On the morning of November 21, 1864, Beato and his friend and business partner, Charles Wirgman, had breakfast with two British officers, Major Baldwin and Lieutenant Bird. However, the two friends apparently decided not to go with the officers back to Yokohama via Kamakura. That night Beato and Wirgman learned to their horror that Baldwin and Bird had been murdered.
Beato went and photographed the spot where Baldwin and Bird were killed. Then, in December, Beato and Wirgman witnessed the execution of the supposed perpetrator (a beheading), and Beato photographed the site. A photograph of Wirgman’s drawing of the execution, with British soldiers and other foreigners present, was bound into an album of Beato’s photographs now at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
View near Kamakura where Major Baldwin and Lieutenant Bird Were Murdered, after November 21, 1864. Albumen silver print.