Hallam Ashley

Born on 9 July 1900 in Nottinghamshire to Arthur Ernest and Hannah Elizabeth (née Hallam) Ashley, Hallam Ashley was the son and grandson to professional photographers. In a 2010 interview his daughter remarked; “It was in his blood to be a photographer”. Shortly after he was born, his father took over the family photographic and picture-framing business and moved it to Sutton-in-Ashfield in 1912; the business having been founded by Hallam's grandfather John in Retford in 1852. Aged 18, Hallam Ashley signed up to the Royal Air Force, but he quickly learned that his father had died and had to return home to run the family business. Not wishing to be tied to studio work, Hallam sold the business in 1921 and became a freelance photographer. Over the years, he took on a variety of work from scholastic portraiture to photographing boats and bungalows for holiday catalogues and wedding photography. Ashley met his first wife May McKelvey in Northern Ireland. They married in 1929 and settled in Norwich where he spent the rest of his life. Ashley began to establish himself as a photographer of repute in the 1930s and, in 1935, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society. Also that year, he was appointed to the Geological Photographs Committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science reflecting his interest in the subject which resulted in his many photographs of coastal erosion, quarrying and details of rock and glacial formations. At the start of World War II, he again volunteered to join the RAF but his desire to fly was thwarted for the second time as his expertise was utilised in their photographic section rather than at the controls. Prior to the war, he carried out work photographing archaeological sites, excavations and similar subjects primarily for the Castle Museum in Norwich and, in 1946, he began photographing buildings for the National Buildings Record (later the National Monuments Record) and continued this work until 1983 when ill health forced him into retirement. Ashley became interested in mills after meeting Rex Wailes in 1926, the pioneer of the UK's windmill repair movement, and took photographs that were used in the books and articles published by Wailes on English windmills. Ashley went on to become a member of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings working closely with the Wind and Watermill Section. In 1964, Hallam Ashley had a one-man exhibition of his work in Norwich Castle Museum that was reviewed favourably by the British Journal of Photography. Ashley passed on his knowledge by teaching photography at the Norwich College of Further Education.

Ashley's first wife May died in childbirth shortly before the end of the war leaving 2 daughters, Kathleen (Kay) and Patricia, who both now live in Northern Ireland. In 1952, he married fellow photographer, Dorothy Baines. Hallam Ashley died in Norwich on 24 October 1987.