Maidstone Museum & Bentlif Art Gallery: Out of the Shadow; into the Light
Over 660,000 artefacts and specimens jostle for space in Maidstone Museum and, sadly, many items go unseen for years. These hidden gems include a collection of over 4,000 glass-plate negatives, most deposited over 100 years ago by local photographers.
Very few of these negatives have been printed, so the collection has remained inaccessible. That is until the Maidstone Camera Club offered to help. Their members spent hundreds of hours laboriously scanning the images and removing blemishes to restore the pictures to their original splendour.
Over 800 plates have been scanned so far with 200 of the best printed as superb black and white images. There are busy Kentish street scenes, hop-pickers at work, Victorian picnickers at the beach, dock workers unloading sailing ships, long-demolished buildings and labourers toiling on farms, all captured in amazing detail.
These wonderful images are being exhibited at the Museum in a temporary exhibition called 'Out of the Shadow; Into the Light'. The Camera Club will continue working on the collection until all 4,000 negatives have been copied and preserved for posterity.
The Museum’s Manager, Simon Lace, said "The exhibition is a great example of how museums can bring history to life. The negatives were inaccessible and forgotten. Now, thanks to the efforts of a dedicated team of local enthusiasts, we can offer our visitors an amazing glimpse into the lives of their ancestors". He added "To have attempted this project using commercial photographers would have been ruinously expensive. The local Camera Club, full of highly skilled amateurs, has provided a way for us to bring this important resource to a wider audience. Without their help we could never have achieved it and without our willingness to provide access to the collections they could never have had so much fun!"
This exhibition runs until 29 January 2006. Open Monday to Saturday 10.00 - 17.15; Sundays 11.00 - 16.00. Admission is FREE.
For more information phone Maidstone Museum on 01622 602838 or visit the website at www.museum.maidstone.gov.uk
1 Gun battery, HM Dockyard, Sheerness, c.1870
2 Maidstone museum, c.1920
3 Family group, location unknown, c.1900
4 Boy and dog, unknown location, c.1910
5 Junction of King Street and Church Street, Maidstone, c.1880
6 Starre & Crowne Hotel, Goudhurst, c.1920
7 High Street, Maidstone, c.1920
8 Maidstone Gas Company, Middle Row, Maidstone, c.1925