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AN INTRODUCTION TO THE
THOMAS SHIRES COLLECTION BY BOB SHIRES.
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As a young man in the 1970's
I became interested in photography, and my
father gave me two wooden boxes and a small
folder containing a collection of glass and
celluloid negatives taken by his uncle (my
great uncle) in the early years of the last
century.
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These negatives have formed the basis of an
‘on and off’ hobby from that day to this.
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At that time, long before digital, I did not
have an enlarger which would carry the 5inch
by 4inch negatives, so I borrowed an antique
magic lantern projector, and in an
improvised darkroom in our kitchen, often to
my wife’s annoyance, I projected the images
onto a wall where my printing paper was
fixed with sticky tape, over a number of
months I managed to produce an acceptable
set of prints from many of the negatives.
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From time to time since then I have opened
the album and admired the quality of this
small collection, and occasionally tried to
research the locations and retake the
pictures in an up to date setting.
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I have always thought that my ‘private
little collection’ might be of interest to a
wider audience, and also it has concerned me
that the years would inevitably lead to the
deterioration of the original negatives, so
I recently decided to have the negatives
professionally scanned. After a little
research I came across The House of Images,
a company which specialises in scanning
antique photographs, and Ian Smith of that
company very helpfully picked up the
collection and returned it a few days later
along with five discs containing the
digitised images.
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Having the images available on a computer
screen was a joy. Compared with the
struggles in the early days I could now
instantly view the pictures and zoom in to
examine the marvellous detail, I could
change the contrast and brightness and
remove blemishes in a few seconds, but the
obvious next step was a black art to me, how
could I make the pictures available on the
internet?
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A chance visit to a another antique
photograph collection web site proved to be
the turning point. The Rowley Collection web
site impressed me sufficiently to call the
designers Skiptonweb, and whilst they were
unable to help me directly they suggested I
speak to Mark Wilson of
Cowlingweb.
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Mark was immediately enthusiastic about my
project, his enthusiasm was remarkable,
within a couple of days the framework of the
site was developed, and within a couple of
weeks the site was live on the internet and
the whole world could share my little
collection. |
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ABOUT THOMAS ATHERTON
SHIRES
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Thomas Atherton Shires was born in Bolton on
the 9th of July in 1877 one of five children
that reached adulthood . The family built up
a grocery business at 94 Folds Road, and
eventually extended it to a second shop
elsewhere in Bolton. Thomas was described as
a master draper and it is assumed that he
was employed in the milliners shop that his
two sisters ran next door to the grocery
business on Folds Rd.
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As a young man with a steady income Thomas
was able to indulge in a hobby and although
he is rumoured to have been a member of a
‘banjo’ band, he was principally attracted
to the relatively new interest of amateur
photography. It is believed that the
Sanderson ¼ plate ‘field’ camera used by
Thomas only became available in about 1903,
so it is possible to date all the pictures
to between 1903 and 1905.
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The content of the pictures appears to
support the premise that this collection
represents the Sunday activities of a middle
class young man.
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The people displayed in the photographs are
mostly shown in their ‘Sunday best’ cloths,
and apart from the Bolton scenes the
remaining pictures largely illustrate what
would probably have been day trips out by
train or by steamer from Liverpool to North
Wales or the Isle of Man: One of the Amlwch
Port pictures very well supports the Sunday
trip theory in that it appears that many
local people can be seen on the jetty
watching the steamer leave port.
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Unfortunately the collection is limited to
186 pictures, only five rolls of film for a
modern photographer, but photography for
Thomas Shires was a more involved process;
firstly he would set up his tripod in a
suitable position, then he would fix the
camera to the tripod after which he would
carefully view the inverted picture through
the camera, with the well known black cloth
over his head! Finally when satisfied with
the image he would insert the frame
containing the glass plate negative into the
camera and operate the shutter, having first
calculated the exposure time to get the
desired result; not exactly ‘point and
shoot’.
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It is impossible to say how Thomas Shires's
undoubted talent for photography would have
evolved over the years, but sadly his life
ended in 1905 at the age of 28. |
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