Catalogue description The Tidey collection of railway photographs

His photographs favour no particular company or area, but cover a large part of England and Scotland. From Webb Compounds and Stirling Singles to 'Kings', 'Duchesses', 'Princes' and 'Princesses', Tidey photographed them all.

Listed by locomotive type and company, and in numerical order, identified by 'T' prefix. Reference prints for much of the collection are available for consultation in the Reading Room.

Tidey, H Gordon, 1879-1971, estate agent and railway photographer, of London

• Railway transport

H Gordon Tidey was described by the editor of 'Railways' as "one of the fathers of railway photography". From 1900 onwards he devoted a week a year to railway photography, favouring no particular company or area, but covering a large part of England and Scotland. He eschewed the more conventional 30 degree angle shot of a train in motion, taken from a platform or embankment, often choosing instead a high viewpoint, such as an overbridge, in order to photograph the entire train, "though the exhaust [could] cause complications". He felt that he was "practically along amongst photographers in operating so frequently from the side on which the sun is not shining, which to me gives a very pleasing effect".

During his lifetime Tidey sold most of his railway photographs to the various companies established to market images to railway enthusiasts, and his work features extensively in the LPC and Real collections, which the NRM purchased from Ian Allan Ltd in 1992.