Robert Leggat who researched and maintained one of the first useful photographic history resources on the internet died on 20 January 2011. His A History of Photography from its beginnings till the 1920s (http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/index.html) was designed for school and college students and started in 1995. It is still available today and was being maintained by Leggat until shortly before his death. Put many historical photographic terms or personalities into a search engine and the chances are that Leggat’s website will be somewhere near the top of the results list.
Since its launch the site has had nearly 10 million visitors and the online guestbook from the early years (the guestbook was later discontinued as Leggat was unable to keep up with responding to questions and queries) was full of praise and thanks from students who had made use of it.
Leggat was involved in photographic education throughout his career and took an active role in the Royal Photographic Society as its Honorary Education Officer amongst other positions. A fuller obituary has been prepared but if anyone has any recollections or further knowledge of Robert's career and life please contact Michael Pritchard (email: michael@mpritchard.com)
Comments
Thanks Michael, I'm glad it has survived.
Hi, Tom. Legget's site is here: http://www.mpritchard.com/photohistory/index.html
Neither of those sites exists now, which shows how ephemeral web-based resources can be.
Breach of copyright in Italy? Will someone be asking for the material to be taken down?
We look forward to the re-launch, and thank you for hosting A History of Photography in the meantime Michael.
Robert's photohistory site is now available at: www.mpritchard.com/photohistory
I am not sure how the Italian site has got this but it is infringing copyright. Robert asked The Royal Photographic Society's Historical Group to take over its running...in due course Robert;s work will be updated and re-launched under a dedicated domain name.
Robert Leggat's invaluable A History of Photography is now available on the minimal Amici di Phototeka blog. The www.rleggat.com domain is for sale.