The Edward Reeves Archive in association with the Photography and the Archive Research Centre at UAL and Edward Reeves Photography present Stories seen through a glass plate: in their footsteps, an exhibition of historic photographs of Lewes and its people displayed on lightboxes throughout the town centre during September and October 2022.
- A new exhibition for 2022 from the Edward Reeves Archive. A century of life in Lewes, showing townsfolk in the places they lived, worked, relaxed and celebrated. Walk in their footsteps.
- Displaying new unseen images from the Edward Reeves archive.
- Accompanying exhibition, Lewes Town Hall: A building in focus, examines the crucial role of the building in town life.
The Edward Reeves Archive lightbox exhibition returns in 2022 with Stories seen through a glass plate: in their footsteps. Including formal portraits taken in the Reeves’ Studio as well as Lewes street scenes, it reveals the world in which the subjects lived and the people they may have encountered. Contemporary newspaper reports and guidebooks have provided personal back stories, describing family life, work, and leisure pursuits.
Illustrated with stunning photographs, showing the amazing quality of the images taken from the original glass plates, the lightboxes are placed in locations relevant to the subjects. You will meet Edward Reeves and his daughter Mary Elizabeth, also a photographer, their neighbour Ruth Simmons who married twice and then emigrated to Canada, and from just across the High Street Caroline Napier and Annie Mullens who ran a school for young ladies. In their daily life they may have bumped into Thomas Weston, ‘haircutter and perfumer’ out on his penny farthing bicycle or passed by Edwin Battersby, managing clerk of the Lewes Probate Registry and attempted murderer. Among the street scenes, the witnesses to an early car crash, a town celebration for a coronation that didn’t happen and the lively aftermath of a general election result with the report of eggs thrown and fireworks discharged!
The lightboxes will be available to view until Sunday 23rd October. Brigitte Lardinois, Director of the Photography and the Arts Research Centre at LCC, UAL: “The Edward Reeves Archive project is very important in the history of British photography and I am delighted that with the help of our many volunteers we are able to once again share some of this unique collection.”
Tom Reeves, fourth generation photographer at Edward Reeves Photography: “It is really exciting that, through the efforts of our volunteers, we have been able for the first time to search our archive for specific named subjects, so in this exhibition we can include portraits of people exhibited in the windows of the houses that they once occupied. That sheds a fascinating light on a past Lewes and its people.”
Lewes Town Hall: A building in focus Lewes Town Hall: A building in focus. This additional exhibition at Lewes Town Hall displays photographs from it’s opening in 1893 to the current day, shows the central role the building has always played in the social and commercial life of the town. A Royal visit, concerts and theatricals, meetings and tea parties, and a remarkable exhibition of early electric lights and equipment can all be seen.
Stories seen through a glass plate: in their footsteps
Thursday 29th September – Sunday 23rd October 2022
Lewes High Street, Cliffe High Street & surrounding area
Exhibition maps available at the Lewes Tourist Information Centre, Lewes Town Hall, Edward Reeves Photography
(159 High Street) and many of the host shops and businesses.
Lewes Town Hall: A building in focus
Thursday 29th September – Saturday 15th October
Monday – Saturday, 10.00am – 4.00pm
Baxter Corridor, Lewes Town Hall (High Street Entrance)
Established in 1855, Edward Reeves Photography is believed to be the oldest continuously operated photographic
studio in the world. It houses an archive of over 250,000 glass plates in addition to over 400,000 images on film
and in the form of digital files. With much of the original paperwork intact, this archive is a unique record of daily
life in and around Lewes, and of the history of commercial photographic practice. The Victorian studio is still in
daily use and the business is now owned and run by Edward Reeves’ great grandson Tom Reeves with his wife Tania
Osband. For more information, visit www.reevesarchive.com.
Images: © Edward Reeves Photography
Comments
Congratulations Brigitte! Hope to come and see it.