Alexander Keighley was born in 1861 to a Yorkshire Mill owner. He was a pioneer in photography and one of Britain’s biggest names in Pictorialism. He was deeply revered in his time, with an international reputation. You can read much more about him online but also here on the YPU website: https://ypu.org.uk/alexander-keighley/

In 1899, Keighley was one of the founders of the Yorkshire Photographic Union. He was the treasurer for many years and then went on to become President. 

As many of you know, the YPU run an annual Keighley Memorial Day in memory of Alexander and his success.

At the back end of last year, I was contacted by a lovely man called Robert McBurney (Bob) he had a copy of Alexander Keighley’s book ‘Galaria’ and some prints made by him. These had at one point been given to Wakefield Camara Club and Robert wanted to make sure they went back to our club. Knowing the historical significance of this, I went and had a cuppa with Bob, and we chatted all things photography and Alexander! With Bob’s consent, I contacted the YPU and shortly, they will be going into the YPU archive for safe keeping.

However, I wanted to share a bit more about the donation first and tell you a bit more about Bob’s kind offer, so please read on! 

In the gallery of images accompanying this post, you can see the hand written foreword to Galaria. Although I could make out most of the words, I was stuck on a few, so thank you David and Judith Kershaw for your kind help. 

The Foreword to Galaria

Photographic work has two strongly contested divisions – utilitarian and pictorial. When I commenced its practice 53 years ago, as an adjunct to Sketching. The phrase “Pictorial Photography” had not then been coined. It was not long, however, before I attempted to exploit its pictorial possibilities, and the 24 prints of this volume cover a long period. The supreme advantage of this phase of photography is that as long as one lives there is no finality; there are ever “fresh fields and pastures new”; it is as inexhaustible as the beauties of nature.

A huge thank you to Bob McBurney for returning the book and prints to us and agreeing to their storage with the YPU. 

Bob is a successful photographer and artist too. His website can be viewed here: Bob McBurney

Since chatting to Bob this year and keeping him up to date with my correspondence with the YPU, Bob has informed me that he has re-entered the world of film photography since I first met with him. Bob is using 120, 6x9, 5x4 cameras and then scanning the negatives, to digitise Alexander's images. He then produces giclee prints on a Canon Pro 2600. He has spent a couple of months researching, buying and making kit to achieve high results in scanning. If anyone is interested, Bob is happy to talk to you as he knows it’s a challenging process to get right, even though there is a lot on YouTube about it. If you are interested and would like to make contact with Bob, then please let me know as I have his email address and he is happy for you to make contact. 

A huge thank you then to Bob for the donation and to Dave Burgess from the YPU, who will be keeping this important piece of history safe in the archive, for future generations to see and enjoy.

Sara Cremer (President Wakefield Camera Club)