A mahogany and brass whole plate ‘Special’ patent camera (circa 1888 to 1894) of expanding bellows construction with leather covered lens cap and a canvas bag. The camera is marked to the front with ‘J. Lancaster & Son, Birmingham’ (a photographic company formed in 1835, ceasing trading in 1955) with small hinges on the back marked ‘Clement & Gilmer, Paris’. This company was founded in 1890 and is known for exceptional lenses. 
It has three wooden plates marked 1, 2 and 4, each with a small metal shield with the maker’s initials, ‘J L & S, Opticians.’ The lettering on one plate is obscured. This camera belonged to William John of Clynderwen in 1910. 

William John was born in Penfordd near Clynderwen in 1888. He photographed many of the Narberth street scenes and carnivals. He also recorded the early flight of the James brothers in September 1913. Henry Howard James and John Herbert James were educated at the County Intermediate School in Station Road. They went on to build a Caudron bi-plane and made a short flight over Narberth for the first time on 22 November 1913. They had made their first attempt on 25 September 1913 but this ended badly when the biplane plummeted 60 feet to the ground, with Herbie emerging with only cuts and bruises. After the November flight they once again took to the air on 20 April 1914, making their first truly successful flight over Narberth and Carmarthen, where they lost their map and had to follow the train line back to Clynderwen. They planned to establish an aeroplane factory at Narberth but this was thwarted with the outbreak of WWI. The brothers moved to Hendon and instructed pilots in their own plane, later becoming test pilots. After 1918 Howard never flew again but Herbie continued to compete in aerial derbies. In 1921 he broke the speed record, but this was never officially recognised. 

Soon after 1913 William John left to work as a shift engineer in the power station of the Great Mountain Colliery in Tumble. He died in 1974 and is buried in Llannon churchyard, Carmarthenshire. 

The camera was donated to the museum in 1994 by Arthur John (William’s youngest son). Mahogany has a link with the transatlantic trade in Africans. From the 1650s, British slave ships often left the Caribbean with empty cargo holds. To provide ballast, they filled the holds with local tree timbers to keep the ship on an even keel. The timbers were then dumped on British docksides, and furniture makers in the area, unwilling to let the wood go to waste, started to use it to make their furniture. 
This wood, mahogany, was ideal for furniture makers and demand for items made from mahogany increased. Mahogany was harvested using enslaved labour. Clearing land for sugar plantations became profitable, with plantation owners sending workforces inland to harvest mahogany – enslaved men, women and children, working in large gangs of 30 or 40, felled and hauled timbers, dragged and cleaned them and bundled them up.