Swindon in the Past Lane

Nicki Western, Marketing, Events and Premises Manager at Swindon Museum and Art Gallery, arrived at the Swindon Heritage History Day weighed down with some extremely heavy bags. Among the museum artefacts she had brought with her was a selection of the ever popular Alfred Beaney photographs. Here's a blogpost I published in December 2012 about the Beaney archive. Swindon Museum and Art Gallery has possibly the largest family album ever - and they want to know the names of everyone pictured in it. The albums contain 40,000 photographs taken in the 1940s-70s by local man Albert Beaney.  Alongside his commissioned work Albert would travel the streets of Swindon on his motorbike, taking photographs of the children at play.  He would then return with his prints in the hope of selling them to the childrens' parents. Consequently only addresses and street names were recorded in his notebooks - the names of those pictured remain unknown. In 1998 the collection, a priceles...

Albert Beaney Swindonians of a certain age might remember Albert Beaney.  With his camera and his notebook he was a familiar figure on the streets of the town. Albert George Beaney was born in Swindon in 1913.  He worked in the Post Office for many years, but photography was always his first love and he advertised the photography business he ran from his home at 50 Beatrice Street.  When the customers didn't come to him, he took to the streets for inspiration. According to anecdotal memory he would take photos of children in the streets and parks, sometimes individually, sometimes in groups of friends - difficult to imagine in today's more fearful climate.  Having recorded their addresses he would return at a later date with the prints to sell. Many of the photographs taken between 1945-1970 went unclaimed and in 1998 the Swindon Society helped towards the purchase of 40,000 of Albert's prints and negatives now held by the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery. ...