By Michel Rossignol
Joseph A. Lockwood was already an experienced photographer when he and his family arrived in Ottawa around 1853. Various sources state that he was this city’s first resident photographer. He apparently showed one of his young daughters, Alvira, the tricks of the trade so she could help him in the studio.
When Mr. Lockwood died in July 1859 (some sources say 1860), Alvira took over the family business and, as a result, she is now considered Ottawa’s first female photographer. She was also probably the youngest of the numerous photographers working in Ottawa in the 1860s. However, it is difficult to state her age in 1860 with any certainty because various sources provide contradictory information on the dates of her birth and death, not to mention her place of birth. The most accurate source is possibly the Beechwood Cemetery’s 2015 publication Historic Portraits, which states that she was born in 1845 and died on April 5, 1925. (She is buried in the Beechwood Cemetery.)
She worked for about twenty years as a photographer and the Bytown Museum and Library and Archives Canada have some of her surviving photographs. The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec also has the photographic copy she made of a portrait (drawing) of Bishop Guigues, who played an important role in Lowertown’s history.
Like many young women in the 1880s, Alvira decided to study art in Paris where she lived for five years. After returning to Ottawa in 1891, she opened an artist’s studio on Rideau Street. According to the 1923 City Directory, her studio was at 386 Rideau Street, between Nelson and Friel, and she lived next door at 384 Rideau. Like other photographers in the 1800s, she called herself a “photographic artist”, but after her art studies, she was an artist who explored all aspects of art and taught art appreciation to young and old. She was a real pioneer.