John Thomson: through China with a camera

John Thomson is one of the great figures in the history of photography, an extraordinary photographer, traveller, author, translator and teacher.

Between 1868 and 1872 he spent four years in China and it is his photography from that period that is the subject of this illustrated talk. He travelled from Macao in the South to the Great Wall of China in the North. Recording the North River, the Min and the Yangtze and the people who lived and worked on them.

Thanks to the work of photographic conservators at the Wellcome Collection it is possible to revisit Thomson’s original negatives and see the China recorded through Thomson’s lens accompanied by his words, taken from his three books on China.

Deborah Ireland is a freelance curator and author specialising in the history of photography with an interest in travel photography. Her previous posts include assistant curator at the Royal Photographic Society and director of photography at AA publishing. She has curated exhibitions and written for the Royal Geographical Society, including Isabella Bird, a photographic journal of travels through China 1894 – 1896. A fellow of the Royal Geographic Society, she has been a judge on Travel Photographer of the year since its inception in 2003. Deborah Ireland is leading a tour in October 2025, following in John Thomson’s footsteps from Guangzhou (Canton) to Beijing (Perking).