Vintage Photographs of the British at Work and Play in the 1930s

   

Edwin Smith (1912 – 1971) was an English photographer. He is best known for his distinctive vignettes of English gardens, landscapes, and architecture. But some of his finest work is portraiture.

 
Workers sitting on steps outside the Guildhall, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
St. James Street Station, Walthamstow, London

 

A miner's home, Scotswood on Tyne

 

 
Mannequin on a street barrow, London

 

Herring girls gutting fish on the quayside, North Shields

 

 
Six clowns (Pinder in the centre) from Hagenbeck's Circus, Olympia, London

 

Circus riders

 

Fairground workers constructing Gray's roundabout, Hampstead, London

 

Children playing in the street outside a shop, Gateshead, Tyne & Wear

 

People on the beach at South Shields, Tyne and Wear

 

Workers at the National Aircraft Factory, Croydon, London

 

Boys at Church Farm School, East Barnet, London

 

Helter skelter and roundabout at a London fairground

 

Clowns performing at Bertram Mills Circus, Olympia, London

 

Portrait of an immigrant

 

Portrait of a rural worker

 

Shepherd Poole, shepherd to Mr. S Holloway of Norton-sub-Hambdon, Somerset

 

Portrait of seated woman

 

Coco the Clown at Olympia, London

 

Circus horses and trainer

 

Fishermen and their boats on a beach

 

Quayside market on Sunday morning, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

 

Fashion shot

 

Fairground, Mitcham, London

 

Fan dancer, Mitcham Fair, London

 

Fashion shot taken at 72 Brook Street, London


(Photos © Edwin Smith / RIBA Library Photographs Collection, via Mashable/ Retronaut)