<b>1887 - 1888 Bruxelles - Uccle</b> Georgius Josephus Franciscus Augustus, also known as William, ° 30.7.1857; + 24.12.1910. Son of Auguste (see that name). Spelled "Debedts" in the ABP membership list. He appears to have spent most of his adult life outside Belgium. He departed Antwerp for the USA in January 1880 and worked initially as a pharmacist and then as a commercial traveller in Cleveland [Ohio] until at least October 1885. By early 1890 De Bedts was travelling round Europe as a representative of The Eastman Photographic Materials Company of Rochester [New York, USA]. De Bedts was then described as “our pseudo Yankee, majestically enthroned behind the gilded panels of a magnificent counter” at the Kodak main offices in Berlin [D], Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse, 47 (Helios illustré, 1.2.1891). Later in 1891 De Bedts was manager of the Paris branch and busy promoting Kodak cameras: he displayed a series of views that he had taken in America and Egypt with a Kodak at a meeting of the "Photo-Club de Paris" on 11.11.1891. He created large mobile displays of Kodak products that toured throughout Europe, including Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent and Liège. De Bedts separated from Eastman and established the "Anglo-American Photo Import Office" in Paris, Rue Saint-Honoré, 368 in or about April 1894. His subsequent career included a stint as a pioneering manufacturer and distributor of chrono- and cinematographic equipment, initially in collaboration with Léon Gaumont and Georges Demenÿ in 1895 and then as "G. De Bedts & Cie", a firm registered on 22.1.1896. He subsequently founded a "Société de Reproduction Photographique Industrielle" in Paris with studios in Asnières, on 9.5.1899. It produced "large-scale advertising matter in artistic and industrial photography cheaply on glossy and matte platino-bromide paper" (Annuaire Didot-Bottin, 1900). The firm declared bankruptcy on 8.8.1905.