English photographer Paul Tanqueray was BOTD in 1905. Born Harry Atkinson in Littlehampton, Sussex, he was educated at Tonbridge School where he won his year’s annual photography prize. Forgoing university, he moved to London where he apprenticed with society photographer Hugh Cecil, opening his own studio in 1925 aged just 20, renaming himself after a high-end brand of gin. He became one of the foremost photographers of London high society, making portraits of King George VI and Prince George Duke of Kent, performers Noël Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, Tallulah Bankhead, Sybil Thorndike, Gracie Fields, Wendy Hiller, Ivor Novello, John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, Peggy Ashcroft and Douglas Byng, filmmaker Anthony Asquith, playwright Emlyn Williams, fashion designer Norman Hartnell, dancer Margot Fonteyn and choreographer Agnes de Mille. He was particularly admired for his portraits of American actress Anna May Wong, significantly boosting her public profile. He also employed the young Cecil Beaton as his assistant, working together until 1927 when Beaton was poached by Vogue magazine. During World War Two, Tanqueray worked with the Chelsea Home Guard. After the war, he re-opened his studio, making portraits of the now-famous Beaton, actors Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, Claire Bloom, Virginia McKenna, Joan Plowright, Vanessa and Michael Redgrave and theatre critic Kenneth Tynan. He retired in 1965, donating most of his prints and negatives to the National Portrait Gallery in London. Discreetly gay, little is known about his personal life or relationships. He died in 1991, aged 86.