Bedfordshire Archives Service Catalogue
  • Reference
    Z1432
  • Title
    Tom Lawson Collection
  • Date free text
    c1880-2005
  • Production date
    From: 1880 To: 2005
  • Admin/biog history
    This collection was accumulated and created by local historian Tom Lawson, compiler and publisher of 'Then and Now: Leighton Buzzard and Linslade' and other publications relating to the Leighton Buzzard area. Tom was born in the town on 22 April 1916, the youngest of seven children. He was a lifelong scouter, reaching the position of Assistant District Commisioner; on his retirement from this role he was made an Honorary Scout for Life. During the Second World War he served as a stretcher bearer with the 129 Field Ambulance, attached to the 4th & 5th Wilts and the 4th Somersets. After the war he joined Vauxhall Motors, where he worked for 33 years until his retirement in 1979. He began photographing Leighton Buzzard as a schoolboy when he bought his first camera. After his retirement he concentrated on recording the town in pictures and sharing his photographs and memories of the town both in talks and in print. Tom Lawson died in November 2010.
  • Scope and Content
    Leighton Buzzard and area photographs (mostly copies) and research notes. Some indexes to content.
  • Archival history
    The collection was a bequest to the archive and transferred from the estate of Tom Lawson in 2011. The largest part of the collection consisted of photograph albums relating to Leighton Buzzard and the surrounding area. Many of these albums had titles which did not accurately reflect the contents – an album titled “Leighton Buzzard in the 1920s” may have contained items from the late 19th century to the late 20th, for example. The albums contained an eclectic mix of photographs, photographic copies of photographs (often with multiple small images on a single photograph), photocopies, and notes. Much of the content was duplicated across a number of albums and some of the copies were very poor. Many were A4 ring binders, from which the contents were removed and placed in bundles when the collection was received by Bedfordshire Archives. Some items had already been removed from albums before they reached the Archives, and many duplicates have been weeded out. A small number of albums which form a coherent whole without significant duplication have been left intact and have been catalogued as series Z1432/1. The great majority of the albums in the collection have been taken apart and separated into individual photographs and other material. The smaller individual photographs have been arranged by place and subject matter and catalogued as series Z1432/2. Large images have been catalogued as series Z1432/3, and notes and other content from the disaggregated albums have been catalogued as series Z1432/4 and Z1432/5.
  • Level of description
    fonds
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