THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPHS MADE AT THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE

Abstract

: The first photographs taken at the Cape of Good Hope (and therefore South Africa) date from 1843 and were due to Charles Piazzi Smyth, Chief Assistant at the Royal Observatory, Cape. His surviving positives and negatives are gathered here with descriptions of their subjects. They are mainly of the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope, of a Magnetic Observatory on the same site that no longer exists, and of various buildings in Cape Town. However, they also include the first photographic portraits made at the Cape and images of two astronomical instruments.