Christina Broom (1862 – 1939) was a self-taught photographer, credited as ‘the UK’s first female press photographer’. Maidstone Museums (with the Tyrwhitt-Drake Carriage Collection) hold a fascinating collection of her early photographs of carriages and horses at the Royal Mews, London.
She held a stall in the Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace selling postcards of photographs that she had taken from 1904 until 1930. Christina was appointed as the official photographer to the Household Division from 1904 to 1939 and had a darkroom in the Chelsea Barracks. She also took many photographs of local scenes, including those at the Palace, as well as The Boat Race and Suffragette marches.
In the 1920s and 1930s her work was featured in publications such as the Illustrated London News, The Tatler, The Sphere and Country Life. As well as Maidstone Museum, her collections are held at the Museum of London, the National Portrait Gallery, the Imperial War Museum, the National Museum of Scotland and the Royal Maritime Museum.
Visit the Maidstone Carriage Museum, featuring the Tyrwhitt-Drake Collection of Carriages, open Friday – Sunday from 12pm – 4pm.
