Windmill and Watermill Collection of Edward Mitford Abraham

Date range: 1900-1952

Medium: Photography

Number of items: 47 albums of photography containing over 12,000 photographic prints, 10,000 photographic negatives on film and glass plates.

This collection contains photographs of English windmills and watermills from Cambridge, Cheshire, Cumberland, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Westmorland, and Yorkshire. Taken in a documentary style, they provide a photographic record of a wide range of different types of mills, the landscapes where they operated and the people who worked in them.

The collection was compiled by Edward Mitford Abraham (1833-1959). Abraham was a Quaker and descendant of Margaret Fell, wife of George Fox. He inherited Swarthmoor Hall in Ulverston, home of Margaret Fell, that he used as a gallery and museum in which to house and display his collection of mill-related objects.

This collection is of value to researchers of industrial archaeology, historians of landscape, historians of photography and historical geographers.

Further information:

Catalogue available via the Special Collections reading rooms.

Location:

• The John Rylands Library, Deansgate  [Map]
• Find out how to use the reading rooms in the John Rylands Research Institute and Library