More on Kisch photographers

Information from Harry Brunt:

My great great grandfather was Benjamin Kisch, born in 1842 in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, who emigrated to Durban and became a professional photographer. He died in 1889 in Pretoria.  

Benjamin was the brother of Daniel Montague Kisch, founder of the law firm D M Kisch and of (David) Henry Kisch, born 1848 in Norwich.  

According to Dorian Kisch, the wife of one of Henry's descendants, Benjamin and Henry were in business together in Durban / Pietermaritzburg and family legend has it that they lost the business because Benjamin had medical problems (his sight) and all the family money was spent trying to get him cured.  Our side of the family's version of the story is that after Benjamin Kisch died his wife continued the business for a while before selling up in the 1890’s. 

Benjamin Kisch covered the Zulu War extensively, and many well known images of that period are his. Among them is a portrait of the Prince Imperial which he took when the latter was in Durban prior to getting himself killed in the Zulu war. Family tradition is extremely strong that our Ben was a photographer and an important figure in Natal.  The Prince Imperial fracas is a famous story - he was the son of Napoleon III and Princess Eugenie, who lived in England for a long time (after being thrown out of France in 1870). His death during a minor patrol caused a huge diplomatic row at the time. Benjamin died in the 1880's and his wife, Alice Lester Baker (who was from Durban, they married in 1871), continued the business for a while, but eventually sold it.  She moved to England in about 1919, presumably to be near her daughter Elaine, and died there around 1930. She's buried somewhere in London. 

It wouldn't be unusual for a man who later became a photographer to have started off in some other line of business, as Benjamin Kisch did, and because few of the early photographers could make a living solely from photography many continued a dual career. In 1875 Benjamin Kisch had an outfitter's shop in Durban.

Residence and studio of Benjamin Kisch, Durban

CONFUSION:

There is some confusion as to whether the Natal Kisch brothers, Benjamin and Henry, were linked to two men in the Cape, Braham Kisch and his son Tiberius Benjamin Kisch.

Dr. Braham Kisch was of an old Anglo-Jewish family and came to SA in the 1830s; in 1837 he became licensed as an apothecary in the Cape and was later District Surgeon in Colesberg; he died 30 Nov 1877 in Vereeniging where he was then practising as a medical practitioner.

Braham's first wife was Cornelia Neser; their son Tiberias Benjamin Kisch was born in Colesberg in 1840. (He was named after his maternal grandfather Tiberias Neser.) Shortly after the death of Cornelia, young Tiberias Benjamin was taken to Scotland where he was educated and became interested in photography. On his return to the Cape, he set up as General Dealer and Auctioneer in Colesberg in 1862; the following year he opened a photographic studio and combined this work with other business interests until May 1870 when he went to the Diamond Fields. He returned to Colesberg after 8 months, but was at the diggings again in March 1871 where he apparently played an important part in the discovery of the Colesberg Kopje. He was back in Colesberg at the end of 1871, then in Feb 1872 went to Port Elizabeth, where for three years he was a Commission, Customs and Forwarding Agent. 1875 saw him in Cape Town, where in July 1880 he became Manager of the City Tramway Company. By 1889 he was a boarding house keeper in Orange Street. He died in 1913. Tiberias Benjamin is said to have introduced the carte-de-visite type of photograph to Colesberg and is also said to have been the first recorded photographer to advertise this style of photography in Bloemfontein (March 1864).

From the above information (for which the source is mainly Secure the Shadow by Bull & Denfield pub 1970) it is clear that neither Braham nor Tiberias Benjamin Kisch operated in Natal as photographers. There is no certainty that they were related to Benjamin and Harry who worked in Natal.