Metadata: Harry Jacobs collection
Collection
- Country:
- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- Holding institution:
- Lambeth Archives
- Holding institution (official language):
- Lambeth Archives
- Postal address:
- Minet Library52 Knatchbull Road London Greater London United Kingdom SE5 9QY
- Web address:
- http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/archives
- Reference number:
- IV/233
- Title:
- Harry Jacobs collection
- Title (official language):
- Harry Jacobs collection
- Creator/accumulator:
- Jacobs, Harry
- Date(s):
- 1960/1997
- Language:
- English
- Extent:
- 3253 photos
- Scope and content:
- The collection was purchased from Harry Jacobs when he retired in 1999. It consists of some 5000 prints that remained in the shop when it closed. About half of these were prints that had been pinned or stapled to the walls of the downstairs shop, the stairs and the back wall of the first floor studio, making a giant collage of human wallpaper. These were carefully removed from their location and have been cleaned and placed in inert polyester. The other half of the collection was a large quantity of duplicate colour prints arranged by date, with a smaller collection of black and white copy prints.The negative collection was sold by Harry Jacobs to a private collector. This is presumed to be near-complete and consists of approximately 70,000 6x6cm colour and B&W negatives. The owner is looking for an appropriate London institution to have custody of it and to make it publicly accessible.The collection of unmounted b/w non-studio photographs includes a significant number of earlier family photographs brought to Jacobs for copying and includes in some instances the original photographs.All prints have been allocated an SP (small print) 9000 number and sub-number which matches the Class IV/233 sub-number.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Harry Jacobs was born in 1918 in Stepney in East London. His father worked in the shoe trade in North London. When Harry was 10 the family moved to a larger house in South Hackney. After military service between 1939 and 1945 he returned to his mother’s home, now in South London and opened a jewellery business in Granville Arcade, Brixton Market. In the 1950s he also started a photography business, working the local streets and taking portrait photographs of families in their homes. The success of this enabled him to take an upstairs studio in Landor Road, Stockwell in the early 1960s and then to take over the whole premises in 1966. He went on to become one of the established photographers for the local Black community in Brixton and continued to work from the Landor Road studio until he retired in 1999. He also retained links with the Jewish community in North London and his surviving work also includes commissioned portraits and public events which include figures such as Joe Loss, David Jacobs and Helen Shapiro.
- Access points: persons/families:
- Jacobs, Harry
- Subject terms:
- Photographs
- Access, restrictions:
- Open
- Finding aids:
- Some images by Harry Jacobs can be found on Lambeth photos see https://boroughphotos.org/lambeth/category/jacobs-harry/
- Yerusha Network member:
- AIM25