| AdminHistory | The Handsworth Photographic Society [hereafter HPS] was founded in January 1895. In that month’s edition of 'Handsworth: A local society magazine' began a section entitled 'Photographic Chat' containing tutorials and other information about the hobby, photographic processes and technology, and notes and queries from amateur photographers. The article reported considerable interest amongst local amateur photographers that led to successful efforts to form a local club the previous December.
The HPS numbered around 50 members at its inception. Its first Honorary Secretary was Mr W.M. Jones, a local chemist based at Villa Cross. Its headquarters were based in a large room on the second floor of College House, Hampstead Row. The room was available to members between 8 am until 11 pm and had its own darkroom. The Handsworth Local Magazine (April 1895 edition) reported that Ordinary Meetings of the HPS were to be held each Thursday evening for demonstrations, lectures, and lantern slide exhibitions, with a programme to be arranged for a social evening each Monday. The Annual General Meetings of the HPS were generally held January each year.
The HPS was formally inaugurated before a large audience at Soho House on the 7 February 1895, with a lecture by Mr F.W.W. Howel, an Icelandic explorer and photographer. On 7 March 1895 the society staged its first exhibition of 200 lantern slides. On 14 March the President of the HPS gave a demonstration of lantern slide making, and at the same meeting a series of Saturday photographic excursions planned for the summer, which became a regular fixture of the society's activities over the coming years.
Membership of the club rose to 80 members within the first three months of its existence, making it one of the largest photographic groups in the Birmingham area outside the Birmingham Photographic Society. By May 1895 it had its own news section in the ‘Handsworth Magazine’ distinct from the existing 'Photographic Chat', including a programme of forthcoming events as well as reports on the previous month's activities.
In an article in the ‘Handsworth Magazine’ of May 1895 detailing the proceedings of the HPS the previous April, it drew attention to a contribution by one Dr Langford encouraging the membership to set up a Photographic Survey of Handsworth.
At an Ordinary Meeting of the HPS of 30 April 1896 a paper was read out by Robert K. Dent, the author of 'The Making of Birmingham', entited 'A local library and a local collection: How to form them'. The paper dealt with the question of the proposed Photographic Survey of the Handsworth area by the HPS. Dent demonstrated his own expertise on the subject with regard to his own compilation, 'Historic Staffordshire', giving an account of the history of the parish of Handsworth from the Norman Conquest to the present day, and ‘emphasised the fact that although much had passed away unrecorded, much still remained to be secured’.
At the same meeting the membership discussed the proposed scope and methodology of the Survey, which seems to have been the catalyst that brought about the formal organisation of the Survey, the earliest surviving prints now in the WPS Collection dating from around the summer of that year, shortly after this meeting was held.
The ‘Handsworth Magazine’ of November 1896 reported that the HPS Survey Section’s real usefulness was being realised with photographs being taken of the old barns, farms and cottages at Handsworth Wood, 'the demolition of which sever yet another link in the chain connecting old and new Handsworth', having 'formed a conspicuous landmark on the old turnpike road to Walsall for over two centuries'.
The photographs were secured for preservation at the local library, the first attempt to capture a photographic record of Handsworth's changing topography to be deposited with the municipal authorities on the same terms as the established Warwickshire Photographic Survey based in Birmingham. The membership of the HPS were operating in a parish that was already experiencing a rapid pace of urban development and which in fifteen years would be absorbed into the city of Birmingham, becoming one of its most densely populated suburbs.
The HPS Survey Section had a particular interest in capturing for posterity a record of the historic buildings and landscape of the rural and semi-rural districts to the north and east of Birmingham before they were swallowed by urban sprawl. The writer of the Handsworth Local Magazine article of November 1896 captured the unease felt by housing reformers and middle-class amateur photographers alike when they noted: 'A good collection of all that is Handsworthian, both of the past and present, ought to reconcile us to the vandalistic practices of the speculative builder'.
At the Annual Meeting of the HPS of 7 January 1897 it was reported by the President, Philip Whitehouse, that with regard to the work of the Society 'the main interest has naturally centred in the [Photographic] Survey of the District. Under the able direction of Mr. W.J. Morgan, who has kindly undertaken to act as Secretary to the Survey, the work has gone on steadily during the past few months'. The collected prints from the previous month’s work were submitted to the meeting for the consideration of those present.
