Fonds WHD - Photographs by Walter Doughty

19 glass plate negatives, 13 lantern slides and 24 prints

Glass plate negatives, lantern slides and prints for photographs taken by Walter Doughty during the first 24 years of his Manchester Guardian career.

Administrative/Biographical history: Walter Doughty was born on the 22 August 1876 in Stalybridge. Doughty joined the Manchester Guardian in 1908 as the paper's first staff photographer and continued to work occasionally for the paper and the Manchester Evening News after his retirement in 1949. He was an innovative photojournalist; he was the first newspaperman to photograph the city of Manchester from the air in 1919 when the Manchester Corporation opened its first municipal aerodrome. It is also believed he covered the civil war in Ireland for the paper in 1922 with a camera he either made himself, or had custom built for his use. Part of his obituary from The Guardian, 29 May 1958, reads 'In the files of the office his pictures throughout the Edwardian and Georgian eras would make a fine illustrated history of the North of England from the last 50 years', making him the first in a strong line of Manchester-based Guardian photographers who would continue in this tradition, amongst them Tom Stuttard, Robert Smithies, Don McPhee and Denis Thorpe. He died at his Alderley Edge home on 27 March 1958.

Access to glass plate negatives restricted due to fragile nature. Contact Archivist for further information.