The Herbert Edward Tuppen Collection

Who was Herbert Edward Tuppen?

Herbert Edward Tuppen was born in Lewisham in 1904. He was the second child of Edward and Emma Tuppen, and brother to Edith Maud Tuppen, who was born in 1896.

By 1933, Tuppen was living and working at his father's jewellery business at 255 Malpas Road, Brockley, in the London Borough of Lewisham.

Neither Tuppen nor his sister married. They lived at Malpas Road for the rest of their lives. Their parents both died in the early 1940s. Herbert died aged 73 in 1977, and Edith in 1981.

While we don't know much about Tuppen, we know he was a skilled photographer. In 1978, Edith donated her brother's collection of over 1,600 negatives, prints, and lantern slides to the Historic England Archive.

'Where's That Place?'

Tuppen's collection of photographs didn't contain many details about the locations shown in the pictures. However, this allowed the Historic England Archive to engage the public with its collections actively.

In 2023, the Archive launched the 'Where's That Place?' crowdsourcing project on Flickr, the online photo-sharing platform. The aim was to help Archive staff to quickly and accurately catalogue a collection with limited information.

The Archive's first collection uploaded to Flickr was the Herbert Edward Tuppen Collection.

A skilled photographer

Tuppen was a very capable photographer. With a good eye and technical skill, combined with his knowledge of historical sites, his photographs are attractive and interesting.

He appears to have been a member of the South Suburban and Catford Photographic Society, winning awards in several annual exhibitions between the 1930s and 1960s.

Accompanying the photographs given to the Archive are 2 exposure record notebooks. The notes detail film type, shutter speed, aperture and film developer. They also detail the subject, date and time of day for around 200 photographs.

There is no way to link the entries in these notebooks to specific negatives. It isn't clear if all these photographs are even in the collection held by the Archive. Nor is it know what camera or cameras Tuppen used. As he was a keen photographer, he may have had several cameras.

Holidays and tours

Tuppen appears to have enjoyed travelling the country photographing historic buildings, sites, and monuments, as well as picturesque views along the way.

We know that he holidayed to the Lake District in the summer of 1934, with 20 photographs from his trip. We also know that he visited the Isle of Wight.

Many of his photographs show locations in south-east England, including in Kent, London, Surrey and Sussex. Herbert also spent time visiting seaside resorts and historic towns on the south coast of England, including Brighton, Dartmouth, Hastings, Plymouth and Torquay.

Tuppen also travelled further afield. He visited and photographed sites in Norfolk, Manchester, Shropshire and Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire.

An eye for detail

A combination of preparation, research, and a sharp eye for intriguing details means some quirkier shots are amongst the historic monuments and holiday views.

For example, the monument to William and Agnes Loudon in the churchyard of St John the Baptist's Church, Pinner, is associated with an interesting tale. The obelisk features a 'floating coffin' through its centre, in which the bodies of the husband and wife supposedly lie. It is alleged that this was engineered by their son, John Claudius Loudon, so that inheritance paid to his father would continue to be paid while the couple were 'above ground'.

During a visit to the village of Alfriston in East Sussex, Tuppen photographed the exterior of the Star Inn on High Street. The carved post on the corner of Star Lane caught his eye. Reputedly a former figurehead from a ship, the carved lion’s head was restored in the early 21st century and was moved to the right of the building’s front.

Other unusual and intriguing details include the carved wooden sign of the Peterboat and Double Tavern on Fish Hill Street, London, the Invicta locomotive displayed in Canterbury, and a stone from Bermondsey Abbey excavated during construction of the Grange Service Station in Bermondsey Square, London.

Fire and bombs

A highlight of the collection are 7 photographs showing the Crystal Palace shortly after the devastating fire on 30 November 1936. Tuppen also visited the site in 1933, when he photographed the water towers, fountains, and Egyptian Court, and possibly again during the 1930s and 1940s, when he admired the lakes and prehistoric animal sculptures.

Tuppen’s photographs show the vast structure of the Crystal Palace in its glory in 1933 and reveal the destruction caused by the 1936 fire.

Other scenes of damage include the ruins of St Mary-le-Bow Church, London, which was destroyed by bombing in May 1941, and All Saints’ Church, Lowestoft. All Saints’ was restored between 1929 and 1938 but was damaged by incendiary bombs just 3 years later in 1941. It was rebuilt between 1946 and 1950.

Another example is the east window of St Mary the Virgin’s Church at Buckland in Surrey. It was one of several windows in the church to be damaged by a bomb in May 1941. This photograph is a rare view of the east window in detail, taken between 1930 and 1941.

In several cases, the photographs taken by Tuppen may be one of only a few views of a building or feature. For example, Newark Mill on the River Wey south of Pyrford, Surrey, was destroyed by fire in 1966. Tuppen's 3 photographs from the 1930s or 1940s show the mill and one of its waterwheels.

Places of worship

Churches, cathedrals, and other ecclesiastical architecture feature heavily in the collection. As with other subjects, Tuppen appears to have been knowledgeable about the history and significance of the sites he photographed.

These include the largest Saxon chancel arch in the country, in St Nicholas’ Church at Worth in West Sussex, and the church tower with a 4-sided shingled roof, or ‘Rhenish helm’, at Sompting Abbots, also in West Sussex.

The font in St Nicholas of Myra’s Church, Brighton, received special attention, with 6 photographs showing various angles of the relief carvings on the Norman bowl, and the Victorian cover.

The 'Where's That Place?' Flickr group

The Historic England Archive launched 'Where's That Place?' on Flickr in September 2023 with the aim to 'identify, locate and enhance' the Tuppen Collection. The Archive had limited capacity to catalogue the collection quickly and accurately with the level of detail that adds great value to historic photograph collections.

By the end of the project in September 2024, the group had over 200 members, forming a community of enthusiastic volunteers keen to identify each week’s new uploads. An Archive Cataloguer checks and responds to comments and creates catalogue records for the newly identified photographs each week.

With this collection now catalogued, the Archive will be uploading more collections to the Flickr group.

Remaining mysteries

All the original negatives in the collection have now been catalogued, but many locations remain unidentified. Do you recognise any of the views below?

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