A million free images
This post was written by David Rooney
Just before Christmas, the British Library released over a million historical images from its printed collections onto the image-sharing website Flickr. The images are out of copyright and the library has made them available with a Creative Commons licence which, in short, encourages anybody to use, remix and repurpose them, so long as they respect a few ground rules.
This is a remarkable resource of imagery and will be a boon for anybody carrying out historical research – such as AHS members.
There are countless images of interest in this release, each one of which might augment an existing research project or prompt a new one. The beauty of archives such as this is the opportunity for lateral thinking. You might be researching a particular village, or writer, or building, or period. And you might find an image here that opens up new avenues of research.
The first four images I found are the result of searching for ‘clock’ or ‘clocktower’ – as you’d expect, lots of public clocks.
![“ ... whether it be right or wrong!” from Richard Parkinson, The Old Church Clock, 1880 (British Library)](https://ahs.contentfiles.net/media/images/11134525143_50ffec7f81_o.width-600.jpg)
![“Clock tower at Aston Cross” from Robert Dent, The Making of Birmingham, 1894 (British Library)](https://ahs.contentfiles.net/media/images/httpwww.flickr.comphotos12403504N0211228571644.width-600.jpg)
![“La famille Jacmart” from P. Berigal, L’Illustre Jaquemart de Dijon, 1832 (British Library)](https://ahs.contentfiles.net/media/images/11008649823_36ee502d45_o.width-600.jpg)
![“Clock tower at Aston Cross” from Robert Dent, The Making of Birmingham, 1894 (British Library)](https://ahs.contentfiles.net/media/images/11224147046_a6a418c5a9_o.width-600.jpg)
But let’s say I’m interested in chronometers. Unfortunately there are no search returns for that word. But then I tried searching for ‘observatory’, and found this image.
![“US Naval Centennial Exhibit 1876” from Naval Observatory, Narrative of the North Polar Expedition, 1876 (British Library)](https://ahs.contentfiles.net/media/images/11115842983_fb9c9b8d29_o.width-600.jpg)
It’s from a book on the North Polar Expedition, and it’s a photograph of marine chronometers on show in a US Navy centennial exhibit in 1876.
That led me to this catalogue of the objects exhibited. And on pages 79–81 there’s a remarkable and detailed description of the use of chronometers at the US Naval Observatory in the 1870s. Serendipitous discovery is a wonderful thing.
You’ll probably want to put aside an hour or two browsing these images – and a lot more time following the interesting leads they throw up! Happy hunting, and happy new year.