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Tudor59

Date joined: 10/10/20

About

My father Vernon David Emmanuel was an avid historian and strived to protect and preserve our historical heritage. I did not realise the extent of his collection until after his death where I saw the significance of what I had in front of me. Over the last 7 yrs. his photographic collection and his work has been entrusted to me to ensure it is saved and is now in the archives of RCAHMW where approx. 4000 photographs covering historical buildings to industrial ones are now housed. It is people like my father who if it wasn’t for their foresight we would not have them saved for others to enjoy forever. He started to notice in his early 30’s that a number of Welsh chapels were being demolished or converted into household dwelling and decided that they needed to be documented for prosperity. This led to a lifelong passion of over 60 yrs. documenting and photographing historical buildings and copying and preserving old photographs he thought needed to be preserved. Hi other passion was collecting books dating back to the early 1800’s which we found after he passed away that a lot of them were rare and of significant historical importance with the majority being donated to the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales Library in Aberystwyth and also the National Library of Wales. On going through some of his collection I have found pictures that I have not documented and on viewing then which were in Black & White I found a batch of stunning photos of high quality which were taken in the early 1900’s of Usk and surrounding areas. There are photographs which I believe are of the celebration of The Coronation of Edward V11 and his wife Alexandra as King and Queen of the at Westminster Abbey, London, on 9 August 1902 because of their quality I decided to colourise one of them and was blown away by what I saw they suddenly came alive in front of me. This prompted me to colour them all and amazed by what I saw it shows in such clarity their clothing of that era which will be a treasure trove to clothes designers and students of historical dress. In there also I found one significant picture of a tragic episode in Llangybi near Usk in 1878 Spanish sailor Josef Garcia was convicted of the murder in the village of William and Elizabeth Watkins and their three youngest children (Charlotte, 8 years, Alice, 5 years and Frederick, 4 years ) the actual picture of the cottage with two constables by the door and two men and a woman standing outside the gate. I cannot find any other record of a picture of the cottage only and artist impression.
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