Amersham Museum has an extensive collection of photographs from Victorian times onwards. They can be viewed in the museum on an easy-to-use touch screen and some are also available in albums for visitors to browse.
George Ward’s photographs
The most important photograph collection we have is that taken by George Ward. Shown below is a small selection of the many photographs taken by him between 1880 and 1930, which have been “digitised” from his original glass-plate negatives. George Ward was born in 1863 and died in 1943 and lived in Old Amersham all his life. He was a man of many parts: in addition to being a talented photographer, he was the first manager of the Amersham gasworks, he founded the Amersham Brass Band and set up the town’s first cycle and car repair business.
Click on any of the photographs below to enlarge it and to see the description and the reference number (in brackets); you can then click on the PREV or NEXT buttons near the top of each photograph on the left or right. Come to the Museum to see a full set of prints.
The Museum owns the copyright in these photographs which can be ordered price £5 each for 10” x 8” (approx 250 x 200mm) and £3 each for 7” x 5” (approx 180 x 130mm) plus £1 for postage in the UK, but free if you can collect them from the Museum. [To avoid cropping, some 10"x8" photos may be printed as 12"x8".]
Please send your order with your address via the Contact Us page quoting the reference number in brackets at the end of the caption of the photograph.
Edward Pugh’s photographs
We have recently been given a large number of photographs of the area by Edward Pugh who was born in 1881 and died in 1957. We are most grateful to his grandson, David Dennis, for letting us copy and sell these excellent photographs. The photographs we have, covering Amersham, Chesham Bois, Chesham, Chalfont St Giles, Chenies, Latimer and Little Missenden, were mainly taken by him between 1920 and 1950. He lived in Elm Close in Amersham since it was built in the early 1920s. He later moved to Rickmansworth. The photographs have been added to the touch-screen display in the Museum, but below is a small selection. Copies can be ordered as explained above.
Want to see more of Amersham?
- The Chiltern Society’s PhotoGroup website includes some excellent photos of Amersham.
- The Amersham.org.uk site has a lot of information about the town and plenty of old photographs as well as recent street scenes
- British Pathé has old videos including one of the famous High and Over house just after it was built in 1929
- The Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies has an extensive collection of old photographs - just select Amersham from the list