Photographs and Posters
We hold several key photographic collections:
- The Manchester Local Image Collection provides a unique photographic record of Manchester, its people, streets and buildings from a period stretching well over 100 years. Our full collection of over 80,000 images is available online at the Greater Manchester Lives website. Just click the 'Only items with images' button.
- The Documentary Photography Archive (DPA) is a unique archive held at the Greater Manchester County Record Office which documents the life of the Greater Manchester region. A selection of images from Documentary Photography Archive collection can now be viewed on our Flickr photostream
- The Town Hall Photographer's Archive is a vast collection of tens of thousands of photographs which were taken by Manchester City Council staff photographers. They cover almost the whole of the twentieth century and document Manchester life as well as the local landscape. A selection are available to view on our Flickr photostream
- Timepix features a collection of photographs taken in the late 1940s to early 1950s by Ordnance Survey (OS), who were marking out Revision Points to map Manchester and the surrounding area, Although the photographs focus on geographical features, they provide a unique snapshot of life in Greater Manchester in this period, as lots of local people - and children - managed to get in to the pictures.
- The Manchester Central Library poster shop is now live. Visit our shop in Central Library or online to buy gifts including cards, postcards and calendars based on our collections.
We cannot offer advice on dating your own old photographs but you may find Gillian Jones's book 'Lancashire Photographers 1840-1940' useful for checking dates and addresses of particular local photographic studios.