Rosalind Maingot (1893–1957): A Woman of Many Parts
Presentation Type
Event
Start Date
8-3-2026 1:12 PM
Description
Rosalind Maingot, (née Smeaton), born in Brisbane, Australia, was a gold medal “elocutionist” aged 14, a successful and popular actress, contralto singer in her native Australia, and travelled around the country with theatrical companies, performing everything from musical shows to Shakespeare. By 1928, Smeaton was living in London full time and married hugely respected abdominal surgeon Dr. Rodney Honor Maingot. As the wife of a prestigious, respected and wealthy surgeon, Maingot could not resume her theatrical career so, bored, enlisted in photography tuition at Regent Street Polytechnic in 1930. She had an exuberant, energetic and extrovert character and lived and worked on a grandiose and dramatic scale. She applied her theatrical and artistic talents to her photography, both b/w and colour, to portraits, costume studies, female nudes, still lifes and flower studies. She became a skilled medical photographer of her husband's surgical operations, providing illustrations for his many publications. In 1946, she established the Medical Group of the RPS, whose archive she preserved. Maingot's archive of over 2000 negatives, prints & colour transparencies was donated to the RPS, of which she was a Fellow.
Pamela Glasson Roberts is an independent researcher and writer, UK. She served as Curator of the RPS Collection from 1982-2001 and is the author of books on photography history, including works on Madame Yevonde, Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Steichen, Fred Holland Day, Alvin Langdon Coburn, and the History of Colour Photography.
Relational Format
Conference proceeding
Recommended Citation
Roberts, Pamela Glasson, "Rosalind Maingot (1893–1957): A Woman of Many Parts" (2026). Women of Photography: A 24-Hour Conference-a-thon Celebrating International Women’s Day. 30.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/womenofphotography/2026/schedule/30
Rosalind Maingot (1893–1957): A Woman of Many Parts
Rosalind Maingot, (née Smeaton), born in Brisbane, Australia, was a gold medal “elocutionist” aged 14, a successful and popular actress, contralto singer in her native Australia, and travelled around the country with theatrical companies, performing everything from musical shows to Shakespeare. By 1928, Smeaton was living in London full time and married hugely respected abdominal surgeon Dr. Rodney Honor Maingot. As the wife of a prestigious, respected and wealthy surgeon, Maingot could not resume her theatrical career so, bored, enlisted in photography tuition at Regent Street Polytechnic in 1930. She had an exuberant, energetic and extrovert character and lived and worked on a grandiose and dramatic scale. She applied her theatrical and artistic talents to her photography, both b/w and colour, to portraits, costume studies, female nudes, still lifes and flower studies. She became a skilled medical photographer of her husband's surgical operations, providing illustrations for his many publications. In 1946, she established the Medical Group of the RPS, whose archive she preserved. Maingot's archive of over 2000 negatives, prints & colour transparencies was donated to the RPS, of which she was a Fellow.
Pamela Glasson Roberts is an independent researcher and writer, UK. She served as Curator of the RPS Collection from 1982-2001 and is the author of books on photography history, including works on Madame Yevonde, Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Steichen, Fred Holland Day, Alvin Langdon Coburn, and the History of Colour Photography.