Unreliable Evidence

Nick Simpson presents further photographic revelations from the vaults of his Victorian Great Grandfather, the inventor and photographic pioneer Samuel Heracles Gascoigne-Simpson. Recently rediscovered plates reveal the 19th century eccentric's extraordinary photographic odyssey into the bizarre underground world of a hitherto unknown Victorian England.

None of the pictures exhibited here (featuring some of the most recently restored plates) were ever publicly shown or published during his lifetime. Fearing scandal due to the often indecorous and salacious nature of the images, the Gascoigne-Simpson family kept their eccentric and unorthodox relative's bizarre work hidden from public sight for almost a century. Following the recent death of an elderly relative, a quantity of glass plates was discovered by the creator's great grandson Nick Simpson, himself a photographer, who has made it his mission to bring this wonderful body of work to a wider audience.

In association with The Bumforth Manor Collection and with the kind cooperation of the Gascoigne-Simpson Estate.