New book puts the spotlight on pioneer photographer's major project of his life, writes CHRIS KOENIG

Oxford photographer, writer and publisher Henry Taunt (1852-1922) warned anyone messing about in boats near Oxford of the dangers of the weir at Sandford, where the nearby lock copes with the greatest fall in water level on the Thames, at 8ft 10in.

Jerome K. Jerome in his bestseller Three Men in a Boat, published in 1883, did likewise: "The pool under Sandford Lasher weir is a very good place to drown yourself in," he wrote.

An obelisk at the weir records the names of two Christ Church students who died there in 1845. It also records the names of two more victims added in 1921, one of whom was Michael Llewellyn-Davis, the adopted son of J.M.Barrie who is believed to have been the model for the top-hatted lad in Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up.

In their lovely new book The River Thames Revisited - In the Footsteps of Henry Taunt (Frances Lincoln Publishers, £25) Graham Diprose and Jeff Robins reiterate the claim that the Victorians "invented" childhood; but they add that while that might be true for the wealthy it was certainly not true for the likes of Henry Taunt. (We might think here of Alice Liddell on that Golden Afternoon in 1862 when, gliding down the river among a boatload of girls and clergymen, she first heard the tale of her Adventures in Wonderland from the lips of the Rev Charles Dodgson).

Taunt was born the son of a plumber in St Ebbes, a central but poor part of town, where children received sporadic education at the church school whenever family finances permitted. He was helping his father when he was not much older than Alice at the time of her river trip and earning his keep before his teens as an employee of an Oxford tailor.

Then, still a child, he worked from 7am to 9pm at the Oxford bookshop and auction rooms of Charles Richards, where he read the works of the great writers of his day, before taking a bottle-washing job at the age of 14 with one of the nation's earliest commercial photographers, Edward Bracher, who had a shop at 26 High Street.

But despite all obstacles, the young Taunt seems to have found time to fall in love with the River Thames, the subject of so many of his future photographs.

"We ran a few risks in our young days one way and another," he admitted later in life, recalling boating adventures. One such occurred when as a boy he was whizzing under a footbridge near Kelmscott, with the river in full winter flood. He was lying flat on his back but the underside of the bridge still took the skin off his nose!

His first illustrated guide book, Views of Oxford and Neighbourhood, selling at a shilling, came out in 1869 and received good reviews in The Oxford Times.

Then he embarked on the major project of his life: to map, photograph, and describe the Thames from its utmost reaches to London.

He opened his first shop at 33 Cornmarket with the proceeds of his first book but also found time to explore the river in a skiff complete with large wooden plate camera, tripod, potentially explosive chemicals, and a complete darkroom (contained in a tent) on board.

The first edition of A New Map of the River Thames came out in 1872 but the pinnacle of success came during the 1880s when the new business of photography really caught the public imagination and the advent of railways meant that Londoners were travelling out of town - and taking to boats on the river.

Trippers needed good guide books and maps and, as with websites now, he financed much of his work by publishing advertisements in his books.

Taunt had opened a larger shop in Broad Street in 1874. In 1889 he set up a veritable factory in Cowley Road, called Rivera, where 12 employees put together his maps and guides. In 1893 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

Amazingly, disaster struck in 1894 after a disagreement with the executors of his Broad Street landlord. Taunt was made bankrupt for a few months, but, mercifully, he recovered and prospered.