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New collection celebrates work of aerial photographer

The Harold Wingham Collection showcases the post-war landscape of the West Country

Portrait of Harold Wingham standing beside an Auster 5J-160 light aircraft, which was built in 1946
Author: Sophie SquiresPublished 20th Oct 2022
Last updated 20th Oct 2022

Historic England’s Archive and the friends and colleagues of Harold Wingham have come together to celebrate the work of the pioneering aerial photographer.

The Harold Wingham Collection of almost 2,000 photographic negatives and corresponding prints has been made available online to the public for the first time, and features in three new digital galleries exploring key themes in Wingham’s work.

The collection is divided into 86 flights, which were flown between April 1951 and July 1963. Wingham used hand-held aerial reconnaissance cameras, which could produce images with excellent resolution, hence the quality of detail captured in his photography.

From the castles of Cornwall to Gloucester Cathedral, the collection is celebrated for its mix of architectural, archaeological and industrial subjects and views of villages and towns in the early post-war period, offering a unique insight into the changing landscape of the West and South West of England.

Mevagissey, Cornwall

Mevagissey, Cornwall

With its sheltered, deep-water harbour, Mevagissey became one of the major centres of the Cornish fishing industry. The inner harbour piers were built between 1770 and 1773 and the outer piers in the 1880s. The latter were destroyed by a blizzard in 1891 and rebuilt in 1897
30 July 1959

New collection celebrates work of aerial photographer
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HMP Dartmoor, Dartmoor Forest, Devon

HMP Dartmoor, Dartmoor Forest, Devon

Dartmoor Prison was built in response to overcrowded prisoner of war hulks at Chatham, Portsmouth and Plymouth. The foundation stone was laid in 1806 and the first inmates received in 1809. It became a civilian prison in 1850. Note the uniquely shaped football pitch!
23 July 1959

Who was Harold Wingham?

Harold Anthony Wingham (1924 - 2021) was an amateur aerial photographer, described by Geoff Hall, a former Librarian of the National Library of Air Photographs as ‘one of the unsung heroes’ of aerial photography.

Wingham was born at Calmore on the edge of the New Forest in 1924. During the Second World War he served in the Royal Air Force as a wireless operator and trainee navigator. After the war, Harold compiled weather reports for the Ministry of Civil Aviation in Gloucester and later worked for the Glouster Aircraft Corporation.

Wingham took flying lessons and learned photography so that he could carry out aerial reconnaissance for archaeological purposes.

He acquired government surplus camera equipment and film and began recording the archaeology and architecture of the West Country, covering sites in Cornwall, Devon, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Herefordshire, Monmouthshire, Oxfordshire, Somerset, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Wiltshire.

Much of his flying was self-funded and reflects his archaeological and social interests.

Sadly, Harold’s commitment to taking photographs from the air came to an end in 1963 after he witnessed an air crash that killed his pilot, a close friend. However, this didn’t curtail a passion Harold had for airships, which he promoted as a more stable platform for aerial photography and archaeological survey.

Harold conceived a design for a two-man airship, which he worked on from 1961 until the project came to an end in the mid-1970s.

Richard Savage, a friend of Harold Wingham, said: "I first met Harold in 1970 at the second season of excavations at Crickley Hill in Gloucestershire. He came to the site hut, in traditional country walking tweeds and said, in the light, quiet voice all his friends will remember, “I wonder whether these might be of any interest to you”. He was holding out prints of his classic air photographs of the site.

"We were indeed very interested, and they were immediately and always important to our work, enabling us to set the excavation results year by year in the context of the unexcavated remainder of the site. I came to learn that this quiet, generous approach with important material was characteristic of his kindness and scholarship.

“His flying, with a pilot colleague whose death in an air crash in 1963 brought an end to Harold’s air photography, was largely self- funded, and relied on his economical way of life.

"He lived alone and had many friends. For a time, he lived at the Brockworth Residential Club, where in the 1970s he happily showed me his room. He was in his 50s, and the room, scrupulously neat, with many of his worldly possessions under the bed, would have been thought unacceptably small by most students of today.

"When this closed he moved, ultimately to a cottage in Cranham, where he was deeply involved with local archaeology on the ground and well-liked by his neighbours, whom he was always ready to help.

"He had a wonderful sense of humour and was a brilliant (though never harmful) practical joker. During his hospital stays in his last years he was very popular with his nurses, and after his death a wake was held, at the Black Horse in Cranham."

You can find the Harold Wingham Collection on Historic England’s website.

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