Richard Beard (the patentee of the daguerreotype process in England, Wales, and the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and in all Her Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad) lived for much of his early life in Newton Abbot, Devon.1 His father, also named Richard Beard, was in the grocery trade. Some information is given in two advertisements. The first advertisement2 gives details of the family's shop to let, dated July 1807, when young Richard was not yet six years old. The shop's location is given as ‘opposite the post-office’ : NEWTON-ABBOT, Devon.