What have you been up to?
An update on life in the archives...
(or living in the past).
It’s been a little while since I’ve written anything but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been working away in the background. I thought I’d give you a little update on what I’ve been up to.
At the moment I’m spending two days a week (usually a Monday and Tuesday) in the archive working my way through its photographic collections. It’s my dream - I basically get to spend my time looking back in time (and wishing I was there!).
You won’t be surprised to read that I spend most of my time wading through the Photo Centre collection. As it is made up of around two million negatives, I think this will be a lifelong project! I’m currently cataloguing and digitising glass plates from 1954.
My desk… These boxes hold glass plates from August/September 1954.
If you’ve read any of my previous pieces you’ll know that the collection covers the second half of the 20th century – the business was founded in 1951 and closed in 2012. In terms of the history of photography, it is a modern collection. It charts a huge period of change in the medium, both in style and in technology. It also captures the monumental changes within the town, area and society too. Keep an eye on @photocentreberwick on Instagram and Facebook for regular updates from the Photo Centre.
Two portraits taken by the Photo Centre, March 1954.
We’re extremely lucky that the archive holds a huge range of photographic material. As we see above, some collections are made up of millions of items. Others can be a single photograph or album but despite their size, these smaller collections can be just as interesting and important.
We are often gifted collections from families, estates and individuals so family albums and portraits form an important part of our collection. As I’m sure you’ve experienced with your own family photographs, it’s extremely frustrating when you find yourself staring at a mystery person or group of people, their names stripped away by time as no one felt it necessary to write it on the reverse. Their thoughts - ‘I know who they are - why would I do a useful thing like write on the back!’.
A selection of studio portrait photographs from family collections.
A frightening attitude of some family members is along the lines of - ‘we don’t know who they are, let’s just bin them’ (AHHHGGGGHHH!!!). I once visited my Granny to find that her sister had visited and they’d been through a box of photos, disposing of the people they didn’t know. I managed to rescue them before the bin men came but I was to late to save some of the negatives which they’d fed into the shredder (I’m not sure why they felt such a definite end was required!)
These nameless photos can still tell us so much. Fashions can give us an approximate date, as can the style of the portrait or the photographic process used. The feature which I always look and hope for is the signature of the photographer, be it stamped on the back or printed in gilt lettering on the front in the case of a Carte de Visite or a Cabinet Card for instance. I’m always on the look out for Berwick photographers and it’s amazing just how many studios there were in and around the town over the years.
I recently discovered some photographs by a photographer named ‘W.H. De Lan’. His later cards stated that he was a photographic artist based in Tweedmouth (just over the river from Berwick). De Lan is far from being a local name so this piqued my curiosity - and oh boy, he turned out to be an interesting chap with just as interesting a family too.
I had hoped to re-appear in the world of the written word with an in depth look his life and his family’s work, but I’m still trying to tie up a few loose ends in the research so I promise that will be my next piece. Honestly – it is interesting and not what you’d imagine from the life of a Victorian and his three daughters.
I will leave you with an unusual but fascinating set of photographs I found last week. They come from two small Kodak albums and date (as you’ll see from the writing on the prints) from May/June 1890.
