Cover of Darwent’s Shanghai (2nd edition, 1920).
We have been quiet recently, but busy, preparing a modest exhibition which responds to a favourite in our collections, the photographs of the Reverend Charles Ewart Darwent, minister of the Union Church Shanghai (新天安堂) from 1899-1919. As well as publishing the first detailed guide to Shanghai, Shanghai: A Handbook for Travellers and Residents, Darwent was a founding and leading light in the Shanghai Amateur Photographic Society. This was established in 1902.
An earlier exhibiton in Bristol attracted the attention of the owner of an album of Darwent’s original prints, dated 1902, which we have digitised and placed online. Many of these can also be found in the minister’s guidebook. The Union Church still stands, or rather after a fire in 2007 its remains were dismantled/demolished and completely rebuilt. More soon.