NER Raven pacific 2401 heads north at Wiske Moor taking water from the troughs in 1920,s (J.W Armstrong)
About the Armstrong Trust
J.W Armstrong was one of the early railway photographers who lived and worked in the North East of England, the son of a North Eastern Railway driver based at Tebay.
Jack moved to Darlington and became a boilermaker although not for the railway, no doubt this left time for Jack to pursue his interest in railways and photography.
For this we are the richer, for without Jack's collection you would not be looking at this website.
The Armstrong Trust was established in 1987 following Jack Armstrong's death. Another well known railway photographer P.J Robinson was approached by the executors of the Armstrong estate and was asked if he would be interested in saving the collection. Peter along with like minded enthusiasts the late Ken Groundwater, Alan Thompson, David Tyreman, the late Eric Maxwell and John Midcalf purchased the collection from the estate of the late John William Armstrong (Jack being his everyday name) saving it for posterity and from been destroyed. Little did the six know what would happen in the intervening years. The original Armstrong collection was around 10,000 images comprising of post cards, glass plates, and many negatives that Jack had taken from 1920 until around 1975.
The next task was to start and catalogue what the trust had bought, back in 1987 personal computers did not exist nor did “Photoshop”. John Midcalf developed a technique where he took a photograph of a negative and this gave him a positive image which we would recognise as a slide. This allowed John to give slide shows to railway societies and spread the word about the Armstrong Trust and what we had done to save this collection. As word spread and railway enthusiasts saw what was being achieved by the Trust were asked if we would like more collections to look after.
To cut a long story short the collections have grown and we now have in the region of 400,000 plus images from many photographers, and the collections continue to grow.
The main collections are from the cameras of :-
J.W Armstrong, F. Bell, J.M Boyes, K.H Cockerill,
Ian Coulson, D.J Dippie, M. Dunnett, F.W Hampson
Bob Payne, J. Mair, K. Morton, N.W Skinner, C.J.B Sanderson,
A. Vitty, A R Valentine, Gordon Turner & Ian S Carr
We also have many lesser collections and access to some collections still being expanded by their owners. To reflect this situation we recently changed our name slightly and we now use the name “The Armstrong Railway Photographic Trust” although we still get called the Armstrong Trust by many. Also it is not only British Railways which are in the collections - buses, trams, ships, traction engines, planes also feature along with a selection of overseas photos .
We can date the earliest photo in the collection to around the time following WW1 and as I say some collections are still being added to. This leads me to one of the trusts greatest problems and that is one of storage. While the trust members are happy to keep the collections at home while we scan and catalogue, eventually we will need to look at more suitable accommodation for the collection.
Thanks to the North of England Museum at Beamish we have had a small facility for a number of years where some of the collections were housed. However recently, we have expanded our storage capacity with a facility based in Tyneside which will bring the collection together at one location. See the photograph below which shows a section of our stage facility which is managed to meet ISO 9001 compliance.
How did I become involved with the Trust ? Well, I identified a few locations and locomotives for John Midcalf, and because of that work I was invited to join the trust. Following Ken Groundwater’s death I became secretary.
The rest as they say is history, and we have the photos to prove it, should you have a collection that needs saving then please contact the trust secretary using the e-mail address below
Richard Barber
Secretary
Armstrong Railway Photographic Trust
e-mail: richard_barber44@hotmail.com
Trustees : Peter Robinson, Alan Thompson, Dave Tyreman,
John Midcalf, Richard Barber (Secretary) , David Dunn
& David Fraser (Collection Archivist)
J.W Armstrong was one of the early railway photographers who lived and worked in the North East of England, the son of a North Eastern Railway driver based at Tebay.
Jack moved to Darlington and became a boilermaker although not for the railway, no doubt this left time for Jack to pursue his interest in railways and photography.
For this we are the richer, for without Jack's collection you would not be looking at this website.
The Armstrong Trust was established in 1987 following Jack Armstrong's death. Another well known railway photographer P.J Robinson was approached by the executors of the Armstrong estate and was asked if he would be interested in saving the collection. Peter along with like minded enthusiasts the late Ken Groundwater, Alan Thompson, David Tyreman, the late Eric Maxwell and John Midcalf purchased the collection from the estate of the late John William Armstrong (Jack being his everyday name) saving it for posterity and from been destroyed. Little did the six know what would happen in the intervening years. The original Armstrong collection was around 10,000 images comprising of post cards, glass plates, and many negatives that Jack had taken from 1920 until around 1975.
The next task was to start and catalogue what the trust had bought, back in 1987 personal computers did not exist nor did “Photoshop”. John Midcalf developed a technique where he took a photograph of a negative and this gave him a positive image which we would recognise as a slide. This allowed John to give slide shows to railway societies and spread the word about the Armstrong Trust and what we had done to save this collection. As word spread and railway enthusiasts saw what was being achieved by the Trust were asked if we would like more collections to look after.
To cut a long story short the collections have grown and we now have in the region of 400,000 plus images from many photographers, and the collections continue to grow.
The main collections are from the cameras of :-
J.W Armstrong, F. Bell, J.M Boyes, K.H Cockerill,
Ian Coulson, D.J Dippie, M. Dunnett, F.W Hampson
Bob Payne, J. Mair, K. Morton, N.W Skinner, C.J.B Sanderson,
A. Vitty, A R Valentine, Gordon Turner & Ian S Carr
We also have many lesser collections and access to some collections still being expanded by their owners. To reflect this situation we recently changed our name slightly and we now use the name “The Armstrong Railway Photographic Trust” although we still get called the Armstrong Trust by many. Also it is not only British Railways which are in the collections - buses, trams, ships, traction engines, planes also feature along with a selection of overseas photos .
We can date the earliest photo in the collection to around the time following WW1 and as I say some collections are still being added to. This leads me to one of the trusts greatest problems and that is one of storage. While the trust members are happy to keep the collections at home while we scan and catalogue, eventually we will need to look at more suitable accommodation for the collection.
Thanks to the North of England Museum at Beamish we have had a small facility for a number of years where some of the collections were housed. However recently, we have expanded our storage capacity with a facility based in Tyneside which will bring the collection together at one location. See the photograph below which shows a section of our stage facility which is managed to meet ISO 9001 compliance.
How did I become involved with the Trust ? Well, I identified a few locations and locomotives for John Midcalf, and because of that work I was invited to join the trust. Following Ken Groundwater’s death I became secretary.
The rest as they say is history, and we have the photos to prove it, should you have a collection that needs saving then please contact the trust secretary using the e-mail address below
Richard Barber
Secretary
Armstrong Railway Photographic Trust
e-mail: richard_barber44@hotmail.com
Trustees : Peter Robinson, Alan Thompson, Dave Tyreman,
John Midcalf, Richard Barber (Secretary) , David Dunn
& David Fraser (Collection Archivist)
