After the city passed an act through parliament to demolish the slums of central Glasgow in 1866, Thomas Annan was asked to record the buildings that were coming down. He worked in conditions as bad for photography as they were for humans and took only about thirty successful photographs in the three years he spent on the commission.
Thomas Annan (Scottish, 1829 - 1887)
Having begun his career as a lithographic writer and engraver on a local newspaper in Fife, Thomas Annan set up a studio as a professional photographer in 1855. He founded his own photographic printing works in Hamilton in 1859 and by 1862 had begun to establish a reputation for photographing works of art. In 1866 he purchased the carbon process patent rights for Scotland and in 1883 he secured the British rights for photogravure. Between 1868 and 1871 he executed a commission from the City of Glasgow to photograph the slums of the old town before their demolition.
