A photograph entitled 'Close, Nos. 97 and 103 Saltmarket', taken by Thomas Annan in 1868. The photograph shows a rundown close behind numbers 97 and 103 Saltmarket in Glasgow. Two boys stand on the site of a demolished house and a water pump stands in the foreground.

A photograph entitled 'Close, Nos. 97 and 103 Saltmarket', taken by Thomas Annan in 1868.

The photograph shows a rundown close behind numbers 97 and 103 Saltmarket in Glasgow. Two boys stand on the site of a demolished house and a water pump stands in the foreground. A group of people can be seen in a wooden extension halfway up the building on the left.

In 1868 the City of Glasgow Improvement Trust approached Thomas Annan to take photographs of some of the slum areas of the city prior to demolition. The resulting images are some of the earliest examples of documentary photography.