Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
H. C. Casserley
Summary
Henry Cyril Casserley (12 June 1903 – 16 December 1991) was a British railway photographer. His prolific work in the 1920s and 1930s, the result of travelling to remote corners of the railway network in the United Kingdom and Ireland, has provided subsequent generations with a valuable source of illustrations for books and magazines.
Henry Cyril Casserley was born in Clapham, County of London, the son of Edward Casserley, a minor Post Office official, and his wife Sarah (née Turton). Edward Casserley loved mechanical objects and constructed from scratch a model railway in the loft, which may have inspired his son's enthusiasm for trains. Henry spent his working life in the head offices of the Prudential Assurance Company in London (evacuated to Derby in World War 2). He married Kathleen Goose on 16 July 1931. Their son Richard, (31 December 1936 - 18 October 2017), who also took up photography and latterly acted as custodian of his father's collection.
The family lived beside the railway line just east of Bromley South railway station from 1931 to 1939 but moved to a house on a new estate at Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, because the electrification of the Southern Railway greatly reduced the number of steam trains passing Bromley. Casserley acquired his first motor car in 1934, which aided his reaching obscure small railway lines and investigating windmills, in which he had also developed an interest.
He was in military service from 1942 to 1944, mostly based in the Army stores section at Bicester, but was invalided out and returned to his job at the Prudential. He retired in 1964 and devoted himself to his 'second career' as photographer and writer. His wife died in 1986 and his interest and memory then declined until his death, aged 88 in Berkhampsted.
H. C. Casserley's first camera was a Kodak no.2 folding Brownie with f/8 Rapid rectilinear lens acquired in 1919, but this was soon replaced by a professional standard Butcher's 'Popular Pressman' quarter-plate reflex camera (using 41⁄4" x 31⁄4" glass plates).
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.