"STRANGE case of suicide in Whitby," said a headline in The Northern Echo in 1880, but the story that unfolded after the inquest concluded was stranger still.

The victim was a photographer, John Waller. Since 1861, he had been developing souvenir photos for the tourists flocking to Whitby on the new railways.

But in those early days, photographers worked with a dark sheet over their heads which kept out the light, but kept in the fumes from the chemicals.

After 15 years of inhalation, Mr Waller developed lung and heart problems.

“He was a man subject to attacks of obstructed breathing, caused by the fumes from the chemicals necessarily employed in the pursuit of his avocation,” said the Echo.

His symptoms worsened over five years until he could take no more.

On New Year’s Day 1880, his worried assistant broke into his studio at the foot of Khyber Pass.

“He found deceased laid on his back on the floor,” said the Echo. “All the vessels of his face were gorged with blood, and the pupils of his eyes were dilated. On the desk near the body was an empty tumbler, which smelled strongly of prussic acid.”

He had drunk “a solution of cyanide of potassium”. He was 42.

This sad story appears in a new book, Whitby Photographers by Ruth Wilcock (Towlard Publications), which was reviewed in Memories 57. Since then, Wendy Acres of Darlington has been in touch because Mr Waller appears among the distant branches of her family tree.

She even has a picture of him, with the writing of her greatgreat- grandfather, a Northallerton bank manager, on the back of it.

But as it unfolds, Mr Waller’s story takes a strange, incestuous turn.

He was born in Glaisdale, in the North York Moors, in 1838, but was orphaned and grew up with his aunt and uncle in nearby Aislaby.

The 1861 census found him, aged 23, living in a doctor’s house in Whitby where he was described as an “attendant for an elderly lunatic”.

He seems also to have been an apprentice photographer to William Stonehouse, the first Whitby photographer to cater for the tourist trade.

Over the next few years, Mr Waller acquired a business – Mr Stonehouse left him the Pier Portrait Rooms when he retired – and a wife, Jane. But she died soon after.

He was a talented photographer, his Studies of Fishermen featuring in the Photographic Society’s annual London exhibition.

The 1871 census found him living in South Terrace, Whitby, with his 18-year-old niece, Isabel Booth. Three years later, despite the 15-year age gap and the fact that their incestuous relationship was illegal, the cousins married in York.

Whitby seems not to have minded this peculiar carry-on and the Wallers continued with their business until Mr Waller’s suicide. In its report of his inquest, the Echo said that he was “respected by all who knew him, and he was more especially beloved by those who had private intercourse with him”.

In his will, Mr Waller left everything to “my dear wife”, Isabel, although when the will was proved, she denied being his wife, perhaps fearing the legal implications of her marriage.

Still the people of Whitby seem not to have minded the strange scandal in their midst, and in early 1880, Isabel advertised that she was now in charge of the Pier Portrait Rooms.

Life, though, was not easy, and on September 8, the 27- year-old was found dead in her house in South Terrace.

On her death certificate, cause of death is recorded as: “Alcholism 1 year.”

• More examples of Mr Waller’s work can be found in Ruth Towlard’s book. The Echo’s report of his inquest is queasily scientific and detailed.

• Those who are not faint-hearted may like to read it in full on the Memories blog here