Edwin Stead (b.1862)

Edwin Stead was born in York in 1862. In the 1881 census he is living at Sand Hutton Hall and working as a footman. Nine years later he is listed as a photographer in Bulmer’s Scarborough Directory for 1890. He continues to advertise his studio in the town for the next 16 years.

In the British Journal of Photography for 1890 there is news of court case where Stead takes John Waters and amateur photographer and landlord of the Equestrian Hotel in St Thomas Street to court for the payment of £10. They had both taken a photograph from upstairs in the hotel of the funeral of Mrs Brooks and her six children who were killed in a fire in Queen Street in June 1889. Waters had asked Stead to produce 5000 postcards of the occasion for him to sell. On delivery of the postcards Stead received a cheque for the full amount. When he went to cash the check it had been cancelled. Eventually Waters paid Stead £3.

Stead was married to Eliza (b.1861 in Sheffield). they had three children recorded on the 1891 census, Reginald (b.1886), Harold (b.1887) and Earnest (b.1888).