Exhibition: Vintage photos of Spitalfields on Display

Sandys Row Synagogue is exhibiting the photographs of C.A. Mathew. It is the first time that many of these images have ever been put on public display.

On Saturday April 20th 1912, C.A.Mathew walked out of Liverpool St Station with a camera in hand. No-one knows for certain why he chose to wander through the streets of Spitalfields taking photographs that day. It may be that the pictures were a commission, though this seems unlikely as they were never published. I prefer another theory, that he was waiting for the train home to Brightlingsea in Essex where he had a studio in Tower St, and simply walked out of the station, taking these pictures to pass the time. It is not impossible that these exceptional photographs owe their existence to something as mundane as a delayed train.

Little is known of C.A.Mathew, who only started photography in 1911, the year before these pictures, and died five years later, shortly after his wife at Christmas 1916 - yet today this beautiful set of photographs preserved at the Bishopsgate Institute exists as the most vivid evocation we have of Spitalfields at this time.

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Other than for services - The Exhibition and the Synagogue will be open to the public (most) Sunday's 10.30am - 4pm until February 2013

Check their calendar or twitter account for updates if making a specific trip to see the photos.