Cyril Hawkesworth. 1920s Railway Photographer and Collector

I have had for the last forty years two small suitcases full of railway photographs taken in the 1920s some by Cyril Hawkesworth (dob in the 1890s), including some glass negatives, and others collected by him from known or unknown sources. They were gifted by his elderly widow around 1970 just hours before they were due to be thrown into a skip. Some are 3x2 prints with negatives, clearly his own, and others were bought commercially of known and unknown origin. This blog is intended to make the postcard images available to others, and with the help of experts to research them. The site draws no income. Where photographers can be identified, I will give them credit: one purpose of the blog is to identify them. I apologise if any copyright has been unknowing infringed. One purpose is to discover who has rights over particular images. CH's own photographs are reproduced in a separate blog, http://cyrilhawkesworth.blogspot.co.uk.

These photos have changed my view of early railway photographs. CH's notes show that prophographs required an exposure time of 50 to 100+ seconds, depending on the light. That is, up to two minutes. There is no chance of photographing a moving train: the photographer had to find spots when they regularly stopped at signals. Any people in the picture had to stay stock still for up to two minutes too so as not to blur. It is frankly remarkable that photographs were as good as they were, and no surprise that there are so many static shots.

Two locations, one of T9 4-4-0 No.300 "near Earlsfield" (i.e. Clapham), the other of a T14, (E)444, appear in O.S.Nock's Southern Steam, photographs 7 & 10  credited to F E Mackay (see photos below). I have many photographs at these locations (see for example photos 15-18, 27; and 27,  37-39), and I gather that many of Mackay's photographs are 'missing'. On the other hand, many of CH's prints have details pencilled on the back, including numbers, "Dn Portsmouth", "Up Bournemouth", and numbers that look like camera settings. Cyril collected railway photographs from commercial companies, and where available I will declare these sources if known. His own photographs were of Southern Railway trains, but his whole collection covers many other railway companies. The two 'Mackay' photographs below are from Nock's Southern Steam, re-photographed from the book and not quite of photograph standard but for research purposes illustrating locations.

I am attempting to share the photographs I have, though it takes time to rephotograph and research each picture so they will come out in small sequences.  Each is rephotographed digitally and enhanced, so these photographs are crisper clearer than the originals. The originals are anything but flat: here is my hi-tech solution to avoid distortion. My digital camera is a Panasonic Lumix.

Some books misidentify classes - I have come across two photos of U1s misnamed as N15 because the Ashford Works (A) and Eastleigh Works (E) numbering system in the early days of Southern was not understood. The third company, the LBSCR was given a B for Brighton Works.

I use O.S. Nock's Southern Steam, Ian Allen's ABC of Railway Locomotives 1944 Edition (reprints are available), and the excellent Southern Email Group website as my main sources for engine identification. Nevertheless, I am always happy to be informed and corrected and will be happy to publish constructive comments about the engines featured. Cyril died unknown to the railway world - he was married and moved away and after 1929 this collection stops. In time this collection will be deposited with an appropriate museum so that it survives for a few more generations.

Please note that though I have numbered the photographs consecutively for reference purposes, it is the nature of a blog to be counter-consecutive so the lowest numbers are at the end of the thread.
Acknowledgements
Many of the postcards are official works photographs. Eastleigh works photoes between 1910 and 1948 were taken by the official photographer Mr. A. Major.