Maximilian Guillon was born in Niort, in western France around 1852. His full name was Pierre Marcel Maximilian Guillon, but he was generally known as Maximilian or Max Guillon. Maximilian Guillon was the eldest son of Anne Sophie Euphrosine Théolinde Moreau and Jean Frédéric Valentin Guillon, a French merchant. By 1861, Jean Guillon was working as a merchant on the island of Jersey in the Channel Islands. When the 1871 census was taken, Jean Gullion was established as a commercial agent in St Helier and he was living at a house in Museum Street with his wife Annie, and their three children - Maximilian, then aged 19, Leopold Alexandre (born 1855) and Marie Louise Angele (born 1856). Maximilian Guillon is described in the census return as an "Agent's Clerk" and was presumably working for his father.

Sometime in the 1870s, Jean Guillon and his family moved on to England. Jean Gullion ended up in Plymouth, Devon, where he died in 1881, at the age of 60. After the death of her husband, Annie Théolinde Gullion, and her two youngest children settled in Bristol, where her son Leopold Alexandre Valentin Guillon (1855-1945) - generally known as Alexandre or Valentin - set himself up as a photographer. Under the name of "Valentin Guillon", Alexandre Guillon established a photographic studio at 23 Lower Ashton Terrace, Bristol around 1886. Alexandre later worked from a studio in Fishponds Road, Bristol, where he was based until 1905.

Maximilian Guillon had also become a professional photographer. Maximilian was primarily an "outdoor photographer", and in the 1870s he was taking photographs of various residential properties in North London. During this period, Maximilian Guillon was working from 10 Stanley Road, in the Holloway district of North London. On 10th March 1878, Maximilian Guillon married Ellen Jane Archer (born c1858,Cheshunt, Hertfordshire) at St Paul's Church, Islington, North London. The couple's first child, Ellen Martha Guillon was born on 30th November 1878 at Clapton, near Hackney in East London. Within a few years, Maximilian Guillon was living at a small house in Oliphant Street in the Kensington & Chelsea district of London. On 15th March 1880, a second daughter, Florence Emily Guillon, was born at 114 Oliphant Street, near Queens Park in North Kensington (then part of Chelsea). When the 1881 census was taken, Maximilian Guillon was living with his family at No 91 Oliphant Street, West London. Maximilian P. M. Guillon is described in the census return as a "Photographer", aged 28. On 10th November 1881, some six months after the 1881 census was taken, Maximilian and Ellen became the parents of a third child - a son named Henri Leopold Maximilian Guillon.

By 1886, Max Guillon and his family had left London for the South Coast. Max and Ellen Guillon, together with their three children, settled in the Westbourne area of Aldrington, a parish just two miles west of Brighton. This part of Aldrington was to become known as West Brighton and within a few years the Westbourne district itself was absorbed by the rapidly expanding borough of Hove. Max had worked in Brighton as photographer in the 1870s, when he was a young, carefree bachelor. Now a married man in his mid thirties with a wife and three children to support, Max Guillon decided to establish his home near the fashionable residential districts of Hove and Cliftonville.

[ABOVE] A carte-de-visite view of a grand house in Brighton photographed by Maximilian Guillon in the 1870s. On the reverse Max Guillon has written "Max Guillon. photo. 54 Lewes Street, Brighton.". Lewes Street is in the district of Hanover and lies between Albion Hill and Southover Street. Although Guillon took photographic views of grand and impressive buildings, his own lodgings were in a humble area of Brighton, inhabited by house painters, shoemakers and small shopkeepers.

[ABOVE] The reverse of the Guillon carte-de-visite  photograph shown at left. As with the cartes produced in North London, Guillon has hand-written his business details in ink. The address is given as 54 Lewes Street, Brighton. Most carte-de-visite photographs carried a printed advertisement on the reverse. In the 1870s, designs on the backs of cartes were in most cases fairly elaborate and carried details of how to order further copies and other services offered (e.g. enlargements, finishing in colour ). The plain and simple details provided by Guillon reflect the itinerant nature of his work.

It appears that Maximilian Guillon worked primarily as a travelling photographer, specialising in "outdoor work" and so in the early part of his photographic career at least, it seems that he did not need to maintain a permanent studio in London. A carte-de-visite by Guillon, which shows a couple standing on the balcony of a grand house in Brighton, appears to date from the early 1870s [see illustration on the left]. On the reverse of this carte, the photographer has inscribed, in pen and ink, his details - " Max. Guillon - photo. 54 Lewes Street, Brighton ". The address of 54 Lewes Street, Brighton was probably a temporary one. Guillon was likely to have been a seasonal visitor and would find lodgings for the period of his stay. The style of the carte and details in the picture itself, suggests a date in the early 1870s. This would have been before Maximilian's marriage to Ellen in 1878 and some years before he settled in the Queens Park area of West London. The style of the card mount and the almost identical handwriting on the back of the photograph, suggests that this "residence photograph" was taken during the same period that Guillon was working as a photographic artist in North London [see illustration above].

