Alfred Hugh Harman

Who was Alfred Hugh Harman?

Alfred Hugh Harman was a pioneer of photography and founder of Ilford Limited.

Harman established a photography business in Peckham in 1862 using William Fox Talbot’s Calotype negative/positive printing process. In 1864 he was advertising enlargements using solar cameras and artificial light.

In 1879 Harman abandoned his photographic studio and moved to Ilford village where he began manufacturing dry gelatine plates in the basement of his new home in Cranbrook Road on the corner with Park Avenue. As business grew he expanded his workplace into the ground floor and employed two men and three boys. His early processes were rudimentary—he applied his emulsion formula with a teapot— but the huge growth in the photography market gave him the revenue he needed to build purpose built premises in 1883. These 'Britannia Works' went public in 1891, was relaunched as The Britannia Works Limited in 1898, and was renamed Ilford Limited in 1900 despite objections from Ilford Urban District Council who argued that being the area's largest employer did not give the company the right to assume the town's name.