conway of the Bugatti Owners Club, wrote a letter to the British Journal of Photography 24 April (Vol 111 p 322), saying he was trying to find the Campbell Gray negatives. The club was probably looking for photos of Bugatti cars when Eustace Gray was the press officer at Brooklands, but I don’t think they were successful.
We would like to thank Michael Pritchard of the Royal Photographic Society for his help with this story.
Very interesting. I'm doing some research on White City and it appears that Eustace Gray paid a 50,000 deposit after winning the auction but later backed out of the deal. He was suspected of being the front man for a mysterious syndicate. The site was put back on the market and apparently, his deposit was not refunded.
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