Catalogue description The Ian Allan Ltd collection of railway photographs

This collection includes the work of Stanley Rhodes, H Gordon Tidey, W H Whitworth and E R Wethersett whilst there are also sections which incorporate images by other photographers, some unidentified.

Ian Allan Ltd

• Railway transport

Lists produced by Ian Allan and predecessor companies.

Reference prints for many images. See individual NRM collections for LPC, LGRP, Tidey, Whitworth and Wethersett for further details.

Ian Allan joined the Public Relations Office of the Southern Railway in 1938. One of his tasks was to answer enquiries about the company's locomotives, so he compiled a notebook giving names, numbers, shed allocations and basic details of all the Southern engines. A railway enthusiast himself, Allan suggested to his superiors that the book be published and despite vehement opposition from the Southern's Chief Mechanical Engineer, Oliver Bulleid, in 1942 the 'ABC of Southern Locomotives' appeared under Ian Allan's imprint. The ABC series proved to be the start of a major specialist publishing business encompassing railway, nautical, motoring and aviation books, and magazines which have included 'Modern Transport', 'Trains Illustrated', 'Railway World' and 'Modern Railways'.

Ian Allan Ltd amassed a vast photographic archive, acquiring the railway collections once marketed by LPC, LGRP and Real Photographs. In 1992 these collections were purchased by the NRM with the aid of the National Heritage Memorial Fund.