Harry Cartlidge - Life Through a Lens
When he left school be became a clerk in the Territorial Army Office before joining the London and North Eastern Railway Co. as a shorthand clerk. He worked at St Andrews Dock and Hull Dock Offices (now the Maritime Museum). He continued to work in Hull moving between the dock and the Police Office at Paragon station. He developed his skills as a photographer taking portraits of staff at the railway and dock offices and wedding photographs of soldiers getting married on leave.
Public recognition of his work
During the 1920s he began to submit his work for publication and his work appeared in a number of magazines and papers. He also entered, and won, a number of photography competitions. In August 1929 he spotted smoke from the Hull Fish Market and rushed to the scene with his camera.
His camera captured other events across the city, including a detailed series of the Wilberforce monument being taken-down and moved to Queens Gardens in 1935. He even climbed the scaffold, as the public were invited to do for a small fee, and documented the city from this unique vantage point.
In 1951 he married May Terry who he worked with the North Eastern Railway Co. A few years later at the age of 60 he retired from the railways enabling him to devote more time to photography, including joining the staff at a local photographic shop. He regularly took photographs of Hull street scenes, shop fronts and buildings. He continued to give slide talks around the city too, even into his nineties. In 1982 he featured in an episode of the BBC TV series 'Magic Lantern Show' called 'Yesterday's Humberside'.
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