John Topham (photographer)

John Topham
Portrait of photographer John Topham, 1936
Portrait of photographer John Topham, 1936
Born1908
Died1992 (aged 84)
OccupationPhotographer
Years active1927–1973

John Topham (1908–1992) was an English social documentary photographer.

He worked steadily from 1927 to 1973, documenting the "ordinary way of life of ordinary people...the little things of life - the way it really was."[1] He is particularly noted for his photographs taken during the World War II era - with some appearing in Life magazine and one currently on display in the Imperial War Museum[2] He amassed 121,228 negatives including 20,000 glass negatives of his earliest work.[1]

The TopFoto collection in Edenbridge holds about 122,000 of his pictures, including 20,000 glass negatives.[1] Topham worked closely with a Kentish Times photographer, Tom Fassam. Many of his prints of agricultural and rural interest are also on permanent loan to the Museum of Rural Life in Reading, courtesy of the TopFoto Archive.

  1. ^ a b c Knocker-up Armed with a Pea Shooter Archived 18 January 2013 at the Wayback Machine by John Topham (accessed 2012-10-22)
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference topfoto was invoked but never defined (see the help page).