Alfred, Lord Tennyson, by Elliot & Fry, 55 Baker Street, Portman Square, London, 1865-86, carte-de-visite. Tennyson (1809-92) became Poet Laureate in 1850, after the death of William Wordsworth; his poems In Memoriam (1850) and Idylls of the King (1859) were hugely popular during Victorian times, but less so today © Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland