Photo collection highlight: Mustograph Agency – topography, customs and crafts of Britain

Here is a great drill-down in the collection from Mary Evans Picture Library in London – sent through to PAN last week.

When we purchased Barnaby’s Picture Library twenty years ago, we discovered one of the highlights of the collection: the photographs from the Mustograph Agency, particularly those taken by Fred Musto himself. The agency was established in Leytonstone, east London, in the 1930s with an emphasis on the topography, customs and crafts of Britain. Their photographers specialised in a particular county or subject area, while Fred himself whizzed about on his motorbike, sometimes appearing in his own shots. In the 1960s Fred joined Barnaby’s when he became too frail to continue on his own, and the Mustograph Agency was amalgamated into Barnaby’s own collection. 
We’ve summed up the 8,000 or so photographs of mid-century Britain with this characteristic selection.