Macleod Collection

Photographs, a collection of approximately 1,200 albumen, collodion and silver gelatin prints, 4 x 3ins to 16 x 12 ins, featuring railways in Britain and overseas, c1860-1980. From the collection of Alastair Macleod and featuring prints made form his own negatives, together with the work of many private and official company photographers.

Born in 1900, the railway career of Alistair MacLeod, or 'Uncle Mac' as he was known to his friends, began in 1919 when he joined the LBSCR Works at Brighton. His interest in railways, however, began long before that when, at the age of fifteen he joined the London Model Railway Club, and a passion for model and miniature railways fired much of his life. On the grouping in 1923 his employer became the Southern Railway and in 1928 he was appointed Assistant for the Isle of Wight, effecting great improvements in the running of the system. He was later promoted to Stores Superintendent. Nationalisation of the railways in 1948 brought MacLeod to the London Midland Region, and there he remained until his retirement in 1964 from the post of Supplies and Contracts Manager. He then worked in the archives of Ian Allan Ltd, the company founded by his former colleague on the Southern.

During the 1930s MacLeod frequently visited the Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway where he was a volunteer driver. It was in the 1950s that he became one of a syndicate of six owners of a 7¼ ins gauge railway at Walton-on-Thames and contributed rolling stock and equipment to the threequarters mile long track until it was sold to the publisher Ian Allan in 1962. He died in 1990.

The MacLeod collection covers a wide range of railways in Britain. There is a great concentration of negatives showing the Caledonian Railway and other Scottish railway companies, whilst the Isle of Wight, LMS, Great Western, Great Central, North Eastern, Midland, and Great Eastern are all represented, as are the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway, Metropolitan Railway, Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, narrow gauge and light railways and Irish railways. The collection also comprises a body of archive material comprising F Moore colour prints, drawings, plans and gradient profiles extracted from magazines such as 'Engineering', 'Railway Engineer', 'Railway Gazette', together with some official company drawings. There is also some film material, held at the National Film & Television Archive, with copies retained by the NRM.