What’s New In Angus Local History
What’s New – January 2012
Burns Night, Burns letter
Angus Archives holds two Robert Burns manuscripts.
Ken Hay Collection – as we go
Angus Archives volunteers and staff recently started the herculean task of making an inventory and sample scans of the work of Ken Hay, a professional photographer in Montrose. It comprises 67 very large boxes packed full of mainly negatives. It is believed that Ken Hay took a million photographs and covered 6,000 weddings.
He was a professional photographer in Montrose during the era of the 1950s until his retirement in 1991. Ken had an early interest in photography, which was inspired, by his grandfather the Reverend James Hay, a well-known amateur photographer, and Ken's aunt Agnes Hay.
The first photograph Ken took was of a model church which he had built himself. During World War 2 'The People's Journal' offered him a position as a freelance photographer, providing him with film and free processing.
During this time Ken was given professional lessons by Morgan's Studio (now Van Werninck), John Leng & Co., and journalist John Drummond Smith.
By December 1944 Ken had started his own business in Montrose and by 1946 he had been awarded professional membership of I.B.P. and gained his Licentiate in the 1960s.
His wife June joined Ken in partnership in the business in 1956. The work that Ken and June undertook was always varied. Press and wedding photography took up two thirds of their work, with other commercial and industrial work taking up the rest.
By the 1970s, they were working more on large-scale industrial jobs, the biggest probably being the recording of the reconstruction of Aberdeen Harbour, over a period of 10 years.
The business was run from their home at 36 The Mall, Montrose until ill health forced Ken to retire in 1991.
The collection comprises of many thousands of negatives. The aim of the first stage of the project is to achieve the following:
- identify the numbers of negatives and prints involved
- create an inventory of the rough content
- Make a sample scan from each box or packet
Not all of the negative packets are well labeled and will need further identification and research.
So what have we done so far? Three large boxes have been inventoried, and 200 images scanned. These scans include:
- infilling of the Inch Burn and the building of the South Quay at Montrose.
- Montrose Harbour
- Jimmy Saville visiting a Fishery Protection vessel open day in Montrose
- Early construction work on the Forfar bypass
- Balnamoon House
- Kinnaber House
- Lunan House Hotel
- Earl of Dalhousie in Brechin Castle
- Syd Walker making pottery
- Brechin shops
- Brechin, Montrose and Mearns weddings
- Oil fire Training Centre, Montrose
- Interior of Montrose Town House
- The Seabee Ball at the Glenesk Hotel, Edzell
- Wedding photographs
A contact sheet of many of the items scanned so far is available to view.
The work is progressing slowly and would benefit from more volunteer assistance. You can help us make this fabulous collection available to the public more quickly in a number of ways:
- Scanning negatives - we can teach you what you need to know, no previous experience necessary. This would only require a couple of hours per week in a regular afternoon slot.
- Repackaging the collection
- Preliminary identification work - this might involve some trips to the libraries to look up specific events which have been photographed by Ken Hay, or it might just be recognizing people and places.
If you would like to help, please contact Angus Archives on 01674 675441 or email us on angus.archives@angus.gov.uk to discuss how you can get involved in scanning, or Montrose Museum on 01674 673232, or email them on montrose.museum@angus.gov.uk, if you would like to assist with indentifying and researching photographs.
© Angus Council 1998 - 2011