Identity area
Type of entity
Corporate body
Authorized form of name
Ramsey & Muspratt
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1932-1980
History
Lettice Ramsey (née Baker, 1898 -1985) was a graduate of Newnham College, Cambridge, and she married Cambridge mathematician and philosopher, Frank Ramsey (son of A.S. Ramsey, President of Magdalene College) in 1926. Frank died in 1930 and Lettice looked for a new way to support herself and her two young daughters. In 1932 she set up in the photographic business with Helen Muspratt, a Dorset photographer who had trained at Regent Street Polytechnic in London. Lettice had the Cambridge contacts to get the firm work while Helen had the photographic skills and experience.
In 1937 Helen Muspratt moved to Oxford and set up a second studio for the firm there. While the partnership continued, Helen ran the Oxford Studio and Lettice the Cambridge one.
Nicholas Lee took over the business in 1978 when Lettice retired. The business was then purchased by Peter Lofts in 1980. There is an extensive indexed negative collection from the firm in the Cambridgeshire Collection, deposited by Peter Lofts after he bought up the business.
Ramsey and Muspratt are best known for their portrait work. Their sympathetic, well lit images quickly made the firm fashionable, photographing the up and coming and influential throughout the 1930s, including Anthony Blunt and Virginia Woolf. The firm also undertook a wide range of commercial photography.
Places
1932-34 - 20 St Andrews Street Cambridge
1934 - onwards - Post Office Terrace
Legal status
Functions, occupations and activities
Photographers