Welcome to the Scott Studio

        Virtual Exhibit

This virtual exhibition has been created from the Elgin County Museum’s exhibit entitled “On the Streets and in the Studio,” which was on display from May to September 2007.

Summary

The Scott Studio was a prominent business in downtown St. Thomas for over 100 years. 

T.H. Scott, the founder of the company worked with other photographers including W.E. Lindop and James Hopkins, before going into business for himself in the early 1890s.  His son Murray took over in 1911 becoming one of the city’s leading photographers. In 1955, Murray sold the business to Frank Sefton of Montreal whose son Clifford and his wife Marg continued to operate the studio until they retired in 1989. The Seftons, knowing the historical value of their negatives and the items associated with the studio, decided to donate the collection to the Elgin County Library, with initial support from the North Yarmouth Historical Society.

                                                                                                                                                                    Cliff and Marg Sefton

The Scott-Sefton Collection, as it is now known, is composed of nearly 100,000 photographic negatives and over 150 artifacts that are housed at the Elgin County Archives and Museum respectively. 

Most of the negatives represent individual portraits or wedding pictures; however approximately 2500 are views of buildings, streetscapes or events that today are a fascinating record of life in Elgin as far back as the 1890s.

The artifacts in the collection provide an overview of the photographic process for the last 100 years.  They include a gunpowder flash used by T.H. Scott in the 1890s, the camera that took the famous Jumbo photographs in 1885, and numerous pieces that represent the workings of a studio. 

Research

This exhibit would not have been possible without the research completed by historian and MPP Steve Peters, Elgin County Museum Curator Mike Baker and Crystal Loyst, YCW Intern.

Books consulted include The Scott-Sefton Collection: Elgin’s History through a Photographer’s Lens, Vol. I produced by Ken Verrell and the members of the Elgin Photographic Heritage Society in 2001. As well as Down the Street to Yesterday produced by the St. Thomas LACAC in 2000.

Additional information was obtained through interviews with Cliff and Marg Sefton.

A selection of negatives from the Scott-Sefton Collection can be viewed on-line at the Elgin County Archives website.