The photographer J. J. Payne appears to have been John James Payne, the son of Sarah Ann Bannister and Joshua Payne, a plasterer from Derby. Joshua Payne (born 1855, Derby) had married Sarah Ann Bannister (born 1855, Burton-on-Trent) at Burton-on-Trent in 1876. John James Payne, the couple’s first child, was born in Derby during the 2nd Quarter of 1878. John James Payne was joined by two sisters – Emily Payne (born 1881) and Helena Payne (born 1885).
At the time of the 1901 census, twenty-three year old John James Payne was employed as a “Plasterer” and living with his parents and two sisters at 41 Holmes Street, Derby. Sometime over the next two years, John James Payne abandoned his father’s craft of plastering and turned to photography.
Early in 1903, J. J. Payne arrived in Bexhill-on-Sea and took over George Edwin Swain’s photographic studio at 69a Devonshire Road, Bexhill-on-Sea. On 28th February 1903, J. J. Payne, who described himself as an “artist and photographer”, announced in the Bexhill Observer that he would be opening his photographic studio on Monday 2nd March 1903. The studio at 69a Devonshire Road, Bexhill-on-Sea had been specially constructed in 1891 for the photographer James Ernest Stanborough (1862-1941). By 1902, the studio was in the hands of the photographer George Edwin Swain (born 1866, Luton) who sold the studio to J. J. Payne the following year.
J. J. Payne was operating the photographic portrait studio at 69a Devonshire Road, Bexhill-on-Sea between 1903 and 1904.