Chris Ashworth photos

Okay, fellows, now I am REALLY asking for help. I just heard from librarian at RAES, (which has a collection of Chris Ashworth’s reports and studies and research notes). I was hoping that his listings of photos were in that group of papers. They are not…His negatives were numbered, and I assume he MUST have had a list or a notebook, or a computer file, that indexed his negative and photo collection. (numbers went into the 120,000 range at least..) No sense numbering them if there was not a master list. He apparently TRADED photos and negatives with a LOT of museums, archives and individual collectors. Perhaps he sent his list to some of them? I am desperate to find a copy of that list or notebook, Any help appreciated and rewarded. :confused:

Thank you for that information, Ag-Cat; That is what I was hoping to learn, when I started this thread. It was fairly obvious that Chris had done a LOT of photo and negative trading over the years. And I HAD suspected that was the story behind that initial code (as an I.D. of the source..)on the envelope… as you confirmed. It boggles the mind to consider the hours, days, years, and decades that Chris spent studying and assembling images of aviation history. I have enjoyed the pleasure of corresponding and sharing with other collectors and museums for over 40 years. We learn something in almost every discussion, and the thirst for knowledge is never quenched. Your comments on Chris provide a well deserved tribute. Thanks.

Barnstormer: I think you will find that the Chippy neg was taken by Peter Russell-Smith – note the CPR-S typed onto the neg bag. Like many historians, Chris exchanged photos with many other like-minded souls including myself. Chris was remarkable in that he was taking photos and making notes from the late 1940s and he had a wide band of like-minded contacts. Chris served in the RAF, I think mainly in the Kipper Fleet, ending his career on the Nimrod at St Mawgan.

I know that many of his books (such as a huge collection of Jane’s etc) have been disposed of through a couple of major auctions although I am not sure what has happend to the whole of his photographic collection. If his collection has been broken up this will be a great pity because Chris was a very knowlegeable and generous man, one whose loss I feel greatly.

The quality of the photos and negatives in his collection were amazing. Here is an image of one of his glassine envelopes holding a 2″ x 2″ black & white negative. It is followed by a LOW res digital image. But I took this 2×2 negative and placed it in my Epson 4990 scanner, set the scanner to
” Black and White Negative film” and it printed a beautiful POSITIVE 4 x 4 image @ 1200 dpi . this one photo can be enlarged enough to CLEARLY READ the tiny stenciled printing of “T.P.38” on the bottom of the landing gear leg; the small cLEAR stencil on the bottom of the tail cone that reads “T.P.40” and the stenciling of the “NO HAND HOLD” on the front of the vertical fin fairing. Getting a good image of the 6 AEF insignia on the side is a breeze! You can even clearly see the cotter pin in the axle nut, positioned at a one o’clock/seven o’clock position. with no editing at all. And this is just an early experiment-I have no idea what I am doing, with these scanner settings yet.
Very optimistic. Mr. Ashworth has left a significant legacy…

I knew Chris in his later years, an amazing chap who was a real Mr Aviation. I believe the post war aircraft enthusiast scene has alot to owe him.
Most of his photos went to the family, but Im not sure if they went to a collection (which they deserve) afterwards.

Martin;
Thank you so much. That is exactly what I was hoping to find. And fast response, Indeed. 🙂 And I would STILL be interested in hearing from any other historians or collectors who traded photos or negatives with Mr. Ashworth, over the years. Or those who may have sold or supplied aircraft photo collections to him.

Do you look for this one
http://www.raes.org.uk/cms/uploaded/files/Chris%20Ashworth%20Collection.pdf

Cheers
Martin