history

The Hogg daguerreotype is one of the most significant objects in our collection. Taken in 1843, it is the earliest known photograph of a photographer at work.

When the introduction of cheap snapshot cameras coincided with more leisure time for ordinary folk, they flocked to the seaside to record their sunny memories.

Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation put television on the map. Iain Baird looks at some of the objects in our archive that document that momentous day in TV history.

An new archive, including work by Martin Parr, Julian Germain and Anna Fox, has joined our collection.

The world’s earliest surviving negative and Fox Talbot’s mousetrap cameras—priceless artefacts from the birth of photography—are stored here in our archives.

Containing millions of photographs from the first half of the 20th century, the Daily Herald Archive is one of the gems of our collection.

We’ll be counting down to the big 3-0 by sharing some of our biggest achievements and most interesting collection items, and we want you to share your memories.

This year’s IMD is all about memory, creativity and social change—something which is close to our hearts, and inseparable from our collection.

For the next stage of Colin Harding’s alphabetical journey through the collection, he has chosen one of the most important British architects of the 19th century, who also happened to be an innovative camera designer.

This intriguing piece of sporting history is part of our archive…

Curator Iain Logie Baird deciphers the profound cultural meanings surrounding the Nightingale phenomenon.

In the third and final post of the series, Colin Harding looks at the role played by celluloid in the invention and development of moving pictures.