In the early 1860s, a young Londoner, who loved his city and was worried that it was vanishing before his eyes, took up a relatively newfangled instrument – a camera – to record what was happening in the streets around him.
The photographer’s name was William Strudwick (1834-1910). He photographed the riverside at Lambeth, opposite the fairly new Houses of Parliament, showing Barry and Pugin’s fantasy Tudor creation still flanked by the traffic and industry of a working river: mast- and oar-makers, boatbuilders and
