Photographs

Dick, Kerr & Co. transformed their Electric Works into a shell production factory in October 1914. Over the next four years their 6000 strong workforce – including 2000 women – produced 3¼ million projectiles, including shrapnel and high explosive shells for land-based guns and battleships. This is one of many incredible photographs taken by Preston Borough Council Town Clerk, Alfred Howarth, during the First World War.

This photograph shows a worker at Horrockses. The firm commissioned photographic prints to illustrate the stages in the production of cotton. Other photographs of industry include those of Preston Dock and Foster’s Foundry.

This photographic print on salted paper shows a group of five military officers relaxing in a rocky landscape during the Crimean War, fought between Russia on one side and Britain and her allies on the other. It is part of a series of nearly 100 photographs taken during the conflict by Britain’s first official war photographer, Roger Fenton.

This photograph taken by Preston photographer, Alfred Beattie, is of Alderman Edward Garlick who was engineer for Preston Dock. The Harris holds a large collection of local studio portraits dating from 1862 – 1900 in Carte de Visite and Cabinet Card formats. Alfred Beattie was the uncle of Preston watercolour artist, Edwin Beattie.

This pair of daguerreotypes in a red leather case are Preston’s oldest surviving photographs. They were taken by Silas Eastham in 1846 and the people in the images are Mrs Anne Agnes Crofton and Mr John Addison. The Addison family were solicitors in Preston. Other related early photographic formats include Ambrotype and Tintype portraits, and the Harris Library collections hold a copy of Henry Fox Talbot’s book on photography, Pencil of Nature.

This photograph shows the River Ribble from Whinfield House in Preston. It was taken before the river was diverted and an enormous dock basin was excavated. The sailing ships are moored along the old quay. Robert Pateson took a large number of landscape photographs of Preston and portraits of its inhabitants. There are more than 50 in the Harris collections.​

This incredible photograph of Preston Flag Market by Charles Wilson was taken in 1853 – the year that Charles Dickens published Hard Times. The front of the Harris today is where the row of shops is, behind the large cart in the image. It is part of a small collection of unique photographic prints on salted paper taken of Preston and the surrounding area.