Horace Tempest - A Life Less Ordinary
Horace Tempest was a man of talent and ambition. A man with a seemingly unquenchable thirst for life and its unlimited adventures. A man who built Tempest Photography from the back of a bicycle.
This is his story.
Peterhead, Scotland. October 17, 1902.
We begin on the cold, windswept coast of northern Scotland, in the little fishing village of Peterhead, where on October 17th, 1902, a baby boy was born to Ada Gower and George Phillips.
Wait a moment…
‘Gower and Phillips?’ I hear you ask, ‘I thought this story was built upon the Tempest surname. What’s going on?’
Well, it’s a good question, and it comes with an equally good answer. Both George and Ada were devoted to the stage and as such, George believed the surname ‘Tempest’ was both better-suited and, with its clear Shakespearian connections, held far more gravity for the couple’s shared career goals.
And so it was that Horace Tempest made his entrance to the world in one of Britain’s most northerly points.
Little did his parents know, they had chosen a family surname not only associated with The Great Bard but also one destined to become synonymous with portrait photography worldwide thanks to their baby son.
And what’s more, the ripples of that name would form in one of the most southerly points on the mainland.
The Scholastic Souvenir Company
We next catch up with young Horace as a 16-year-old with a desire to follow in the footsteps of his parents directly onto the stage.
At the end of his schooling, he became further enamoured by grease paint and the theatre. However, in a case of poor timing, the theatrical profession was about to suffer a slump with the advent of silent movies, leaving Horace little choice but to quickly come up with a plan B.
Plan B came to fruition in the short years that followed when Horace joined the Scholastic Souvenir Company.
This grandly titled professional photography company offered him his first taste of school photography assignments. Horace would ride a motorbike and sidecar loaded with equipment snapping the smiles of students in towns and villages across northern England and Scotland.
It appeared Horace had found his silver lining.
For the Love of Music
Despite the blossoms of a new calling beginning to flower, Horace still had a thirst for the arts, and music had become his tipple of choice.
In an interesting turn of events, it was the continued popularity of those same silent films that had cut short his career on stage, that now opened the door for him to return to performance.
In 1925, at the age of 23, Horace stepped away from school photography and took on a role as ‘Second Violinist’ at the Theatre Royal in Inverness.
This was an exciting time for the film game with such classics as Charlie Chaplin’s ‘The Gold Rush’ and an early silent adaptation of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ showing to eager audiences across the world. Horace accompanied the on-screen action live from the orchestra pit, and the popularity of film was the crest of a wave that saw him carried on his journey to ‘First Violinist’ and then ‘Conductor’ at The Empire Cinema and Theatre in Montrose.
However, by 1928, Horace once again found his career path thrown off course by the continued rise of movie technology. Silent films were quickly outdated by the arrival of ‘Talkies’, the orchestra pits fell silent, and a 26-year-old Horace again found himself without a job.
Every Door is an Opportunity
The next stop on the career path for Horace was something of a departure from the norm. He began working as a vacuum cleaner salesman. Proving something of a natural with the charisma to flourish in the role, he later joined the Waverley Book Company.
Waverley were sellers of encyclopaedias and seemed a good fit for young Horace who had long had an appetite for both books, and knowledge. In a side note, many years later, his ongoing love for literature saw him create a small library space in his Cornwall home at Trevethoe House. But we are jumping the gun slightly. Let us rewind back to young Horace.
And young Horace was flying. By the early 1930s, he had proved a great success as a seller of encyclopaedias and had been made a District Manager for Waverley Book Co, with Nottingham as his patch and his home.
Putting Photography Back in the Frame
Despite the seemingly perfect marriage of a love for books and a natural flair for selling, the desire to explore life’s opportunities and the pull of photography remained strong.
And so, at the age of 35, Horace returned to school photography. Only this time, rather than being an employee, he decided to go it alone.
His new business venture was a classic ‘Little Acorn’ scenario. He would arrive at appointments on a bicycle laden with photography equipment, including a half-plate camera. The foundations for everything his business would one day become were built from the saddle of that bicycle and a desire to succeed.
Horace worked across every aspect of the business and saw it quickly find firm footing in a competitive sector. By 1939, the time had come to bring in another party, and a partnership was formed with Harold Grose. The newly formed dynamic duo allowed Horace more time to devote to sales, with Harold handling production.
However, the long shadow of war was edging across Europe and would soon cast the world into darkness.
The War Effort
On the 5th of December 1941, less than a year after his hometown of Nottingham was devastated by the blitz, Horace was mobilised for the cause. He served as a firefighter with the Nottingham Fire Service during a time when the city and the country were in dire need of those willing to fight the flames of war. Horace spent the following three years in service.
The Birth of H. Tempest Ltd
Despite being heavily involved in the war effort, Horace saw the registration of H. Tempest Ltd as a Private Limited Company on June 16th, 1942.
Although this would have marked a momentous occasion for Horace and the company, the ongoing conflict meant the day-to-day running of the business in its earliest incarnation was entrusted to Harold Grose, whilst Horace continued his commitment to the Nottingham Fire Service.
It was another two years before Horace was demobilised, and resumed full-time management of the business. At this point, the now 43-year-old, bought out his partner, Harold, and took full control of the company he had started nearly ten years earlier.
