Our June newsletter is full of engaging new content, plus news of the library's latest collaborative book. We start, though, with a piece on the photographs of Roger Mayne, who has died at the age of 85.

Roger Mayne 1929 - 2014

Everyone at Mary Evans Picture Library is saddened to hear the news of the death of photojournalist and long-time Library contributor Roger Mayne, who passed away on 7th June. Born in 1929, Roger started work as a freelance photographer in 1954 and began to capture the ordinary lives of the people in the streets surrounding his home in North Kensington. Today little or nothing remains of the terraces, railings and doorways around Southam Street W10, cleared away in the early 1960s as a condemned environment. What does remain however are Roger’s photographs which, without sentimentalising these untamed neighbourhoods, delve deep within them with passion, detail and understanding. Figures are often pictured in motion, playing sport, leaping upwards, the animation of bodies released into the open street space from the cramped and dark confines of their living conditions.

Enthused by the British modern art movement of the early 1950s, Roger regularly visited St Ives and the Corsham Art School. Here he captured natural, informal portraits of artist friends including Patrick Heron, Roger Hilton and Terry Frost, while at home he produced a detailed study of the growth and development of his two children with his wife, the playwright Anne Jellicoe whom he married in 1962.

A major retrospective in 1986 at the V&A renewed interest in his work, in particular his Southam Street series, and led to a Timewatch documentary in 1989.

Mary Evans Picture Library became the main representative of Roger’s work for editorial and commercial representation in 1991 and we have digitised and made available over 1700 of his photographs covering all aspects of his long and varied career.

Click here to view just a small selection.

The Wentworth Collection

We're delighted to have recently taken on representation of a very extensive privately-owned and scanned collection with a strong emphasis on British topographical scenes. The Wentworth Collection consists of over 6300 images, many taken from late Victorian and Edwardian postcards, the golden age of card collecting. As well as scenes around the UK, there are photographs of vintage cars, wedding groups, processions and charabanc outings from the 1900s and 1910s. A rather macabre postcard of the Allendale Wolf, who reportedly terrorised livestock in 1904 and whose tale passed into English folklore, fits perfectly with our own superb collection of legend and folklore images.

A small taste of this eclectic mix can be seen here.

Women's sporting and social history at Bedford

If you're looking for images illustrating women's student and sporting life in the earlier decades of the last century, you would do well to have a look at the photographs in the Bedford Physical Education Old Students Association (BPEOSA) Archive. This terrific collection of photographs dates back to 1903 and includes images up to the 1940s.

The founder of the Bedford College of Physical Training (later the Bedford College of Physical Education) was Margaret Stansfeld, Principal from 1903 to 1945, who succeeded in developing a strong female tradition of sports and gymnastics against opposition from a male-dominated society. Stansfeld appears in one of the photographs surrounded by female colleagues. Elsewhere the girls fence, play lacrosse and hockey, and perform dances and gymnastic displays. Four of them are also seen, in one superb photograph from 1928, smoking in a rather louche manner while wearing pyjamas, while a photo of a student hanging from her fingertips on the outside of a building has the truly terrifying caption 'fire drill'.

Click here for a sample of these images.

Great War Britain

As the 100th anniversary of the start of World War One gets ever closer, our exciting news on the book front is the recent publication of Great War Britain: The First World War at Home by Lucinda Gosling (who also happens to be a staff member at Mary Evans Picture Library).

On 28th June 1914, 100 years ago this month, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, were shot and killed in Sarajevo, an action that led directly to the First World War.

The declaration of war in Britain just over a month later was to change the country irrevocably as conflict came to dominate almost every aspect of civilian life for the next four years. Popular weekly magazines such as The Tatler, The Sketch and The Queen recorded the national preoccupations of the time and in particular, the upper-class experience of war. Targeted at a well-heeled, largely female audience, these magazines were veteran reporters of aristocratic balls, the latest Parisian fashions and society engagements, but quickly adapted to war-like conditions without ever quite losing their gossipy essence. Fashion soon found itself jostling for position with items on patriotic fundraising, and Court presentations were replaced by notes on nursing convalescent soldiers. Great War Britain, published by History Press, presents a fascinating and at times amusing perspective of life on the home front, and is illustrated exclusively with images from Mary Evans.

Available direct from the publisher and all good bookshops!

For a selection of images of the momentous events of June 1914, please click here.

Let us know what you think

We welcome your feedback about this newsletter or any aspect of the Mary Evans Picture Library. Please write to us at pictures@maryevans.com. If you'd rather be unsubscribed from our mailing list, please click here.

Best wishes,

Mary Evans Picture Library