Topical Press Agency
The Topical Press Photographic Agency, also known as Topical Press Agency, or simply Topical, was a British photo agency established in 1903 and dissolved in 1957.
History
It was founded in 1903 in London as a partnership between James Barrow Helsby (1862- 14 December 1943), a step-brother of the Royal photographer Albert Victor Swaebe (1877- 3 August 1967) and photographer himself, and Walter James Edwards (d. 1929), a traveling salesman.[https://books.google.com/books?id=_T_HCg17ufIC&dq=James%20Barrow%20Helsby&pg=PA972 The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History] edited by W. D. Rubinstein, Michael A. Jolles, and Hilary L. Rubinstein. Palgrave Macmillan: 2011, p. 972. By its peak in 1929, it employed almost 1,500 representatives in Great Britain and worldwide, selling the work of a team of photographers operating first from Fleet Street and then at Red Lion Court in London.Sara MacDonald, curator at the Hulton Archive. [http://corporate.gettyimages.com/masters2/press/articles/BWP_Topical_Press.pdf Going worldwide: For nearly half a century Topical Press Photographic Agency dominated Fleet Street with its photographs from all over the world]. Accessed 28 August 2012. [http://corporate.gettyimages.com/masters2/press/articles/BWP_Topical_Press.pdf Archived] As well as contemporary press photography, the company also focused on sales of stock photography. With changing patterns in news publishing, the company dwindled until it eventually went bankrupt in 1957, with the bulk of the archives acquired by the Hulton Picture Library, now part of Getty Images.{{cite web|url=http://www.20thcenturylondon.org.uk/server.php?show=conInformationRecord.245|title=Explore 20th Century London: Topical Press|website=www.20thcenturylondon.org.uk|accessdate=3 July 2017}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20171105002206/http://www.20thcenturylondon.org.uk/topical-press Archived]
Prominent photographers worked for Topical including Arthur William Debenham, Hugh Cecil Saunders, and John Warwick Brooke, who was one of the first official British photographers of the First World War,{{cite web|url=http://www.cairogang.com/other-people/castle-propaganda/military/brooke/brooke.html|title=Capt John Warwick Brooke|website=www.cairogang.com|accessdate=3 July 2017}} among others.
The Royal Gathering at Osborne.jpg|The Royal Gathering at Osborne, 1909
Queen Mary 1924.jpg|Queen Mary, 1924
Emmeline Pankhurst, c.1910. (22913713376).jpg|Emmeline Pankhurst, c.1910
James Henry Greathead.png|James Henry Greathead
William Glynne Charles Gladstone in military uniform.jpg|William Glynne Charles Gladstone
Olga 1910.jpg|Grand Duchess Olga
Benito Mussolini 1922.jpeg|Benito Mussolini, 1922
References
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External links
- {{commons category-inline|Topical Press Photographic Agency}}
- [http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp13286 Topical Press Photographic Agency], National Portrait Gallery Collection
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Category:News agencies based in the United Kingdom