Survey work seemed to be proceeding in a fairly ad hoc manner since April 1896. The Handsworth Local Magazine of February that year reported that arrangements were being made for a proposal to organise the survey of the district more formally. By May the first batch of prints of the Photographic Survey of Handsworth were on display in the Inner Reference Room of Handsworth Public Library, mostly comprising old buildings, corners of roads that had been improved, as well as studies of James Watt's workroom and Mr Duff's set of prints of the River Tame. A second batch of prints was presented to the Reference Library in the summer of that year including material of a more artistic as well as topographical interest.
At that point the monthly programmes featured in the Handsworth Local Magazine show that the HPS were organising separate excursions for the Photographic Survey of Handsworth. In April 1898 it was announced that the whole of the HPS Survey Collection be submitted to the scrutiny of judges in the autumn, who would make awards to the best pictures sent in. On Saturday 14 May that year the HPS made a well attended excursion to Perry Barr, resulting in a large collection of views of Perry Barr Hall and the River Tame which were added to the existing collection.
After the competition results were announced the Society reported in December 1898 that Handsworth Borough Council had expressed interest in obtaining a complete set of Survey Slides before the current lantern slide season was over. At the Annual General Meeting of 5 January 1899 it was announced that some 60 - 70 of the HPS Survey prints had been sent to the Handsworth Public Library Committee and exhibited in the Reading Rooms there during 1898, with two excursions connected with the Survey carried out with one competition to which 90 prints had been submitted.
The Proceedings of the Annual Meetings of the Survey Section of the HPS held January each year from 1896 (as detailed in 'Handsworth Local Society Magazine') state that prints from the survey negatives were deposited at the Reference Section of Handsworth Public Library for the benefit of members of the public along much the same lines as those deposited by the WPS at Birmingham Central Reference Library since 1890 (see Collection record MS 2724).
In 1908 the HPS became affiliated with the Photographic Society of Great Britain. That year the HPS moved to a new headquarters at the Handsworth branch of the Y.M.C.A. At the Annual Meeting of 9 January 1908 it was reported that 34 prints had been deposited at Handsworth Public Library that year, with fourteen duplicates retained by the HPS along with 24 lantern slides approved by the Council of the HPS. On the occasion of the meeting of the HPS of 4 March 1909 an exhibition of the Survey Prints of Handsworth was staged, followed by music and recitations.
At the Annual General Meeting of 6 January 1910 it was reported by George Wood, the Honorary Secretary of the HPS Survey Section, that 14 photographs had been submitted and prints of the same added to the collection in Handsworth Public Library. A special Survey excursion under the leadership of Mr Joseph Hill was taken to Perry Barr that year, and a number of photographs taken.
By the Annual General Meeting of 2 March 1911 it was reported that the Handsworth Photographic Survey Collection numbered around 300 prints. At the 17th Annual General Meeting of the HPS, 7 March 1912, it was reported that the Survey Section had not made any major advances that year due to a large extent to the removal of Mr Burt as Honorary Secretary of the Survey and Society.
At the following year's Annual Meeting of 6 March 1913 the new Honorary Secretary of the Survey Section, Mr C.W. Clarke, read his report, mentioning that the survey prints had now been removed from Handsworth Public Library to Birmingham Central Reference Library on the closing of the District Reference Libraries, and that Mr Walter Powell, the Chief Librarian, was taking steps for the proper indexing and binding of the prints 'and helping in many other ways to make the section a more useful one for reference to those who were interested in the old buildings of Handsworth, now lost in the advance of more modern requirements'.
The HPS Survey Section more or less discontinued photographic survey work after 1913. Photographic work continued to be undertaken by the WPS in the suburban area previously documented by the HPS after Handsworth was absorbed into the city of Birmingham under the Greater Birmingham Scheme, 1911. The HPS proper continued to flourish solely as an artistic photographic club until 1915 when the First World War interrupted the club's activities.
The HPS remained dormant until 1931 when the present HPS was formed out of the Soho Hill Men’s Movement apparently without knowledge that an earlier society had existed, a fact that did not come to light until March 1981! The HPS continues to function as an artistic photographic society to this day and remains affiliated to the Midland Photographic Federation. |