Realistic Travels

Hilton DeWitt Girdwood was the founder and managing director of the British company Realistic Travels. He first worked for Underwood & Underwood as a stereograph salesman. Hilton DeWitt Girdwood was born in Ontario, Canada in 1878. After receiving a degree in teaching in 1900, Girdwood left North America and worked as a commercial travel photographer for a few years in Europe, India and South Africa. In 1903, he travelled to India to photograph the Delhi Durbar and was fortunate enough to photograph the Prince and Princess of Wales as they travelled the continent. It was this connection to India that led him to be involved in photographing the war in 1914. Girdwood travelled to the Western Front in 1915 to film the conflict for the War Office, making him the first official war cinematographer. While on the Western Front he photographed scenes with a stereograph camera, which would later become the basis from which the Realistic Travels stereograph set was built. Stereographs that contain the stamp "Copyright of the Crown" at the lower left corner of the card were photographed by Girdwood while he was in France in 1915.