Photos of Edwardian England Gallery

Models of SS and RMS Britannic BL22639_002

Models of the SS Britannic and the RMS Britannic, photographed by Bedford Lemere and Company in May 1914. The smaller SS Britannic was launched by White Star Line in 1874 and scrapped in 1903. Her primary role was the carriage of immigrant passengers across the Atlantic between Liverpool and New York. The second White Star ship to bear the name Britannic was an Olympic-class ocean liner launched in February 1914 as a sister ship of RMS Titanic. Like her namesake, she too was built by Harland and Wolff as a transatlantic passenger liner, but following the outbreak of the First World War she was requisitioned as a hospital ship and became HMHS Britannic (His Majesty's Hospital Ship) and was sunk in 1916 after striking a mine

© Historic England Archive

Advertisement hoardings, Greenwich, 1907 BL19953

Advertisement hoardings on the side of a building and on a fence surrounding a construction site on Newcastle Street (now Enderby Street), Greenwich, London. Adverts include Pear's Soap and Allsopp's Lager. This photograph was commissioned by a firm called Partington and Company, who may have been advertising agents. Photograph by Adolphe Augustus Boucher, Bedford Lemere and Company. 5th June 1907

© Historic England Archive

St Giles Fair, Oxford

St Giles Fair, Oxford, Oxfordshire, September 1905.
Photographed by Henry William Taunt (1842-1922) on silver gelatin glass plate negative. Despite the bustle of St Giles's Fair, the photographer Henry Taunt has inevitably attracted attention perched, presumably on a stepladder, above the fairgoers. Employees of the ornately decorated Taylor's Royal Electric Coliseum are drumming up business, and a Fried Fish and Chip Potato wagon stands beside the gas lamp. St Giles'??s Fair had evolved from a parish wake first mentioned in 1624 into a major amusement fair with special trains bringing visitors from far afield. Taunt photographed the fair from the late 1860s, hoping of course to sell many images, and also out of personal interest

© Historic England