IN PICTURES: York 150 years ago - spot the differences

NO-ONE knew more about the history of York than the late and much-missed Hugh Murray.

Hugh spent his working life as a signal engineer with British Rail - before retiring in 1988 and beginning a new life as a historian.

He amassed a private library of several thousand books and tens of thousands of photographs dedicated to the city’s history.

When he died in 2013, much of his collection went to Explore York. Other photographs are now looked after by the Yorkshire Architectural and York Archaeological Society (YAYAS), of which Hugh was for many years the chair.

Now YAYAS has reprinted in full one of his many books.

‘Photographs and photographers of York: The Early years, 1814-1879’ covers the lives of many of the very first photographers who ever took photographs of this ancient city - people like Henry Fox Talbot, William Pumphrey, John Ward Knowles and Joseph Duncan - and reproduces many of their photos.

Lendal Ferry, before construction of Lendal Bridge. From Photographs and Photographers of York by Hugh Murray (Image: YAYAS)

The photographs date from the 1840s through to the 1870s. They record a city that was in some ways very similar to the York of today - but in others very different. It was, for example, a city in which the River Ouse at Lendal was crossed by a ferry - and in which the Italianate tower of St Crux’s church on Pavement still stood.

The photos, and the book from which they come, stand as a reminder of just how much York has changed. But above all, the book is a tribute to the work of Hugh himself, as YAYAS chair John Shaw says in the dedication. Quite right, too.

Photographs and photographers of York: The Early Years by Hugh Murray is available priced £15 from the YAYAS website yayas.org.uk