Old England

     In the late 1920s and early 1930s National Geographic sent photographer Clifton R. Adams to England to record its farms, towns and cities, and its people at work and play. 

Only, Adams happened to record it all in color using the Autochrome process.

     The Autochrome was the foremost color photographic process of the day, since it was first brought to market by the Lumière brothers in 1907. The core ingredient? Potatoes. Tiny grains of dyed potato starch, around 4,000,000 per square inch, coated a glass plate. The gaps between the grains filled with lampblack, and the coated layer allowed the exposure to capture a color image.

      In 1928 England, farming was a very significant part of life, with men and women employed in the fields. In fact, many of Adams' autochromes show women. That year British women attained full voting equality with men, via the Equal Franchise Act. Until the passage of the act, only women over 30 could vote in British elections.

      Clifton R. Adams was 38 years old when he took these pictures. He photographed many other European countries, as well as Central and North America, working for National Geographic from 1920 until his death in 1934, aged just 44.

 

 An English woman points pridefully to her farm cart, in Cambridgeshire, England. Wicks of Wisbech constructed horse-drawn caravans used by Romany families traveling throughout Britain. 

 

 An informal portrait of a farmer and his cart, in Crowland, Lincolnshire. Decoy Farm is now the site of a recycling centre and a housing estate. 

 

 A police constable passes the day with farmers gathering hay, in Lancashire.

 

 Two women rest for lunch in a Lancashire hayfield.

A young girl plays in the sand at Sandown, Isle of Wight.

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 Actors dress for a pageant as Britannia and her knights.

 

The characters of Britannia and her colonies and dependencies, in Southampton, Hampshire.

Two women buy ice cream from a vendor out of his converted car, in Cornwall. Kelly's ice cream is still in production today.

A woman sticks her head out of her bridge house window, in Ambleside, Lake District, Cumbria, England.

A war veteran sells matches on the street, in Canterbury, Kent.

Women selling Queen Alexandra roses for charity, in Seaford, East Sussex.

Two bus drivers stand in front of a tour bus in Ulverston, Cumbria.

In Oxford, the corner of High street and Cornhill is bustling.

A view of the Cunard SS "Mauretania" at dock, in Southampton, Hampshire.

A view of a vine-covered house on a Stratford-upon-Avon street, in Warwickshire.

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A young woman mails a letter at the pillar box, in Oxford.

Women have tea in front of the Clock House, originally a hospice, in Buckinghamshire.

A little boy mails a letter in the hedgerow, in Sussex.

A London double-decker bus stops to allow people aboard.