 It seems likely that in the 1870s, Maximilian Guillon was a regular visitor to Brighton and divided his time between London and the Sussex seaside resort. By 1886, Guillon and his family had settled in Aldrington, a parish located a couple of miles west of Brighton, near the village of Hove, which had been developed into a fashionable residential area in the 1870s and 1880s. In the 1888 edition of Page's Directory of Brighton & Hove, Max Guillon ( printed incorrectly as "Max Grillon" ) is listed under "Photographic Artists" in the Trade Section, with a business address of 4 Westbourne Mews, which is in Aldrington, now part of Hove. "M. Guillon", a photographer at 4 Westbourne Mews **, is also listed in the Commercial Section of a Brighton Directory issued the following year. In the Trade Directory of Kelly's Sussex Directory published in 1890, Maximilian Guillon is shown under the heading of "PHOTOGRAPHERS" with a business address of 4 Westbourne Mews, Aldrington. In the section devoted to Aldrington in Kelly's 1891 Directory of Sussex, Maximilian Guillon is shown in the commercial columns as a photographer at 4 Westbourne Mews.

** Westbourne Mews was a small row of four or five houses which backed on to Westbourne Place and ran into Westbourne Street. The Mews was a service street that housed a set of stables with living accommodation above. When Guillon lived in the Westbourne area, the stables in Westbourne Mews were used as horse stalls and carriage houses for three "fly"(horse-drawn carriage) proprietors and the owner of a horse-drawn cab. The address of Westbourne Mews, Westbourne Place and part of Westbourne Street was probably interchangeable. Westbourne Mews and Westbourne Place were situated close to the sea and not very far from the elegant terraces of West Brighton and Cliftonville. The occupants of the stylish and attractive villas in this fashionable area were ideal customers for the particular photographic services that Guillon offered.

Maximilian Guillon, Photographer of West Brighton

The 1891 census records Maximilian Guillon and his family at 79 Westbourne Street, Aldrington, near Hove. In this period, the area around Westbourne Street became known as West Brighton. A cabinet format photograph produced by Guillon around 1892 gives his business address as Westbourne Place, West Brighton. In 1893, the parish of Aldrington was absorbed by the borough of Hove and in 1894 it became part of the urban district of Hove.

During his stay in Aldrington and West Brighton, Guillon carried on his speciality of photographing the residences of comfortably well-off, middle-class families. The 1891 census for Brighton Hove (including suburban areas like Cliftonville and Aldrington) recorded 176 persons engaged in the business of photography. The total number of self-employed photographers and studio proprietors was fifty-four. The vast majority of the 40 plus studios were primarily concerned with the production of photographic portraits. Maximilian Guillon was one of the few photographers in the Brighton area who concentrated on the production of  "Architectural Photographs" or views of residences. Edward Fox (1823-1899) was a Brighton photographer who was famous as a "Landscape and Architectural Photographer" and he rarely took photographic portraits. The larger, well established studios such as Thomas Donovan of St James' Street and C. Hawkins of Preston Street and King's Road, Brighton produced "Outdoor Work" ( Mrs Eliza Hawkins, the proprietor of the "C. Hawkins" studios, was advertising "Residences, Photographed on Moderate Terms" as early as 1877 ), but studio portrait photography was the mainstay of their business. Max Guillon was unusual in that he produced photographs of residences, almost exclusively. [ I have not seen one studio portrait produced by Guillon ].

[ABOVE] A photograph of  No. 9 The Drive, Hove by Maximilian Guillon. Printed on the reverse of this cabinet card is the photographer's business address - "M. Guillon, Photographer, Westbourne Place, West Brighton". The words "Houghton. 9 The Drive, Brighton" are incribed in blue ink on the reverse of the photograph.

Max Guillon lived on to his late 80s but two of his three children died before reaching middle age. Florence Emily Guillon tragically took her own life on 13th February 1903, a few weeks before her 23rd birthday. During the First World War, Henri Leopold Guillon became a Gunner in the Royal Field Artillery. He was killed in France on 10th June 1918 at the age of thirty-six, leaving his widow, Mrs Amelia Frances Guillon (nee Duesbury) to bring up their only child, Dennis James Guillon (born 1916, Flixton, Manchester).

Max's wife, Mrs Ellen Jane Guillon, died in Croydon in 1938, aged about 80. Pierre Marcel Maximilian Guillon ( known as Maximilian Guillon ) died a couple of years later at Thornton Heath, Croydon on 6th March 1940 when he was about 87 years of age. Nellie (Ellen) Guillon, the last surviving child of Max and Ellen Guillon, died in 1962.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Guillon Family Tree