On 28 February 2025 a Blue Plaque was unveiled by the Ulster History Circle to commemorate the Belfast photographer Alexander Robert Hogg whose photographs helped to carry Ulster’s fame to all parts of the world.  

A son of David and Mary Hogg, Tullywest, Saintfield, he moved with his family at a young age to Belfast where he spent the rest of his life. Employed by Lizars, a well-known firm specialising in optical equipment, he quickly learnt to use advanced photographic and optical equipment and became an acknowledged lantern specialist. Soon he assumed the dual role of lecturer and lanternist, becoming an engaging and knowledgeable lecturer as well as the official lanternist to the Grosvenor Hall and the British Association. For the rest of his life he was much in demand for lantern shows, a popular form of entertainment, education, church and cultural life. In 1901, confident of his many skills, photographic and technical, he branched out on his own, first in Trinity Street, then High Street, (the site of the Blue Plaque), and finally Great Victoria Street where he died in 1939 at the age of 69. He was buried in Belfast City Cemetery. At his death his business was one of the most progressive of its kind in the city.

Interested in all aspects of picture-making, Hogg named his first house on Chichester Road “Kineto”, indicating a growing interest in moving pictures. He became Belfast’s most important early cinematographer. Referring to a film “The Lagan from Source to Fall” that he made when teaching at the Technical College, it was reported: “Mr A R Hogg projected the 150 views with a magnificent double lantern and a cinematographic attachment, with which he was able to show a number of animated pictures of the Lagan taken by himself.”

Hogg’s work covered every class of commercial and technical photography. He was the go-to photographer in the first four decades of the 20th century, documenting Belfast and many other places in Ulster. His clients included the Education Committee, Electricity Board, Tramway Company, and Workman Clark and Co. during the great era of shipbuilding. One of his most important commissions was from Belfast Corporation to photograph old Belfast as it was then, in particular the entries, narrow streets and the large number of slum properties, scheduled for removal. This collection is a valuable archive for social historians because it included the magnificent Victorian buildings and the wide, seemingly empty streets of Belfast. In 1906 he photographed the new City Hall and the following year the imposing Municipal College of Technology. Accolades flowed including this one from the Belfast Corporation acknowledging his picture of the City Hall:

“Received from Mr Hogg a large and magnificent photograph, taken by himself of the new City Hall ...undoubtedly one of the finest photos we have ever seen, and it reflects the highest credit upon the artist, who is already so well known by reason of his excellent work done on many occasions.”

Hogg was well-liked, entrepreneurial and progressive, making full use of the press to promote his business. Generous and sociable, he willingly shared his expertise, assuming leadership roles in the photographic clubs that sprang up at that time. He contributed to many aspects of community life, participating in clubs and learned societies, including the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society, the Belfast Naturalist Field Club, Belfast Arts Society, the Ulster Arts Club and the Professional Photographers Association, serving on the National Committee. He was a member of Rosemary Street Presbyterian Church.

Alexander Hogg was an outstanding documentary photographer working in the early days of the medium. With a remarkable attention to composition and quality of light, his archive, held by National Museums NI shows that documentation can greatly surpass mere record.

 

Born:	1 March 1870
Died:	25 August 1939