The photograph is a head and shoulders portrait of Father John Metcalfe Davenport. The handwritten note on the back of the photograph reads "Father Davenport, St. John Baptist, St. John, N. B." Printed at the bottom of the front of the photograph is the name of the studio, "W. & J. Notman - St. John, N.B." Research shows that John M. Davenport was a clerk for his father, a prominent commercial chemist in England, before turning to the priesthood and adopting Tractarian philosophies. At the age of 24 Davenport entered Exeter College, Oxford, graduating in 1871 and becoming a deacon the same year. He was ordained a priest in 1872, spending his early ministry as curate in Wolverhampton and then in the London parish of one of his uncles. He also began a lifelong association with the Society of St. John the Evangelist, an order oriented towards mission work. Richard Meux Benson, the founder of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, recommended Davenport when Bishop John Medley of Fredericton sought a priest for a new Anglo-Catholic congregation in New Brunswick. Davenport relocated to New Brunswick in 1882, taking over the Mission Chapel in Portland, now known as Saint John.