Page from a journal showing a diagram of a Newcomen engine.

Historical Records in Family Photographs

By Richard Becker

I am the custodian of a large archive of images taken by at least five generations of my family, with the oldest negatives dating to the mid-1880’s. These taken by Percy Lund, my great-great-grandmother’s brother, and the one who taught many of those in the generations after him.

My great-grandfather Clarence (my grandfather’s father see A roll of My Grandfather’s Film) was an engineer and steam engine designer. From at least 1912 until his death in 1947 he kept a daily journal, to begin with mainly relating to his work but later including travels and more general information. Part of his job in the 1910’s was to travel the country visiting places such as mills, factories, foundries and mines looking for business anywhere that might need a new steam engine for power in the days before electrical grids. And of course he took his camera with him.

Historical Image of a Newcomen beam engine

Friday 14th October 1914

Old Farme Colliery, Rutherglen, Glasgow.

“The colliery is situated on the banks of the Clyde near Stewarts and Lloyds. They have a very interesting engine for winding from one of their pits. It was put to work in 1809 (probably a wrong date) and has been working ever since i.e. 105 years. The engine is a Newcomen type although Newcomen had nothing to do with it. The engine has several times been described and I have descriptions of it filed away. I took several photos of it. It is only used for hoisting now, but was formerly used for pumping as well. When pumping the valve gears were operated by the plunge rod, but for winding the valve gear is hand operated. The present engine man is an old man and he was brought up at the mine and has been the engine man a great number of years. His father ran it before him.”

“Mr Anderson is the managing owner of the colliery, and he kindly permitted me to take photos. His son also invited me to his house and showed me many photos of the engine and gave me particulars. The engine is an interesting relic and should ultimately find its way into a museum. There are many ways of doing things we little think of in these days of wonderful machine tools.”

“The parallel motion is not quite accurate Mr Anderson says. I have not seen one like it before. The engine is connected to 2 single deck cages. The cages and tubs balance.
Rope 3 cwt.
Coal 7 cwt.
Total 10 cwt.
The depth of shaft is 270 ft.”

Extracts from Clarence’s journal. Part of a detailed description of the engine and it’s working. There is more but I have not yet been able to decipher it.

Historical Image of a Newcomen beam engine Historical Image of a Newcomen beam engine

The Farme Colliery engine is now in the Summerlee Museum of Scottish Industrial Life. Some details of it’s history are in a blog here: Mysteries of the Farme Colliery Engine.

These photos are reproduced from lantern slides and were taken with either a ½ plate camera or possibly a ¼ plate which he seems to have been using more from around this time. Many of his slides have survived, but fewer of the original negatives. The slides have the advantage of usually having a title written on them, though relating this to pages in the journal can be a bit trying. Photographs taken before 1912, and there are many, may be related to the contents of a letter or a reference in a notebook but linking them is often a matter of chance.

These images and others like them along with the stories around them are also in a seldom visited corner of my website where I will add more over time, especially when I can link images and text. Clarence trained initially as a draughtsman, the diagrams in the heading are from his journal and were drawn freehand. Unfortunately his writing is at best an almost indecipherable scrawl.

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About The Author

By Richard Becker
Farmer, photographer and naturalist. Living in Wales. Website; www.richardbeckerphotography.co.uk
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Comments

Malcolm Myers on Historical Records in Family Photographs

Comment posted: 24/03/2024

Good luck with your work; it sounds like a huge undertaking! I am currently scanning all of my negatives and slides from about 1984 to 2004. Not as big a challenge, but it's nice to pass on scans to the people in my photos for their family albums.
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Richard Becker replied:

Comment posted: 24/03/2024

Thank you. I am doing in a piecemeal and rather random way, and have been doing so for a number of years. Looking for images that look interesting (i.e. not just family) to investigate.

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Ibraar Hussain on Historical Records in Family Photographs

Comment posted: 24/03/2024

Fantastic
What an honorable and noble position and exciting and very important - and lucky to be given the responsibility to mind history and to pass it on.
And thanks for your website link which I’m going to visit
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Richard Becker replied:

Comment posted: 24/03/2024

Thank you. I am fortunate that previous generations have also thought keeping them was important, as do other members of the extended family who also have had archives of material handed down to them.

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Jalan on Historical Records in Family Photographs

Comment posted: 24/03/2024

Wonderful story Richard! The biggest tragedy of photography today is the vast majority of people don't take the time to label or document their photos. 50 years from now (assuming any of the digital stuff survives) no one will know who is in today's photos - or where they were taken.
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Richard Becker replied:

Comment posted: 24/03/2024

You would think that adding digital metadata is so much easier than keeping physical records, but then it needs to survive in a form to be readable along with the image. I can't help but think that historians in the future will be pondering why photography ceased around 2010 after 150 years of near ubiquity. They may also decide that the peak of photography was when Kodachrome came in nice cardboard mounts that could be easily written on and the decline started with plastic mounts.

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Gary Smith on Historical Records in Family Photographs

Comment posted: 24/03/2024

I wonder if there are enough to publish in book form? Possibly with current day photos showing the former sites?
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Richard Becker replied:

Comment posted: 24/03/2024

I'm sure there are, though it might be hard to find a theme. It is something I have thought of before, but then wondered if anybody would be interested. As for revisiting, I have done a few but most of the industrial locations are long gone. I have others that I would like to visit and they may even appear on 35mmc.

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Geoff Chaplin on Historical Records in Family Photographs

Comment posted: 24/03/2024

What wonderful photographs! And an enviable position to be in although hard work I think. It sounds like there is valuable historical evidence both visual and written in your family records which deserves proper curating and presentation in some recognised academic form so it is not lost. Good luck!
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Richard Becker replied:

Comment posted: 24/03/2024

Thank you. Though I am sure they are not unique what makes them important to me at least is that most of the background information is still available. Without context they would still be interesting photos but also would pose a lot of questions.

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Bill Brown on Historical Records in Family Photographs

Comment posted: 25/03/2024

I really enjoyed this. I viewed the other images on your website and read the stories. So cool! I am my families history keeper and your article has made me more determined than ever to record names and places of photos so they can be remembered and appreciated by future generations. My dad had a special photo album of his images and I had him write out a description of each page. Sadly, unbeknownst to anyone he broke the album apart and was redoing it when he suffered a fatal heart attack. I have never been able to piece it back together as he originally recorded it. I am trying to learn from that incident and make sure my wife and daughter don't suffer the same sad fate when it comes to my archive. Thanks for sharing your story and my best to you in your continued pursuit of building a lasting family photo legacy.
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Richard Becker replied:

Comment posted: 25/03/2024

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I remember around 50 years ago my grandparents with piles of prints sorting them and writing the names of people they could recognise on them. It helps now with identifying faces in photos, but even so some they couldn't remember and I'm sure others are wrong.

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