The building at the rear of 19 Academy Street, off the road and down a lane way to the side of the Victorian Market entrance, was built in the back garden of the street-front property. The building had been in use as a photographic studio for some time before it housed the Andrew Paterson Studio. Johnson & Kay were there in 1887, as was Pohlmann’s Inverness Photo Company, and it was the location of the Northern Studio, which had been taken over by J. Jeffrey Morrison in July 1900. In 1901 it housed the Watson & Senior photographic business. During this time the building was numbered as no.15 when Paterson relocated his studio to there from Church Street in 1903.
From 1905 onward, with buildings in the street being renumbered (the Royal Hotel changed from number 14 to number 15), the studio premises adopted the number of the building fronting the street — becoming 19 Academy Street. In May 1914 the building had been destroyed by fire, but Paterson rebuilt it to almost the same plans of 1902, slightly revamped by the architects firm of Carruthers & Alexander.
Paterson became an internationally renowned, multi-award winning photographer. His services were sought over several decades by many leading political and commercial figures of the day, and in 1935 the Glasgow Daily Record wrote that his “name is known wherever the camera is regarded as a serious medium of expression in portraiture.”
Paterson won in total 23 awards and diplomas, both national and international, for his work and gave many exhibitions both at home and abroad. In the 1920s-1930s, a photo-call at the Paterson Studio was an accepted routine for visiting notables including George Bernard Shaw, Lloyd George, Noel Coward, John Gielgud, Compton Mackenzie, Josephine Tey and Neil Gunn. A discreet arrangement with the Inverness stationmaster saw Paterson tipped off about any well-known name on the manifest of passenger trains coming north.
Number 19 Academy Street now houses The Hive Project.
