British Library photography show gives insight into British history

More than 250 19th century photographs are to be shown at the British Library’s winter exhibition called Points of View.

The collection is from the library’s vast 350,000-strong photograph archive and will be the first major exhibition of pictures to be held at the library. The announcement that the pictures are to be shown has caused excitement among photography enthusiasts as they have rarely been seen by the public.

The British Library’s head of visual materials, John Falconer, says, "although we have what is undoubtedly a world class collection of 19th-century photographs, these have not been particularly prominent in the public eye. This exhibition is an attempt to remedy that."

Falconer says that the exhibition will be concerned with how photography was used to reflect and comment on the concerns of the time and will include images of industry and imperialism. Others will reflect the science of the time while some will simply show interesting portraits.

The show, which launches on 30 October and runs until 7 March, features the work of great photography pioneer, William Henry Fox Talbot. Talbot invented the negative/positive photographic process called calotype.

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