Catalogue description G F Burtt collection of railway photographs

This collection is composed of glass and film negatives with a particular emphasis on static views of LBSCR and LSWR locomotives and trains. This collection also includes the work of the pioneering railway photographers, the Chambers brothers, E J Bedford and P W Pilcher, further references to whom may be found in other NRM collections.

Reference prints for a proportion of the negatives are available in binders in the Reading Room.

Burtt, G F, 1871-1949, co-founder of the Stephenson Locomotive Society, founder of The Institution of Locomotive Engineers, of Brighton, Sussex

• Railway transport

Burtt was one of the founders of the Stephenson Locomotive Society in 1909, acted as its first secretary, and was principal founder of what became known as The Institution of Locomotive Engineers.

Edward John Bedford, some of whose work is included in this collection took his first railway photographs in the 1880s, and in 1889 began to experiment with the idea of taking photographs of moving trains, an approach which revolutionised railway photography. Initially, the quality of his work went unrecognised and only a few of his photographs were published. It was not until they were reproduced by J E Kite in his '1850 - 1925 Vintage Album' some years later that the quality of Bedford's photography was recognised in a wider field.