Roger Taylor Collection

Medium: Printed, Archive and Photography

Professor Roger Taylor, MVO, and Professor Emeritus of Photographic History at De Montfort University, is a curator, photographer, photographic historian, and educator specialising in nineteenth century British photography and its social and cultural history. Professor Taylor is a key figure in the development of Photographic History as an academic discipline from the 1970s until the present; his personal collection reflects this critical period in the field.

Roger Taylor was born in 1940 in Stockport, Cheshire, England. After leaving school, he was apprenticed to Rex Lowden, an industrial and commercial photographer in Manchester, where he was formally trained in photography; whilst also taking City & Guilds evening classes at Manchester College of Science and Technology.

Moving on to Derby College of Art 1966 and then later Leicester University, Taylor gained an MA in Victorian Studies in 1977 for his thesis on George Washington Wilson. Following this he lectured the Sheffield School of Art where he remained until 1983, becoming Director of Studies for the Fine Art course. By 1985 he had been appointed as the Curator of the Kodak Museum, in Bradford at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, now the National Science and Media Museum. At the time of his retirement, he was Senior Curator of Photographs and Head of Research Development at Bradford.

In addition to his extensive work in education and research, Taylor has worked extensively as a freelance curator and specialist advisor, notably for The Royal Collection and the Howard and Jane Ricketts Collection. As an independent advisor, Taylor has helped secure the future of three major photographic collections for the public domain: the Fay Godwin and Talbot collection for the British Library and the Kodak Research Library, for De Montfort University Library's Special Collections.

In 2002, Taylor was appointed Senior Research Fellow at De Montfort University, becoming Professor in 2005, and Emeritus in 2009. Taylor has written extensively on the social history of Victorian photography, and curated major exhibitions in nineteenth century photography.

The collection includes:

• Almost 200 hundred volumes on the History of Photography, many inscribed and dedicated by the author to Roger Taylor.
• Research notes, exhibition notes and publication correspondence
• Material relating to Rex Lowden, Commercial, Industrial and Advertising Photographer, Grange Street, Rusholme, Manchester.
• Roger Taylor, Firth Brown Steelworks closure, 1983
• The Original hand-written manuscript for George Washington Wilson Artist & Photographer (1823-93), showing editorial annotations for the preparation of the first edition.

The collection is of interest to researchers across many disciplines, including photography, the history of photography, the history of art; and to those interested in visual culture and sociology.

See also:

• Café Royal Books
• John Davies Collection
• Martin Parr Collection
• Photography Collection
• The John Rylands Library, Deansgate

Further information:

Cataloguing in progress