
The Hampstead 'set' from more than 150 years ago was captured by a pioneering woman photographer offering a rare glimpse of 19th Century intellectual suburban life.

Long-forgotten Victorian photographer Emma Johnston documented the activities of her immediate circle and the many influential visitors to the family home, Manor House.

Her pet dog Juno even gets a walk-on part making it perhaps one of the earliest pet portraits in existence.

Starting around 1858, Emma Frances Johnston systematically recorded her friends and extended family, capturing them forever on film

Her portraits include William Wardell, the architect of St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney and St Patrick's in Melbourne, Frederick Edwards the geologist-palaeontologist, George Waterhouse, the curator at London Zoo, as well as painters, diplomats and artists' models.

The photographer, who pre-dates one of the most renowned of the Victorian era Julia Margaret Cameron, is said to be one of the lost figures of Victorian photography.

Not much is known about the Hampstead, middle-class photographer other than her life can be best understood through her photographs which cover the years 1858-1864

But not much is known about the Hampstead, middle-class photographer other than her life can be best understood through her photographs which cover the years 1858-1864.

Her father was a solicitor and she remained unmarried but through her portfolio of more than 350 unpublished images, modern viewers can get an insight into the circles in which she she moved.

An early picture taken by the Victorian photographer Emma Johnston, showing a Mr Horn, his niece and other family and friends posing for the camera

A mother poses for Miss Johnston while her young son has a nap and remains completely oblivious to the camera

Children playing probably on Hampstead Heath; unlike today's youngsters these do not seem obsessed with posing, even though the technology was new

Emma Johnston used her family as her subjects for many of her portraits and here she uses her mother, aunts Jane and Ellen, and 'W' and George

The collection is expected to fetch up to £15,000 when it goes under the hammer at Bonhams sale of Fine Books, Atlases, Manuscripts and Photographs in London on November 12.

Head of Books Mathew Haley said: 'Emma Johnston stands in a great tradition of Victorian women photographers.

'Unlike her famous contemporaries, Lady Hawarden, admired for her technical and artistic achievements and Julia Margaret Cameron, who gained recognition for her celebrity portraits, Emma was chiefly concerned with the daily round of her own social circle which may explain why this most talented of amateurs has been unjustly neglected.'

The collection is expected to fetch up to £15,000 when it goes under the hammer at Bonhams sale of Fine Books, Atlases, Manuscripts and Photographs in London on 12 November

This is a photograph of Manor House in North End Road, Hampstead, taken in 1864 before it was altered. The house has many distinguished visitors and Miss Johnson photographed some

Posers: E J F Edwards (left) and (right) Juno the dog were both the subject of Emma Johnston's camera