FEW EVENTS ESCAPED THE CAMERA OF RICHARDS BROS

One hardly needs the powers of a prophet to divine that the exhibition devoted to the works of the celebrated Penzance photographers, The Richards Brothers: 1852-1977, opening on Saturday in Penlee House Gallery & Museum, is not only likely to prove, especially with local people, one of its most popular yet, but also to generate a considerable demand for copies of the images it contains.

A collaboration between Penlee House and the Morrab Library in Penzance, comprising four dozen photographs on the walls, plus more than 70 photographs in a Power Point display, many of which are being seen here in public for the first time, it adds up to an engrossing survey of people, places and events, in Penwith during a century and a quarter, 1852-1977.

One of the treasures of the Morrab Library is its photographic archive which holds more than 10,000 photographs, negatives and glass plates, most of them in private collections that have been given to the library for safe keeping, from the Richards Brothers, of course, to, among others, the Angove and Opie, the Chown and Collins, collections, all of which are available to the general public 10.30am-12.30pm each Thursday.

Richards Bros was a family photographic business which, for four generations, was part and parcel of life in Penwith. Founded by William Richards in the mid-19th century by way of his wife's stepfather William Jenkyn, "the first recorded resident professional photographer in the county", while there might well be a few who can still remember being photographed by "Hushy Billy", William Richards, Junior (1857-1937), there will be many who will recall being taken to the studio at 2, Queen Street, Penzance, to be photographed by either Eddie or Reggie Richards, who ran the business for more than 40 years, finally closing its doors upon reaching retirement age in 1977.

While they were justly highly regarded for their family portraits, as this exhibition shows, the Richards Brothers' activities covered a much wider field and they photographed just about everything that moved, walked and talked in Penwith.

Few events of any note escaped their camera eye; indeed, they caught so much on film, from the demolition of "The Balcony", the Navy Inn at Newlyn during its infamous "slum clearances" in the 1930s, to the two faces of Land's End - Evangeline Cora Booth, daughter of General William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, addressing a crowd there in the mid-1930s, to Sir Jimmy Saville OBE, starting one of the three charity walks he made in the early 1970s from Land's End to John O'Groats - it is impossible to mention all that they did.

Every visitor to this show will have his or her few favourite photographs; part of its pleasure is that of remembering events and recognising people from the past, but it is worth looking out for a shot of the Battery Rocks, taken in the late 19th century long before the Jubilee Pool was even thought of; the three survivors from the Juan Ferrer which came to grief at Carn Boscawen, near Lamorna, a shipwreck which gave rise to the building of Tater Du lighthouse; the notorious Ash Wednesday storm of 1962; the laying of the first electricity cable in Causewayhead in 1912; the Yglesias sisters, Dorothy and Phyllis 'Pog', founders of Mousehole Wild Bird Hospital; a cold winter in snowbound Madron in the late 1920s; 'Janner's Train' at Penlee Quarry; an accident in Penzance's Market Jew Street in the 1960s when a removal van appeared to have done serious damage to a surprised and distressed vintage car; the stranding of some 60 whales at the Eastern Green in 1911; Madron's Harry Scrase cranking up his Austin 7, otherwise known as 'Pegasus' or 'The Madron Lash-Up!'; a shot of Edward Richards himself, at sea in 1938 when involved in the relief of the Longships lighthouse; and even a view of the former offices of The Cornishman in Parade Street, which will remind many of the sound of its printing press echoing in Parade Passage and of the display of the week's photographs in its front office window.

In every respect an exhibition which offers a memorable trip down memory lane, and one not to be missed, The Richards Brothers: Famous Penzance Photographers 1852-1977, can be seen in Penlee House Gallery & Museum, 10.30am-4.30pm (last admission 4pm) Monday-Saturday, from Saturday (admission free) until March 25.