Collection: Douglas Harrod, E P Olney and William Field Collection

Description

This large collection, spanning 100 years and compiled by Douglas Harrod, includes three distinct series'.

OFH01/01 - Photographs taken by or collected by William Field. This series is made up of approximately 420 half plate glass negatives, taken by Putney based photographer William Field, between 1880 and 1910. The photographs show scenes in Putney and the surrounding areas of south-west London, including Richmond, Roehampton, and Wandsworth. There are also some photographs of central London including Waterloo Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and the Tower of London. Many of the images focus on the River Thames, showing bridges (particularly Putney Bridge), riverside buildings including public houses, barges, and waterscapes. There are also images of shops and street scenes, people, vernacular architecture, and churches.

Alongside these photographs there are a set of 120 quarter plate images. These have in the past been attributed to William Field, but notes on the packaging suggest they may in fact be by an unidentified photographer called Webster. These images also date from the late 19th century, and include images of public houses, churches, street scenes and houses. There are also scenes showing penny farthing bicycles, shooting parties, flower sellers, and other social events.

OFH01/02 - Photographs taken by or collected by Edward Passmore Olney (1882-1967). This series contains two parts. The first consists of approximately 800 lantern slides taken by a variety of photographers including E P Olney, and presumably collected by Olney. The set includes copies from the William Field material, as well as copies of drawings and artworks. The copies are of images dating from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, while the images by Olney seem to date from the 1910s to the 1930s. There are a set of images showing Victorian central London, including Tower Bridge, Regent Street, Embankment etc, some of which are in very bad condition. Alongside these are images of south-west London including Putney, Wandsworth, Richmond, Wimbledon, Southfields, Mitcham, Moredon, Croydon, Merton and Carshalton. In addition, there are sets of images of men and boys on holiday in Wales, and images of East Africa, presumably taken by Olney – the holiday photographs may show Olney as a young man on a Crusader Christian camp trip.

The second part of the series contains circa 10,000 negatives, mainly film but with some smaller format glass plates, taken between the 1930s and the 1960s by Edward Passmore Olney. There are a large number of images documenting the area around Putney, where Olney lived. There are also images from most counties in England, organised by county, and sets of images from Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Northern Ireland. In addition there are images of destinations in Europe and Canada, presumably taken while Olney was holidaying there. The images cover a wide range of subjects including street scenes, ecclesiastical and vernacular architecture, public houses, shops, and leisure activities. A significant proportion of the images contain people, either formally posed or as part of a wider scene, and there is a large set of images documenting the Crusader Christian camps which Olney was involved with throughout his life. Most of the images have been annotated with location information, and many also have dates.

OFH01/03 - Photographs taken or collected by Douglas Harrod. This series, which has not yet been the subject of detailed assessment, contains photographs taken or collected by the London based chemist and amateur photographer Douglas Harrod, between the 1930s and the 1980s.

Archival History

Received Via : Tomkins, Boddy and Co. (Solicitors for the Estate of D H), 1995 Provenance : The Harrod Collection consists of photographs taken between 1930s-1980s by the London-based chemist and amateur photographer Douglas Harrod, and another collection created in the late C19th by a Putney-based photographer William Field (1854-1932). The Field collection was given to Harrod by E.P. Olney. Photography by Olney is also in the collection.

Content

Rights

Source: Historic England Archive