Little is known about the men who made lenses for Dallmeyer during the 19th.century.

The stock books give us the names of many of them, listed as turners, framers, finishers and edgers. Putting a face to any of the names is another matter however.

Although we have faces, we have no names, in a collection of ten lantern slides dating from the late 19th.century showing various stages of lens manufacture at Dallmeyer's Newman Street premises.

Two faces with names are named in an article in the British journal of Photography of August 1910 celebrating Dallmeyer's fiftieth anniversary.

Finally, I was lucky enough to trace a father and son who, between them served Dallmeyer for some seventy years between 1860 and 1930.

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