Furness Railway 175
On Saturday 17th July 2021 Barrow celebrates its annual Festival of Transport – this year also marks the 175th anniversary of the opening of the Furness Railway.
To celebrate this exciting event we have partnered with Cumbria Community Rail and Cumbria Railways Association (CRA) to share Sankey Images of the Furness Railway.
The pictures you will see in this exhibition were captured by Edward Sankey in the early 20th century. Edward Sankey founded his photographic business in Barrow-in-Furness in the early 1900’s and by 1904 was appointed as the official Furness Railway Photographer, a job he held until 1923. During this time period, Edward took hundreds of images of the Railways across Cumbria and Lancashire and for this exhibition we have selected a few of the ones he took in his hometown of Barrow.
Over the last few weeks we have shared these images with members of the CRA and the Sankey Volunteers, all of whom have been researching the stories behind the photographs.
We hope you enjoy the pieces of writing they created to accompany each photograph. Just scroll down to find out more!
The Festival of Transport in Barrow
To find out more about the Festival of Transport and to see how you can get involved on Saturday 17th July, visit the Festival of Transport Website. Cumbria Railways Association will be holding a special archive display in the Dock Museum which will also include a collection of Sankey photographs.
Special thanks
Special thanks go to Don Jary, David Stubbins and from the Cumbria Railway Association (CRA) for inviting their members to get involved with the project. We also thank Dave Richardson and Les Gilpin, CRA members for responding to an image.
Thanks goes to Sankey Volunteers who have dedicated so much time and effort into the Sankey project. We give special thanks to Geoff Holme, Jean McSorley, Martin Bates, Peter Naylor and Peter Laird who have taken part in this exhibition.
We also thank BBC Radio Presenter Neil Smith who has responded to two Sankey Railway Images.
Thank you to Kerstin Esbjornsson from Community Railway Cumbria who has helped support connect us all to make this exhibition possible.