Bowman for the Jesus College 1934 Lent Crew and rowing coach for the Jesus College 1944 Lent Crew.
Thomas Stearn (1825 - 1905), a Cambridge tailor, founded this firm of photographers around 1866. Later he ran the firm with his wife Eliza trading as 'Mr and Mrs Stearn'. Later still he took his sons Frank b:1856, Harry Cotterell b:1860, and Walter James b:1865 into the business, trading as Messrs Stearn and later as Stearn and Sons.
After Thomas died the business was run by his sons. Harry Cotterell Stearn died in 1906. Another son, Gilbert Stearn b:1866, was involved in the business at least until 1917. Walter James Stearn died in 1929. Thomas's niece, Edith was also involved with the firm.
Stearn’s operated throughout its history from 72 Bridge Street Cambridge, narrowly avoiding the loss of their premises in a fire in their darkroom in 1898. From 1908 to 1920 local directories also listed premises at Brunswick Terrace Cambridge. At some point between 1939 and 1943 the firm was taken over by A. H. Leach and Son, a well established and growing photo processing business based at Brighouse in Yorkshire.
A new limited company, Stearn and Sons (Cambridge) Ltd, was formed in April 1943, neither the shareholders not the Directors were from the Stearn family. During the period 1942 to 1950 the firm’s processing work was done by A. H. Leach in Brighouse. In 1966 A. H. Leach was taken over by an advertising company, Hunting Surveys, until the Leach family bought the business back from them in 1999. From 1968 the new company, Stearn and Sons (Cambridge) Ltd, did not trade on their own account but acted as agents of their holding companies. In 1970 the Cambridge firm joined Eaden Lilley Photographers.
Stearn and Son took most of the rowing photos until the late 1960's when they joined Eaden Lilley Photographers. Cambridge Central Library have a lot of the original negatives from 1942-1950. The copyright of the photos taken by Eaden Lilley has now passed to Lafayette Photography.
Stearn's, Bridge Street, Cambridge, order number F2105, Neg. No JE9KA
Rowed number 3 in 1966 for the Kent School, Connecticut, Henley Crew.
Leslie Stephen was born in Kensington Gore, London. His family were members of the Clapham Sect, a branch of late nineteenth-century evangelical Christianity. Stephen took Anglican orders in 1859, but a later crisis of faith led to him formally renounce them in 1875. He was educated at Eton College, King's College, Cambridge and Trinity Hall, where he took up a fellowship in 1854, which he resigned in 1867. In that same year he married Harriet (Minny) Thackeray; she died in 1875 from eclampsia while pregnant with their first child.
From 1871 to 1882 Stephen edited the Cornhill Magazine, where he published most of his literary criticism. Stephen encouraged the careers of Thomas Hardy, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edmund Gosse and Henry James. In addition, Stephen published two volumes of 'The History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century' (1876 and 1881) and 'The Science of Ethics' (1882). Stephen was an agnostic and humanist, publishing an essay, 'An Agnostic's Apology' in 1893. Stephen was a keen mountaineer during the Golden Age of Alpinism. Stephen was President of the Alpine Club from 1865 to 1868 and edited their journal between 1868 and 1872.
In 1878 Stephen married Julia Duckworth. Together they had four children, including the writer Virginia Woolf and the artist Vanessa Bell. Julia died of influenza in 1895.