From the February 1855 edition of Bradshaw’s guide:

interesting to see that daguerreotypes and stereoscopic images were being advertised as early as 1855 or perhaps not as J A Rochlitz was working as a daguerrotypist in Beechworth in 1857, and had previously been working, again as a daguerreotypist, in Ballarat and as we know, Madeleine Smith exchanged photographs with her lover.

None of this should surprise us – Prince Albert had his photograph taken in the early 1840’s and Queen Victoria was an enthusiastic adopter of photography, and of course this was the time of the Crimean War and Roger Fenton’s celebrated photographs.

What is also interesting about the advert is that the daguerreoptypist also advertises the use of watercolourists to add colour to the image, something that is also seen in the pornography of the time.

What it does show is how widespread the adoption of photography was by the middle classes by the 1850s …