Wilbert Bridgemington Shasterbury

Wilbert Bridgemington Shasterbury, 6th Lord of Shropshire (1816-1904) was an English patron and conservative, known for his strict adherence to Victorian values.

Born in Camden Town, he was the sixth son of the 8th Viscount of Shropshire. He was tutored privately until the age of 18 when he began his college career at Christ Church, Oxford where he soon established himself with a published thesis "To Touch Wood" which analyzed the Anglo-Saxon superstition of Knocking on wood. In 1850, he appeared in one of the first photographs taken which used the collodion wet plate process developed by Frederick Scott Archer earlier in the year. The portrait of Shasterbury standing next to a dilapidated cabin was the first photograph to be used as evidence in a trial. The famous adverse possession property dispute ("Price v. Kibbe") was decided in favor of the plaintiff. The photograph was presented as an exhibit which proved Shasterbury's connection with the property and thus, a connection to the Kibbe litigants who were cousins of the photographed subject.

References

Conancher, J. B. "Peel and the Peelites, 1846-1850." The English Historical Review. Vol. 73, No. 288 (Jul., 1958), 431-452.Farnborough, T. E. May (1st Baron). Constitutional History of England since the Accession of George the Third. 11th ed. Longmans, Green, 1896.