HISTORY: Aerial photographs taken by heroes of flight online for first time
12:37pm Thursday 5th July 2012 in In Focus By Clare Hardy, Reporter
Waltham Abbey Church and the Abbey Gardens, taken in 1920
ONE of the country’s earliest collections of aerial photographs showing how the region has changed over more than 80 years has been published online.
The pictures were taken by Aerofilms, which was set up in 1919 by First World War veterans FL Willis and Claude Graeme-White, who became the first pilot to complete a night flight in England a few months later.
As demand for their pictures increased, they hired more pilots, including Gerry Shaw, the first man to take a plane on a commercial international flight.
The company took photographs until the early 1990s and they were bought by English Heritage and the Royal Commissions on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales and Scotland in 2007.
After experts catalogued the photos, they were converted into digital images and have been published on a new website, Britain from Above.
By the time all the photographs have been published online in 2014, the collection will include 95,000 images.
Anna Eavis, head of archives at English Heritage, said: “The Aerofilms collection embodies all that is exciting about aerial photography.
“We are pleased that the items have been given safe, long-term homes.”
To view the archive, go to britainfromabove.org.uk.
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