William L Sharpe was listed as an artist at 3 Pembroke Square in 1876, and as a photographer at the same address in the 1878 White's History, gazetteer and directory for Hampshire.
Pembroke Square was a small court to the east of the Bargate on the Above Bar side. In the 1870s the cul de sac contained a hairdresser's, The Pembroke Hotel, and a publishers printers and photo-engravers premises. The 1876 Directory recorded 4 people at Pembroke Square:- J. Crabb (hairdresser), W.L Sharpe (artist), K.G Broadbere (book binder), and W.T Barham (Beer retailer and Hotel Keeper, Pembroke Hotel). In 1878 William L. Sharpe was included in the photographers section at 3 Pembroke Square in the White's Hampshire Directory.
W.L Sharpe could have been William Leigh Sharpe, who gave his occupation as a stationery engraver for the 1871 census, and bank note engraver for the 1881 census. William Leigh Sharpe was born in the City of London and lived in Lambeth when his wife died in 1868, leaving him with a baby and 3 young children. He was in London at the time of the 1871 census, but may have lived and worked briefly in Southampton between 1876 and 1878. In 1879 he married again and lived in Lewisham and then Wandsworth. William Leigh Sharpe was recorded living with his second wife at Holdenhurst in Hampshire in 1891, living 'on own means'.