User:Cullanro/sandbox

Career/role in Irish history
During Robert John Welch's career he has contributed glass negatives, original prints, lantern slides, original photographic albums and published a series of views. Welch studied in the studio of E.T. Church as a photographer, he then set up his own studio in a small terraced house located on Lonsdale St. in 1983. This house would come to be both his studio and his house for the remainder of his life. Welch’s early work was often comprised of the people around him and the contemporary landscape. In 1886 Welch's collection of ‘’Irish Views’’ gained popularity due to the use of the images in transatlantic liners, railway carriages and in tourist guides and travel books. These photos were mainly of Irish landmarks and geological sites. In the same year The Royal Commission of Enquiry commissioned Welch to record the damage caused in Belfast by the Anti-home rule riots of 1886. In 1889 Welch captured a series of photos of seabird nests on the Rathlin Island. These photos were said to be the first of there kind. In 1880 Welch took a series of photographs on Irish geological sites. These photos were published in 1894 along side a scholarly commentary by Prof. Grenville Cole (qv). These photos constituted a landmark in the history of the subject when they became published. Welch’s prime work consists of his industrial and legal work. Between 1894 and 1914 Welch was appointed official photographer to the firm of Harland and Wolff, and the Belfast Ropework co. Welch was commissioned to record the workplaces and activities of the leading firms of the northern Irish linenopolis. Welch’s most famous work however, resides in his work during 1894 to 1914 where he recorded the construction and preparation of a range of transatlantic liners. The most famous of which being ‘’The Titanic’’. From the 1880’s to 1930’s welch supplied us with a fine collection of negatives of the Belfast streets which provides with an important view of how the city changed during these years.