Historic Views of London

Historic Views of London represents a selection of photographs from the collection of one man; it confines itself to the city of London, and scarcely strays beyond the limits of Victoria's reign. The author feels that these restrictions give to the book an inward strength and her hope is that it may prove a small tribute to a remarkable collector. Bernard Howarth-Loomes was an important collector of early photographs and particularly of stereo photography. Throughout his life he was deeply interested in photography and was especially enthralled by the stereoscopic, three-dimensional process; he collected photographs of all sorts, stereo-cards and photographic equipment. Through his collecting years he showed his consideration for others, permitting the National Monument Record (NMR) to make copies of those which were relevant to that collection and generously granting reproduction rights. The topographical range of photographs was spread across the British Isles; those chosen for this volume have been confined to the Greater London area and in particular to the City of London and to Westminster. The NMR copied about 365 shots of the London area; we have selected almost 200 for this book. Ann Saunders has added an authoritative introductory text and captions for each image.