A COLLECTION of photographs of village life in the early 20th century was recently discovered in a pair of old suitcases in a barn 70 miles from the village they came from.

The photos show village life in Seavington St Mary in the early 20th century and a local researcher, Phil Nichols, tracked them down while he was researching William’s father, Sydney.

The owner knew that the suitcases contained glass plate negatives, but he had thought that they were unsold stock from the antiques business of a Somerset man called William Vaux.

Sydney Vaux was a keen amateur photographer, based in Seavington St Mary.

Phil discovered that these mysterious suitcases held nearly 700 photographs taken by Sydney, still in their original packaging.

A quick inspection showed that the photographs were taken in the Seavingtons (St Mary and St Michael), mostly in the period 1905-1915.

Phil was able to recruit two very knowledgeable residents of Seavington St Mary. Between them, they have identified the location of two-thirds of the photographs and can name about a third of the people in the photographs.

One of the volunteers found photographs of three generations of her family, and the other volunteer found a photograph showing her house being built.

There are many photographs of the Friendly Society Club Day walk, and others of meetings of the Seavington Harriers, weddings, plays, fêtes, and the schoolchildren.

The Vaux family’s wheelwright and carpentry business is well represented.

If you would like to know more about the collection, there will be a free talk at Seavington Millennium Hall at 7.30pm on Friday, October 7.

Some of Sydney Vaux’s photographs have been published in Victorian and Edwardian Somerset from old photographs, by David Bromwich and Robert Dunning (Batsford, 1977) and Robert Dunning’s Victorian & Edwardian Somerset (Amberley, 2008).

Copies of both of these books can be read at the Somerset Heritage Centre.

All images in the photo gallery are reproduced with the kind permission of Mr Ian Moore.

For more information visit the website here.