Over 10,000 photos taken in Barrow and the North West between 1895 and the 1970s are available for the first time to the public.
The images, taken by Edward and Raymond Sankey, are now in an online archive thanks to a three-year project by Signal Film and Media, funded by the National Lottery.
Volunteers spent thousands of hours collating the various documents, postcard books and photographic negatives into an accessible and searchable database for the public to access.
The three-year project explored and shared the priceless photographic work of the Sankey family in collaboration with communities in Barrow and Cumbria through
workshops, talks and exhibitions.
As part of the project, the collection was then donated to Cumbria Archives where it could be preserved.
Susan Benson, archivist at Cumbria Archives, said: “The Sankey Photographic Archive is a wonderful resource for the people of Cumbria and the world.
“There are few photographic collections of this size and coverage so it is a very important resource that everyone will be able to access.
“The family took so many great photographs which capture places at a certain time, sometimes of buildings which have now disappeared or places that have
changed considerably.
“The website will allow people to access these photos for the first time from the comfort of their own homes.”
The archive has launched today and to coincide with it Signal Film and Media will be opening the up the gallery space at Cooke’s Studios on Abbey Road for a
real-life launch event.
Until Saturday, visitors will have the chance to be among the first people to view the archive, and will be helped in navigating the website catalogue by dedicated researchers.
People will be able to select images and see them projected onto the gallery walls in large format, showing the incredible resolution of the original Sankey
negatives in full.
The studio is open from 11am to 6pm.
Explore the online archive at https://www.sankeyphotoarchive.uk/collection/
