Background
Edward Fitzmaurice Chambré Hardman was born on November 25, 1898 in Foxrock, Dublin, Ireland. He was the third child and only son of the keen amateur photographer Edward Hardman by his marriage to Gertrude Davies.
(A wonderful celebration of Liverpool through the ages as ...)
A wonderful celebration of Liverpool through the ages as seen through the lens of leading British photographer Chambré Hardman.
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Edward Fitzmaurice Chambré Hardman was born on November 25, 1898 in Foxrock, Dublin, Ireland. He was the third child and only son of the keen amateur photographer Edward Hardman by his marriage to Gertrude Davies.
E. Chambré Hardman studied at St. Columba's College in Rathfamham, County Dublin, and in 1917 entered Royal Military College in Sandhurst, England.
From the age of eighteen, he spent four years as a regular officer in the 8th Gurkha Rifles in India where he would eventually be promoted to lieutenant. While on active duty at the foothills of the Himalayas, he found time for photography using his Eastman Kodak No. 3 Special camera and processed rolls of film in his bathroom.
Whilst stationed at the Khyber Pass E. Chambré Hardman met Captain Kenneth Burrell (1893-1953), a man who had not planned on an army career but rather hoped to set up a photographic studio back home in Liverpool, England. Hardman and Burrell decided to go into business together and in 1923, Burrell & Hardman took a lease on business premises at 51a Bold Street in Liverpool's fashionable commercial centre. Starting the business was difficult, and Hardman resorted to selling and repairing wirelesses to subsidise the studio. Eventually it gained a reputation for being the place for anyone with distinction in Merseyside to be photographed by Burrell & Hardman.
It was also in 1923 that Edward Hardman joined Liverpool's "Sandon Studios Society", an "artists' club". In 1926 he visited southern France in company with fellow Sandon members. Three years later Edward Hardman undertook a second visit to France, this time visiting Biarritz. These visits enabled him to build his portfolio of landscape photographs, most notably with his evocative "A Memory of Avignon" and "Martigues".
In 1926 Edward Hardman appointed seventeen-year-old Margaret Mills as his assistant. At first, she would look after the studio in Hardman's absence when he was in the South of France that year. In 1929 Margaret left the studio to train as a photographer in Paisley, Scotland. Margaret and Hardman kept in touch through frequent affectionate letters. In the same year Kenneth Burrell left the business entirely to Hardman.
In 1930 Edward Hardman was awarded 1st prize in the American Annual of Photography and a gold medal in London for his picture "Martigues" taken whilst in Martigues, France in 1926. The prize included a welcome $100 cash element. The 1930s was a prolific period for Hardman's landscape photography.
In 1932 Edward Hardman won a contract with the Liverpool Playhouse theatre to provide portraits and production shots of actors. In 1938 Hardman took over the lease of a second portrait studio based in Chester.
During the war years the business flourished, although because of this Hardman's landscape photography suffered as he had no spare time. During the Second World War there was a black market in films, but Edward Hardman took care not to get involved. His business thrived during the war because of the number of servicemen wanting a family picture to take with them when posted abroad, or a picture of themselves to leave with their family. In 1941 the Hardmans moved to Barnston on the Wirral. There they stayed for seven years, until the Bold Street studio lease expired. The Hardmans then moved to larger premises at 59 Rodney Street, a couple of minute's to the north of the city's cathedral. This became their new studio and also their home for the rest of their lives.
By 1953, however, it seemed that the business was in uncertain times, and there is evidence of Edward Hardman applying for other jobs including, work at the Bluecoat Society of Arts and at Kodak. It was in 1953 Kenneth Burrell, by now in Ireland died, aged 60. In 1958 Hardman suffered further loss with the death of his own mother: the lease on the Chester studio also ended.
In 1965/6 Edward Hardman officially retired, but did continue to work by taking portraits for small commissions and even taking evening classes for the Army. He also continued with some landscape photography, but employed only part-time staff as the fashion for formal photography was in decline.
In 1969 Margaret took the well-known photograph of Chambré Hardman behind his Rolleiflex camera, in collar and tie, and distinctive trilby hat. Early in 1969 Margaret Hardman died of cancer. Edward Hardman not only lost his wife, but his business partner, photographic companion and a very skilful darkroom printer. Following her death, he himself declined, so much so that he came to the attention of Liverpool's Social Services department. Edward Hardman became a recluse and worked less, but did continue to send exhibition prints to the London Salon.
On 2 April 1988, Edward Hardman died at Sefton General Hospital in Liverpool.
(A wonderful celebration of Liverpool through the ages as ...)
Quotes from others about the person
Peter Hagerty writes of Hardman's work: "Chambré Hardman's photographs have become increasingly more concerned with the stark and barren landscape of the far north of Scotland. No less evocative than his earlier work, they have a natural beauty reminiscent of the remote and spectacularly sited lake of his childhood."
On 10 August 1932 Edward Hardman married Margaret, he aged 33 and she 23, and they rented a flat at 59 Hope Street, Liverpool. The marriage was a close one but childless.