Historic Glass Plate Negatives

Overview

The glass plate collection was rescued from the basement of a Sutton High Street shop, owned by David Knights-Whittome, Edwardian photographer. There are nearly 11,000 plates in the collection of various sizes. They date from c1904 to 1917 – a true representation of the Edwardian period. 

The smaller plates are generally of people who came to the shop to be photographed for special occasions such as baptisms or perhaps a WW1 soldier having his photograph taken before going off to the front.

The larger plates cover a much wider geographical area and subject matter – from the palaces in Europe to stately homes in the UK, from wedding & country house parties ato schools and businesses.

We are applying to the Heritage Lottery Fund for help with the cost of digitising and conserving the 11,000 glass plates. We also want to create a full catalogue so that family historians and people with an interest in history can search them. These could be the only remaining pictures of many people’s ancestors! 

Why your views matter

We need your help!  Vote for your Two favourite themes: the collection is so vast that we need help in deciding which images to concentrate on first.  Please take a few minutes to look at the images above and below before moving on to the survey. Alternatively  look at our Flickr set first http://bit.ly/RnerMU and think about what interests you most. Then let us know what you think via the survey or by email.