A stand of pine trees done in a pictorialist style by Reginald Craigie.

Reginald Walpole Craigie:  1859-1930

His “charming personality and integrity” being besides the point, two different perspectives emerge of the younger Reginald Craigie relating to his failure as a faithful spouse. This occurred during his 1887 marriage to Pearl Mary Teresa Richards, (1867-1906) an Anglo American novelist and dramatist who wrote under the pen-name of John Oliver Hobbes.

• The following biography of Craigie was included in the Margaret Harker volume: The Linked Ring: The Secession in Photography 1892-1910:

A clerk in the Bank of England, Craigie’s chief interest in photography lay in portraiture, at which he excelled. He was both interested in and sympathetic towards people as evidenced in the sincerity inherent in his portrait studies. His sensitive work is characterized by purity and delicacy of tone values and by soft definition. His photographs are ‘straight in the sense that they are devoid of manipulation (Plate 5. 7).

From 1898 he devoted a great deal of time to the duties of Secretary of both Ring and Salon which he took over from Maskell. His popularity was due to his charming personality and integrity. He was elected a Fellow of the RPS in 1895 and a Council member in 1898. He was one of the Links who, on the disbandment of the Ring, joined the group who formed the London Salon. He was largely responsible for the re-establishment of the Camera Club in 1908-09. (p. 149)

• The following biographical excerpt of Pearl Craigie from the University of Reading (Special Collections):

In 1887, at the age of nineteen, Pearl married Reginald Walpole Craigie, a handsome man seven years her senior, but the marriage was a disaster from the start. Craigie drank and womanised, and Pearl retreated into studying classics at University College London and writing. In 1890, Pearl gave birth to a son, John Churchill Craigie, in a house near her parents’ home on the Isle of Wight. In May 1891, determined to protect her child, she left her husband and moved back in with her parents permanently, although she did not obtain a divorce until 1895. 1. University of Reading (Special Collections) Reference: MS 2133A

The Linked Ring

Reginald Craigie became member on 2 June, 1896. His Pseudonym was Chancellor. He was a center link during periods in 1897, 1900 and 1909 . There is no record or date of his severance.(1.)

1. The Linked Ring:The Secession in Photography 1892-1910, Margaret Harker: 1979, p. 182