The Sky’s the Limit for Tempest Photography
With a business in the ascendency, Horace continued to look for ways in which Tempest Photography could push boundaries and forge a path as industry pioneers.
With this in mind, in 1946 an aerial department was formed in a bid to diversify the company's services. Quality aerial shots required skilled pilots and having finally found a talent beyond his reach, Horace hired professionals to fly the planes and capture the images.
This fresh venture quickly transpired to become a new adventure for Horace. Never one to shirk a challenge, he began training as a pilot. What he found somewhere up in the clouds was a new love affair with aviation that would forever become an integral, joyful part of his life.
In 1948 he was granted his private pilot’s licence, the first of its type to be given by the Irish Republic.
With the door to the skies now wide open, Horace began tackling much of the company’s aerial photography work himself.
Puzzle Corner and Other Big Prizes
For Horace, life never appeared keen to settle into anything resembling mundanity. In 1950, he was making headlines again, this time in the local press.
Under the title – Bridgford Couple to Fly to TV Centre – it was reported that Horace was set to fly to Hendon Aerodrome in preparation for an appearance on Ronnie Waldman’s ‘Puzzle Corner’, a popular quiz show of the era. As for Horace’s performance on the show, well, that remains lost to the heavy mists of time, but if his life to date is anything to go by, he likely walked away with all the prizes and ambitions to host a quiz show of his own!
Back in the business realm, the years between 1950-1953 delivered their own prizes for Tempest Photography. Showing little signs of slowing down, the company opened four satellite branches alongside their Nottingham base.
Tempest’s reach now spanned Dublin, Edinburgh, Belfast, and Birmingham.
Horace Tempest – Local Hero
Away from the business, Horace continued to highlight his unwavering ability to help others within the local community.
In 1956, a local newspaper wrote a story about a group of four Nottingham girls who had booked a trip to Jersey, only to be let down and left stranded by their travel agent. Horace came to the rescue by offering to fly the girls to their destination in his own plane, much to the quartet’s delight.
It was also reported how each academic term, ever the dutiful father, Horace would fly his daughter, Ann, to her school in a bid to save his girl a long and exhausting journey.
A New Dawn on the Cornish Coast
In the autumn of 1958, Horace made a big decision to leave behind his life in Nottingham and relocate his family and business to deepest southwest Cornwall. The relocation (which also included many of his current staff members) saw Tempest Photography land in Lelant on the edge of St. Ives.
They made a base in the newly purchased, Trevethoe House, a location that was to serve as both a family home and a production facility for the photography business.
Horace and his wife, Rose, made a lasting impression on the local community as a family who returned some light into a building that had long sat in neglected darkness.
Initially, however, times were tough for the business at Trevethoe House. Horace himself told a local newspaper back in 1962, ‘I had four years of struggle.’
Never one short of persistence and drive, Horace rode the storm until the company found calmer waters and a brighter future.
This became a period that saw his business really begin to fly. The old bicycle that once carried both himself and assorted photography equipment was now a distant memory replaced by a company forging its name at the forefront of photographic expertise with a cutting-edge laboratory and Horace’s own plane readied for action on the newly created airstrip at Trevethoe.
A Man of Many Distractions
Life in Cornwall proved a good fit for Horace. His love for music again had space to breathe. He played the violin for the Penzance Choral Society and the St. Ives Operatic Society. His talent was such, that on occasion he even performed with the Cornish Symphony Orchestra.
Alongside an unbridled passion for music, Horace also proved to be a talented cartoonist – today some of his wonderful caricatures hang from the walls of Trevethoe House as witty, artful contrasts to the oils and landscapes they share the space with.
In addition, he would while away hours indulging a taste for golf and chess, or racking hours at the controls of his plane up in the clouds. His love of flight almost became his undoing in 1968, when strong crosswinds caused him to crash his plane into trees during an attempted landing at Trevethoe. Thankfully, Horace walked away shaken but unscathed.
Despite a variety of pastimes and flights of fancy, Horace's brain for business remained firmly rooted in earthly practicalities.
And Tempest Photography went from strength to strength.
All Our Yesterdays
Tempest Photography had now become a name synonymous with portrait photographic excellence. Smiling faces were being captured in all corners of the country, and adorning walls and mantelpieces throughout the world.
Horace remained ambitious. He saw a company with branches that extended out into Europe but feared his age was beginning to dampen those dreams.
In 1978, Aston University opened its doors in what would be Tempest’s very first graduation shoot as the company continued to expand into new areas and opportunities.
Sadly, one year later, in August of 1979, Horace Tempest passed away at the age of 76.
There was widespread mourning for the loss of a man whose vision had opened a door to beautifully capture all our yesterdays. The faces of those on life’s journey that will carry across generations to come, formed upon the ideas and dreams of a man with a camera and a bicycle many years earlier.
Horace’s business became a long-standing foundation for employment in the local Cornish community that continues to ring true today, and the values at the core of his ethos remain as apparent in 2022 as they were back in the infancy of Tempest Photography.
Horace’s life and legacy stand as a celebration of one man’s desire and dedication to build something for his family that became a part of so many families. The Tempest name given to baby Horace back in 1902 now resonates loud, from his Peterhead birthplace to his Nottingham home, to his final destination in Lelant, Cornwall, and far, far beyond.