His wife, who had given birth to a son while married, died of influenza not long after the trial. His clothes were rumpled - late in life, when he was famous and not at all hard up, he wore pants so dilapidated, an associate recalled, that “it was not safe for him to go outside.” He also liked to eat cheese flies, little insects that hovered around old cheese. For another, he didn’t seem to believe in grooming and let his beard grow down to the middle of his chest. For one thing, he didn’t like to photograph people, a large part of the trade. He succeeded in this vocation against all odds.

Muybridge’s true forté - a combination of mechanical aptitude and visual sense - eventually found expression with photography. Among the items he sold were photographs. At the age of 20 he sailed to New York City where he worked as a sales representative for a company that offered, in Bell’s words, “upmarket books and prints, respectable things, encyclopaedias for the parlor, lithographs you could frame.” A few years later, he moved to San Francisco to found his own book store - an unpromising enterprise in a rough-hewn, bare-knuckled, migrant city where a third of the population didn’t even speak English.

Muybridge was born in a suburb of London in 1830 as Edward Muggeridge - he changed his name a number of times in the course of his career, ending with Eardweard Muybridge when he was 52. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receipt.

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