The First Family Photo Ever Taken? (1800-1893) | What Happened to Them? | Family Timeline

In 1843, when photography itself was still in its infancy, William Henry Fox Talbot created an extraordinary image at Lacock Abbey in England: Group Taking Tea at Lacock Abbey. Dated August 17, 1843, the photograph shows six people arranged around a tea table in one of the earliest years of photographic history.

But who were the people frozen inside this remarkable photograph - and what happened to them after the camera captured that single moment?

In this video, we go beyond the image and trace the lives of the people represented in the scene, following their family connections, personal stories, and the years that came after one of photography’s most fascinating early group portraits.

The photograph was created at Lacock Abbey, the home of William Henry Fox Talbot and one of the most important places in the history of photography. Years earlier, in 1835, Talbot photographed a small window inside the Abbey, producing what is recognized as the world’s earliest surviving photographic negative.

More than 180 years later, the faces in this photograph still remain — but the lives behind those faces are rarely remembered.

This is their timeline.

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Research Sources / References:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Group Taking Tea at Lacock Abbey

University of Oxford, Bodleian Libraries - A Group Taking Tea at Lacock Abbey

National Trust - The Fox Talbot Photography Museum at Lacock Abbey

National Science and Media Museum - The History of Photography

Created for educational and historical storytelling purposes