Passmorebx5im006.tif  

Per email from Martin Rush 08/11/2021: " HEIR 38708 - InstArch: England: Northumberland: "Housesteads from the Wall dupl." "Borcovicus from the Wall" "XY. K.255a W" InstArchbx35im018.tif

I was intrigued when I came across HEIR 38708 (pair below, left), because, though it was tagged "dupl.", the actual duplicate did not appear at the bottom of the page (as it often does). However, a few minutes of focussed searching soon seemed to bring up the match, HEIR 36494 (pair below, right).
HEIR 36494 - Passmore: England: Northumberland: "Borcovicus East Wall (Housesteads)" Passmorebx5im006.tif

This Passmore collection slide is, not unreasonably, credited to A.D.Passmore of Swindon (fond memories of sitting in a warm cafe opposite Passmore's house in Wood Street on a cold wet day, prior to a visit to the Swindon Museum down the road). Passmore was certainly an accomplished photographer, though there is no mention of any trip to Northumberland in the discussion of his life by Laura Phillips ("An Investigation into the Life of A.D. Passmore". 2004, Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Society vol 97 273-92).

On the other hand, Deborah Harlan, in "The Archaeology of Lantern Slides: The Teaching Slide Collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford" (pp. 203-210 in R. Crangle, M. Heard and I. van Dooren (eds), 2005. Realms of Light: Uses and Perceptions of the Magic Lantern from the 17th to the 21st Century, Ripon: The Magic Lantern Society) includes this same image her paper. Her caption (see below) attributes it to the Haverfield Collection, stating that the photograph was taken by J.P. Gibson. She includes the familiar-looking number of XY.k 255 which ... wait for it ... brings up yet another HEIR image, this time 43108

HEIR 43108 - Instarch: England: Northumberland: "LOOKING E. from " "ROMAN WALL LOOKING EAST" "XY. k.255"

-- and again the same scene, also uncredited. (My slide catalogue is from JRS 1923, and there the slide "View of Housesteads from the East" by Gibson is number 225, not 220 - I wonder if this means the numbering was revised from time to time? Or perhaps we are using different catalogues.)

Finally the obligatory search in Ebay once again produces a number of matching Gibson postcards for sale, clearly labelled "Borcovicus from the East 54".

54 is also the number for this postcard listed in Philip Ham's book "Portraits of Northumberland: The Postcards of Gibson and Son" (Hexham, 2006)."