J H L Adams collection

A collection of photographs taken by J H L Adams, Norman Thompson and others. Approximately 650 silver gelatin glass, cellulose nitrate film and triacetate safety film negatives and 127 silver gelatin triacetate colour negatives featuring railways in Britain and overseas, c1928 to 1970.

John Adams joined the Railway Photographic Society in the mid-1930s while he was studying art and photography in London. During the war he served as a photographer with the RAF, and eventually formed his own photographic company, which specialised in advertising.

Whilst working with the Tal-y-llyn Railway Preservation Society in 1951, he first met Pat Whitehouse (qv). They began a prolific partnership and over the years produced a series of books and magazines, as well as fifty instalments of the 'Railway Roundabout' television series for the BBC.

The Adams collection is mainly composed of 2¾ x 1 ¾ to 5 x 4 ins glass and film negatives. These cover the main British operating companies and show locomotives built for the GWR, LNER, LMS, Southern, LBSCR, Great Central, Midland, London, Tilbury & Southend and Great Eastern Railways, together with railways on the Isle of Wight, in Wales and Scotland. There are also images of the Kent & East Sussex and Festiniog Railways, the Wantage Tramway, preserved lines, industrial railways, photographs of railwayana and railway art, and a small number of copy negatives showing stations and trains from the 1880s. The British Railways era is well represented whilst overseas railways featured include the French SNCF and scenes showing engines at Bulawayo in Rhodesia in 1944.

The Adams & Whitehouse film collection is also held by the NRM.