Notes

Back to top

1.     Robinson’s paper was previously mentioned in the millennial volume of the Association’s Transactions. (Timms, 2000, 143-4) Research by Association members in 2018 identified that it held its own archive of over 150 photographs.  See https://devonassoc.org.uk/da-photographic-archive/ (accessed 15/1/22).  In 2019, as part of a comprehensive review of its photographic collections reaching back over 160 years, the  Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter  hosted a symposium on Collecting Regions: Photography and a Sense of Place. This drew attention to little-known aspects of the museum’s collections that have been acquired over the years. See https://rammuseum.org.uk/photography-at-ramm-new-discoveries-new-directions/ (accessed 15/1/22). 

2.     The contemporary Devon-based artist photographers who spoke at the Association’s 2016 symposium were Chris Chapman, Susan Derges, Gary Fabian Millar and Jem Southam. The 2016 symposium also highlighted the extraordinary photographs of Association member, Margaret Tomlinson, (1905-1997), who worked for the National Buildings Record during World War II. Many Devon subjects feature among nearly 3,500 of her photos which English Heritage made available online in 2018 to mark the centenary of women first getting the vote in this country. See https://heritagecalling.com/2017/03/28/a-race-against-destruction-the-wartime-photography-of-margaret-tomlinson/ (accessed 15/1/22). 

3.     Chris Chapman spoke about the work of James Ravilious, who had also been the subject of a presentation by Robin Ravilious at the Association’s 2013 President’s Symposium on The Inspiration of Devon. See https://devonassoc.org.uk/symposium-2013/ (accessed 15/1/22). 

4.     Information in this section, including the quoted extracts, is drawn from documents relating to the Beaford Centre 1965-90, deposited in the Devon Heritage Centre (Exeter) under references T/B 1–10. These include a series of Annual Reports, in which the Beaford Archive regularly featured.

5.     The North Devon coastline was designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in 1960 but it was not until 2002 that the special character of North Devon’s inland area was recognised by its incorporation into the UNESCO North Devon Biosphere Reserve. Thanks to the far-sighted efforts of Devon County Council, the Tarka Trail, a long-distance walking/cycling path along old North Devon railway lines, was opened in stages during the early 1990s.

6.     This 1968 course was the launch-pad for John Moat (1936-2014) and John Fairfax (1930-2009) to found the Arvon Foundation with the aim of ‘providing time and space away from school for young people to write poetry’. In 1972, Totleigh Barton at Sheepwash in North Devon was opened as Arvon’s first residential centre. Ted Hughes (1930-1998), another poet with strong North Devon connections, played a key role in the success of Arvon, which, like Beaford, flourishes to this day. See https://www.arvon.org/about/history/ (accessed 15/1/22). 

7.     Information in this section, including the quoted extracts, is drawn from documents relating to the Beaford Centre 1965-90, deposited in the Devon Heritage Centre (Exeter) under references T/B 1–10. These include a series of Annual Reports, in which the Beaford Archive regularly featured.

8.     This section draws on Robin Ravilious’s wonderful biography of her husband (Ravilious, 2017). Other biographical detail can be found on the website www.jamesravilious.com which includes listings of publications and the principal exhibitions of his work (accessed 15/1/22). 

9.     By happy coincidence, Ravilious shared his birthday with Cartier-Bresson, as he also did with Archie Parkhouse, a Dolton farmer, friend and neighbour who featured in many of his finest images.

10. The Beaford Old Archive images can be accessed at https://beafordoldarchive.org.uk/index.php (accessed 15/1/22). 

11.  More than 600 of George Tucker’s own portfolio of documentary photographs (including many of the small North Devon town of Hatherleigh) can now be viewed on www.georgetucker.co.uk (accessed 15/1/22). 

12. Chapman’s Wild Goose and Riddon (2000) is a landmark publication of his Dartmoor photographs. A further selection can be viewed at www.chrischapmanphotography.com (accessed 15/1/22). He contributed the Foreword to Ravilious’s A Corner of England (1995) and created, with Ravilious, a joint touring exhibition to mark the Year of the Photographer in 1998. Their photographs were also shown side-by-side in the touring exhibition that Farms for City Children commissioned in 2006 to mark the thirtieth anniversary of that charity’s establishment at Nethercott House near Iddesleigh in North Devon. Chapman is one of the contemporary Devon artists who were featured in the millennial volume of the Association’s Transactions. (Pery, 2000)

13. John Lane (1930-2012) also served as a trustee of the Dartington Hall Trust for many years and was instrumental in the foundation of Schumacher College at Dartington. His books included an encomium for the county of Devon (Lane, 1998) and an affectionate study of Devon churches, richly illustrated by the photographs of Harland Walshaw (Lane and Walshaw, 2007). He also contributed a reflection on Devon to the millennial issue of the Association’s Transactions. (Lane, 2000)

14. Ravilious’s Beaford Archive photographs have been acquired by a number of other galleries and organisations. Over 160 are listed on the website of the Museum of Barnstaple and North Devon, which also organises a documentary photography competition inspired by his work. See https://ehive.com/objects?accountId=4559&query=Ravilious+ (accessed 15/1/22). With the support of the South Western Arts Association and Sotheby’s, 24 exhibition prints were presented to the North Devon District Hospital in the 1980s, when the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital acquired a further set. More recently the Victoria & Albert Museum in London acquired 20 prints which are listed on its website at

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/search/?q=Ravilious,%20James&page=1&page_size=15 (accessed 15/1/22). 

15. The National Sound Archive recordings of Hamilton and Ravilious in conversation can be accessed at http://cadensa.bl.uk/uhtbin/cgisirsi/?ps=trvyfGlqms/WORKS-FILE/257980076/9 (accessed 15/1/22). 

16. The Beaford New Archive can be accessed at https://beafordarchive.org (accessed 15/1/22). In 2015 the original negatives of the New Archive photographs were transferred for safe-keeping to the South West Heritage Trust’s Devon Heritage Centre in Exeter. Beaford’s curation of the Archive is guided by its Archive Steering Group of external experts who offer advice to its Trustees.

17. As noted above, the recording of oral histories had been included in the original concept for the Beaford Archive. The social historian, E. W. Martin, began work on recording reminiscences of local people for Beaford in 1973 with the aid of a grant from the Nuffield Foundation. Eight years earlier he had published an account of life in Okehampton (Martin, 1965) and twenty-seven years later he contributed a reflection on rural Devon to the Association’s millennial issue of its Transactions. (Martin, 2000)

18. Another set of personal responses to Ravilious’s photographs has recently been published by the Royal Photographic Society. (Wright, 2021) The legacy of Ravilious’s photographs is also being promoted through a Twitter account bearing his name, @JamesRavilious.  Some publications featuring Ravilious’s photographs are now out of print but they are often available for loan from Devon’s excellent public libraries, now operated by the charity, Libraries Unlimited.