Alfred John West

Who was Alfred John West?

Alfred John West was a British award-winning marine photographer in the Gosport firm of G. West and Sons from 1881 and from 1897 at the age of 40, a pioneer cinematographer. He was then active in both roles until 1913 when he sold his copyright in negative plates of yachting studies to Beken of Cowes, and his stock of positive moving film to a distributor in Glasgow who quickly went out of business and disappeared with the material without completing the purchase.

West tells us in his unpublished autobiography 'Sea Salts and Celluloid' that he '... kept the negatives' but the bulk of the film stock cannot now be traced. A few tantalising clips remain as does a full descriptive catalogue in the British Library of all the moving film he created under the 'Our Navy' brand. The stock of AJ West's negative plates is professionally conserved and currently held as a working archive for the production and sale of yachting prints by Beken of Cowes. West's plates are numbered from 500 to 10250 in the Beken archive. Alfred West died in 1937 and is buried at Kingston Cemetery Portsmouth in Hampshire.