Now, this isn’t a rant about that that pernicious historic ground rent which a full century after it was instituted locks property owners into paying a small amount twice a year.
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| Palais de Luxe, circa 1928, Barlow Moor Road |
No, it is a reflection on the practice of posting images and other people’s research about Chorlton across social media with no regard to where they were sourced or an acknowledgement or credit.
Of course many old images are well out of copyright, and I fully accept that knowledge should never be shackled or hidden away, but there is a but, and that but is simply that all too often the pictures are presented with no context, other than “photograph of old Chorlton”.
If you are lucky, you might be able to recognise the location, but with no date the picture is of little use.
Nor do the perpetrators supply the source, and that matters.
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| Detail of the iron work made by the Lion Foundry |
The image was taken by a local photographer called Charles Ireland around 1928 and was lodged in the East Dunbartonshire Archive. *
And so the story was less about the cinema and more about how Charles Ireland’s picture ended up in a Scottish Archive, and the answer was that it was in a collection of records from the Lion Iron Foundry in Kirkintilloch.
Look closely at the picture and you can see the iron work which supports the glass canopy and the conclusion is that the Lion Foundry commissioned Charles Ireland to photograph their work, all of which connects Mr. Ireland, a Chorlton cinema and the Lion Iron Foundry in Kirkintilloch.
Which in turn makes for a much better story. Not that the person who lifted the image from the blog site commented on its origins or offerd a comment to help anyone who saw the picture and wondered where or which “old Chorlton picture house this was”.
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| George Simpson, 1918, the Black Watch |
And that leads to the other two images, one of which is my uncle George Simpson and the other of the meadows
Both of have featured on the blog. My uncle despite living in Newcastle Upon Tyne had been in Scotland and so volunteered for a Scottish Regiment, and his story was a reflection of those who came back from the Great War which included two of our uncles, my grandfather, two great uncles, and my great grandfather.
The image of the Meadows has often been used to explore the story of that area, from meadowland, to Corporation tip and now the Mersey Valley.
There will be a few like Eric who says that many of the images from Manchester Library’s collection of historic pictures were donated and any copyright belongs to the person who took them. It is a widely held assumption which I shared and which Richard Bond in a comment below has corrected me
Which leaves me reiterating that it is still important to acknowledge the source, if for no other reason than it allows the interested to visit the site and find more of the same.
But where Eric is wrong is that it acceptable to trawl the net find someone else’s’ research or images and post them with no reference to who the author was, or any thought that it breaches copyright.
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| The Meadows, 2018 |
As an author I have no opposition to small sections of my work being presented as part of a bigger piece.
This is what we all do when seeking to support a story and is good scholarship.
But when there is no credit, it looks at best to be lazy and at worst a deliberate attempt to steal another’s work.
And that leads me to the last point which is yesterday I came across a painting from a local artist, casually posted on social media…….. no mention of the artist, no request to use it and no thought I suspect that it might a painting that was for sale.
Location; Chorlton in the past
Picture, the Palais de Luxe cinema, circa 1928 GD10-07-04-6-13-01 Courtesy of East Dunbartonshire Archives, George Simpson, 1918, and Chorlton Meadows, 2018, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
* the Palais de Luxe cinema, circa 1928 GD10-07-04-6-13-01 Courtesy of East Dunbartonshire Archives, https://www.edlc.co.uk/heritage-arts/archives
Andrew, you're quite right to emphasise the importance of quoting a source. I should however correct the view that many of the images from Manchester Library’s collection of historic pictures were donated. This is simply incorrect - I should know, as I was in charge of Manchester Archives and Local Studies when the first 10,000 images were digitised, and then the following 67,000.
ReplyDeleteBetween 1950 and around 1975, Manchester Libraries organised a photographic survey of Manchester, drawing in particular on the help of Manchester Photographc Society (but also, as I recall, Chorlton Photographc Society). Libraries would agree an area to be surveyed, and people would go and take photographs. Libraries would then select those they wished to have, and payment would be made to the photographer.
Many photographers were involved, and some have a lot of images credited to them. A E Landers was certainly a photographic society member, and he has 669 images of Chorlton and Whalley Range credited to him. The same is true of R E Stanley, with 1163 credits. There was a phographer whose name escapes me but has around 7,000 credits.
Moreover, around 5,000 images are credited to two people on the Libraries' staff, Harry Milligan and Mike Luft.
On top of that, a great many images originated from City Council departments - for example, 2158 images are credited to the City Engineers Department.
Incidentally, the blog also makes use of (and gives credit to) the Town Hall Photographers Collection. Again, copyright doesn't apply, because photographs were being taken in accordance with an employment contract.
I can't easily think of any donated collections but as a general principle, ManchesterLibraries would have generally asked that copyright was transferred to them. This did not always happen - but when photographs were selected for digitisation, we excluded those where it was clear copyright had not been transferred.
Tha k you Richard this l didn't k ow and will correct the post as soon as I can.
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