By Katherine Slay, Archive Assistant
The biggest collection of black and white railway photographs held at the Record Office is now available to search via our online catalogue. Bill Sumner was a very keen photographer, taking thousands of images, all of which came to the Record Office in 2009.
William George ‘Bill’ Sumner was born on 29 June 1942 in Littlehampton, the second of four children. He attended Chichester High School for Boys and was a member of the Railway Club there. He started photographing steam locomotives in about 1956, hunting for them during his school holidays.
The family moved to Thakeham near Pulborough, and Bill joined British Railways after he left school. It is believed he worked initially in their Traffic Costing Department. A job change resulted in a move to Duffield in Derbyshire as he was to be based in Derby. With a lifelong passion for steam, he continued photographing locomotives of all types – originally in black and white, and later in colour.
As well as travelling all round the UK, Bill went to Europe in search of steam. He took photographs in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy (including Sicily and Sardinia), Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine (2) and Yugoslavia.
In later life, when he was retired, Bill Sumner moved back to West Sussex – to Billingshurst – and died there in 2008 at the age of 66.
All of the images have been scanned, and are being made accessible via the Record Office website where they will also be available to download for a small charge. Given the size of the collection, this will take some time.
The Sumner collection has been an excellent example of the invaluable contribution of volunteers at the Record Office. Volunteer Sue recalls that the initial plan in 2017 was for volunteer Mike H to sort the photos, and for her to scan and catalogue. Having sorted the UK photos into ‘the big four’ railways, Mike H sorted the foreign photos into countries. His input then ceased.
Sue, having completed the Sumner scanning, moved onto scanning other photographic collections, returning to Sumner in summer 2020. She was able to continue working on the scanned collection at home during the Covid-19 lockdowns. In order to put the photos into the order they were taken, Sue created a spreadsheet for each film, and much later amalgamated them all into one huge spreadsheet. Sorting into date order meant that it was possible to fill the gaps with hitherto unallocated photos.
What is particularly impressive about Sue’s cataloguing work is that she had no prior knowledge of trains. Where Bill Sumner had not provided information about the photograph, Sue used many websites to help her out, and discovered people online who were happy to assist with queries. Also impressive is the fact that Sue has continued to stick with the project. Having catalogued nearly 30,000 black and white photos, she is currently working through the colour images (not as many), aiming to finish next year. If any errors are noticed, then corrections can be made to the online catalogue.
Still on the railway theme, ‘The Bognor Branch’ is the next in the Record Office’s series of illustrated Tuesday Talks. Bill Gage, a former Assistant County Archivist, will be talking about the history of the line. You can attend in person (and see displays) or watch online. For more information and to book a ticket, click here.
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