BPH has only just learnt of the passing of Mike Hiley who was particularly active as a photo-historian, researcher and educator from the 1970s-1990s at a time in the 1970s-early 1980s when there were few others working in the field. He authored a series of books, notable on Frank Meadow Sutcliffe on based on his own researches.
Michael Hiley was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire in 1945. His family moved to the Midlands in his teens but he always thought of himself as a Yorkshireman. Following his graduation from Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, he and his wife Pauline moved to Leicester, where he took his PGCE at Leicester University. For the practical side of the course he went to what was then known as Leicester Polytechnic which later became De Montfort University. After graduating he was asked to stay on and taught what was known as Liberal Studies in the pre-Diploma department. Mike was free to teach what he most enjoyed - the history and appreciation of film and photography.
Roger Taylor recalls: 'When I was in Leicester every week for my MA in Victorian Studies Mike and I regularly met for supper - a big thank you Pauline. Despite researching different areas we kept an eye out for each other. I was working my way through the photographic journals and would xerox everything and anything of interest to either of us and shared these with Mike. We both felt excited to be exploring new territory, which in many ways we were. There were so few of us in the field that there was a generosity of spirit characterised the field.'
In 1976 Mike was was given leave of absence by Leicester University with a view to drawing up a degree course in the History of Photography and the Royal Photographic Society agreed that he be ‘given access to the Collection in order to pursue his work in return for which he would be prepared to give assistance in the Collection'. He was temporarily employed by the RPS and volunteered a significant amount of his own time. He returned in 1980 spending six weeks in the Collection from May. His knolwedge of the collection brought him on to the RPS's Collection Advisory Committee for a short period in the mid-1970s, stepping down in 1977.
At the same time he was writing short articles about the photographer, Frank Meadow Sutcliffe whose work he had come to know on those holidays in Yorkshire, when he would visit the Sutcliffe Gallery, then run by Bill Eglon Shaw. The Gordon Fraser Gallery, at that time more famous for greetings cards, wanted to start a series on the History of photography and asked Mike to write the first of the series on Sutcliffe. Frank Sutcliffe Photographer of Whitby was published in 1974. This began a relationship with the publisher which resulted in several books on Photography including: Victorian Working Women. Portraits from life (1979) based on the collection in the library of Trinity College Cambridge of the photographs collected by and the diaries written by Arthur Munby; Bill Brandt;Nudes 1945-1980 (1980) for which Mike wrote the introduction to this selection following interviews with the photographer which he felt very privileged to do; and Seeing Through Photographs (1983), based on a selection of the vast collection of copyright photographs then held by the Public Record Office at Chancery Lane and Ashridge, now at the National Archives, Kew in the COPY1 series. All his books were critically acclaimed. Mike's work on Sutcliffe also saw a British Council touring exhibition and publication.
Mike moved to the faculty of Arts at De Montfort Unversity and became a Senior Lecturer there, teaching the History of Photography and latterly virtual reality in web design as he had studied for an MSC at Lancaster University in web design.Together with Glass Page at De Montfort he project managed an award-winning website called Heritage on the Web and in 1999 presented a paper 'Heritage on the Web: Building a Gateway to European Cultural Heritage' at the Electronic Imaging & the Visual Arts conference in Berlin. Paul Hill work worked with Mike recalls him 'contributing wonderfully to the MA Photography at DMU.'
Mike died in June 2025 having suffered from Alzheimer's for some years but just in the last year before his death, when he was still able to understand and appreciate it, his first book on Frank Sutcliffe was republished by the History Press. As a reviewer noted of Mike's British Council leaflet 'Hiley entirely understands both the man and his work' and his publications are a fitting memorial to his pioneering scholarship.
He leaves Pauline, and a brother, Dr Nicholas Hiley.
With thanks to Pauline, Nicholas, Paul Hill and Roger Taylor. Additronal and RPS research Michael Pritchard.
Comments
Just to be pedantic, Halifax is in West Yorkshire.
Thanks and corrected