Russell Sedgfield was born in Devizes, Wiltshire, and trained as an engineer. His interest in photography began at the age of 16 when he took out a licence, as an amateur, to operate the calotype process, invented by W. H. Fox Talbot. From this early beginning he became a leading topographic photographer c.1852-72. A view of Stonehenge by Sedgfield, on waxed paper, was shown in 1854 at the first Photographic Society exhibition, held in Suffolk Street in London.