Edward Linley Sambourne was one of the first photographers to capture street fashion by using a hidden camera. He made his living as an artist and is most notably known for his drawings and cartoons in Punch magazine, where he eventually became a full-t…
These idyllic photographs, taken by William Morris Grundy, capture the rural life in England during the Victorian era. Born in Birmingham in 1806, Grundy took up photography in 1855 and made dozens of stereoscopic photos, primarily posed genre scenes of ru…
The Victorian Era may not have been the start of the institutionalization of patients with mental health problems, but it was certainly a period when the numbers of asylums and patients treated within them, exploded. Whether this rise was mainly due to …
In the Victorian era, the woman's hair was considered an important part of her appearance and it marked her status and her femininity. Women in that era were often expected to grow their hair to great lengths, and it was common knowledge that a woman’s crownin…
During the Second World War, Londoners of all classes flocked to Underground platforms to keep themselves safe from the destruction that was being wrought above the ground by the German bombers. The Blitz refers to the strategic bombing campaign conducted b…
The close relationship between Queen Victoria and her young Indian attendant Abdul Karim was deemed controversial and scandalous by the royal court. After the Queen passed away, the family evicted Karim from the home the queen had given him and deported hi…
In August 1914, explorer Ernest Shackleton boarded the Endurance and set sail for Antarctica, where he planned to cross the last uncharted continent on foot. The expedition was an attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent. After…
Throughout world history, camouflage has been used to prevent an enemy from noticing a hidden object. A tank can camouflage itself among trees and the surrounding terrain, a submarine can lurk beneath the waves and it’s by default hidden, but what about ca…
Arguably one of the best-known and most recognizable bridges in the world, Tower Bridge was built in the late nineteenth century and immediately acclaimed as a feat of Victorian engineering. Designed to ease road traffic while maintaining river access, it w…
Not many people know that the famous American author Jack London was also a skilled documentary photographer and photojournalist. He took thousands of pictures over the years from the slums of London’s East End to the islands of the South Pacific. In 19…
Stonehenge, on the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire in southern England, is certainly one of the most well-known and well-studied prehistoric megalithic monuments. Scholars had determined that there was a very long process of construction and use of Stonehe…
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, photographer Clifton R. Adams was commissioned by the National Geographic to document life in England. Adams’ beautiful autochromes—a process of producing color images by using potato starch—present images that capture th…
These photographs were taken in 1940 by John Topham while he was visiting the base of the Royal Artillery Coastal Defence Battery at Shornemead Fort, near Gravesend, in Kent. The intention had been to photograph the British troops rehearsing in drag for the…
George V (1865-1936), King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1910, went to India in 1911 to be crowned Emperor of India in a great durbar in Delhi on 12 December 1911. The site for the durbar was in northwest Delhi and a city of tents came up across 25 …
The airship R33 was built by Armstrong Whitworth and was completed after the end of the First World War. Her first flight was in early 1919. She was sent to Pulham airship station where she clocked up over 300 flying hours in tests and the training of crew…
The Battle of Cable Street was a clash between anti-fascist protestors and the British Union of Fascists on Sunday 4 October 1936. The BUF was an organization inspired by Mussolini’s Blackshirts, and allegedly included 50,000 members at its height before b…
Princess Diana visited the United States in early November 1985 with her husband Prince Charles. The royal couple stayed at the White House, where they attended a gala dinner on 9 November. The 24-year-old Princess was photographed dancing with the acto…
These rare historical photographs were taken from 1873 to 1877 and are part of Street Life in London, a book that was one of the first examples of social documentary photography. The authors, photographer John Thomson and journalist Adolphe Smith, aimed…
These mugshots of Edwardian Britain depict minors arrested for petty crimes and are part of a wide photographic collection of Tyne Wear Archives. The age of the subjects starts from 12 years old to 21 which was the legal age of adulthood. These minors w…
These amazing color photos of Belfast capture the shipyards, the lively streets, the everyday life, the fashion, and document a city worlds away from the one we know today. The pictures were taken by documentary and Press photographer, Bert Hardy, who's be…