Talk:Ernest Brooks (photographer)

A couple of queries
His RNVR service reocrd already describes him as "Photographer to HM the King", thougth the article implies he didn't receive this position until after the war.

An obvious question which arises on reading the article is "why was he stripped of his British honours?" I know this usually happens when someone is convicted of a criminal offence, but is there no more info on what happened to him? David Underdown (talk) 14:32, 7 August 2009 (UTC)


 * a) Oh, well done for finding the service records! I forgot all the RNVR ones were online. As to that detail, hmm; nothing says he only became an official photographer after the war, but he was consistently referred to as having been an Express photographer when talking about his WWI career, nothing about royal service.
 * b) I wish I knew. I trawled the Times for the first half of 1925, and found nothing even remotely alluding to it. I can tell you that the Prince of Wales was in Africa at the time, and the King and Queen had only just returned to the country in late April, so it might well have been something that happened earlier and was waiting for someone to get back and sign off on it. I've drawn a complete blank so far, and I honestly have no idea where to look for minor scandals of the 1920s. Shimgray | talk | 22:37, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
 * A little late, but I found this article which implies he may have annoyed the King by taking pictures deemed disrespectful of the Royal family. http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1787&dat=19251227&id=tOAcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=L2QEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4440,831910 --Marjaliisa (talk) 03:01, 17 February 2012 (UTC)


 * That certainly sounds like it would explain it - I'll do some more digging, as having one story to hang it off makes it easier to find others, and single-sourcing it to an American paper seems odd! I wonder if there'll be any reference in biographies of George V or Edward VIII? Shimgray &#124; talk &#124; 19:29, 23 February 2012 (UTC)


 * The South America tour was in 1925; it was part of a longer tour involving Africa. On 5 May, the Prince was still in South Africa (and had just left Cape Town); he wouldn't arrive in South Africa for two more months. The details of the story don't quite match; I think I'll have to look into it more, and see if I can find a copy of the offending photo to nail down when it was printed. Shimgray &#124; talk &#124; 20:09, 23 February 2012 (UTC)


 * ...although, something just rang a bell, and you're right. There is one image by Brooks held in the National Portrait Gallery; it's a formal posed Royal photograph, and it's from 1913. . I'll correct the article. Shimgray | talk | 22:40, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Images which we could do with here

 * one of his many famous skyline images; soldiers walking along a ridge, or the one with an infantryman looking at a gravemarker.
 * the posed photograph of the King with Joffre, etc, in 1916

Both of these are quite widespread; it should be possible to find a high-quality image without needing to get a small copy from the IWM. (I leave this note here mainly as a reminder to myself) Shimgray | talk | 23:00, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

What happened to him after 1936?
Does anyone know? 203.106.220.77 (talk) 07:30, 12 March 2015 (UTC)


 * I've not been able to trace anything despite a fairly diligent search (indeed, finding the 1936 stuff was pretty good fortune). His name is common enough that there are various potential death certificates out there, which doesn't help narrow it down, and there were no signs of any obituaries. My guess is that he died sometime in the 1940s, but it's only a guess. Andrew Gray (talk) 08:49, 12 March 2015 (UTC)