Image by Gary Taylor – Past and Present Photographs
It’s hard to imagine a time when cameras were new, special technology that only photographers had. Especially now that everyone has a smart phone in their pocket to snap photos and selfies at any opportunity. But once upon a time, going to have your photograph taken was a very big event and photographs were precious and rare investments. In Mossley, people that wanted to get a portrait would don their best clothes and head off the Smith Photographer’s Hut at the top of Brookfields just off Stamford Road, nestled behind a shop taking bookings for Haigh’s Coaches. In the studio, a scene would be set and people would pose for formal photographs. Families would go to get portraits with their children, coulples getting married would mark their special day and schools and threatre groups would all troop through the doors to be captured on celuloid.
W. Smith didn’t just take portraits. He documented the landscape and people of Mossley and was prolific in capturing the town to film. He would produce postcards of different views Mossley that he sold in his shop. Today you will find a great collection of his work at both the Mossley Heritage Centre and the Tameside Image Archive.
Use the botton below to open the what3words mapping site and find the location of Smith Photographer’s Hut today…
Smiths also had a photograpy shop at 56 Stamford Road. In her book for the Mossley Civic Society, Alison Wild recalls; “The week after Whit Friday would find the window full of all the photographs that Mr Smith had taken druing the Whit Walks in Mossley and everyone would take a look at see if he had taken on of them.” Shirley Howard told us on a visit to Mossley Heritage Centre that “all the photographs would have numbers on them, so you can pick out your photograph, order and pay and collect the following week.”
The image below shows Smith’s shop and if you look closely, you can see the shop sign and a small group of children outside, presumably looking at all the photographs in the window.
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