1926 Britain Through a Lens

It was the year when crime novelist Agatha Christie disappeared, the country was gripped by a General Strike, two land speed records were set and a future Queen was born.

1926: Britain through a lens takes us back to the year when Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was born. In exploring both daily life and the events of ninety years ago, the exhibition reveals some intriguing similarities and some inevitable contrasts.

An acute shortage of housing results in a mother and her children posing for the camera in a former prison cell in Worcester which has been converted into flats. Harold Stevens, a Weymouth magistrate sleeps rough in London in an attempt to better understand the lives of the homeless. Today, however, it is unlikely we would see a policeman provided with a rubber mat to keep his feet dry as he directs the traffic or a cow being milked on a platform at Kings Cross Station.

The images were researched from Getty Images’ world-famous Hulton Archive and hand printed in our own darkroom from the original glass plate negatives using time-honoured methods. Ninety years on, it is inevitable that there has been some damage to these fragile glass plates. In some instances, this has been cropped out or hand-retouched in order to provide the best possible print whilst remaining true to the photographer’s original vision. Where damage is visible in the finished prints, it reminds us of their age and serves to highlight the importance of preserving this priceless visual heritage.

Described by Harold Evans as “An Aladdin’s cave of treasures… the finest in the world” the Hulton Archive is home to a wealth of original photographic material spanning the birth of photography to the present day. Getty Images Gallery provides a window into this incredible collection and the opportunity to purchase prints from its exhibitions.