Pete James was an accomplished photographic historian and Head of Photographs at the Library of Birmingham (formerly the Central Library) until 2015. Pete sadly died in March 2018, but his legacy continues:
Through Pete James’ work, the photographic collections became part of the very pulse of the Library of Birmingham
Professor Elizabeth Edwards [1]
Pete arrived in Birmingham in 1984 to study ‘The History of Art and Design’. He was guided to Birmingham Central Library, where he discovered a fantastic array of photographic collections. After gaining an M.A. from Birmingham Polytechnic (now Birmingham City University) Pete chose to follow a career in photography and fortunately for us all, Pete decided to stay in Birmingham. He immersed himself in the City’s photographic culture, not least with the photography magazine ‘TEN.8’, published in Birmingham through the 1980s and early 1990s. This grounding in contemporary campaigning and documentary photography provided Pete with invaluable experience for his later success as a photographic curator, where he would champion emerging and established photographers alike.
However, Pete’s passion for historic studies remained and he formed the ‘Birmingham Photographic Heritage Project’ to enable him to pursue research begun during his M.A. Pete returned to the Central Library’s collections, initially focusing on the survey photographers William Jerome Harrison and Sir Benjamin Stone. As his understanding of the collections increased, Pete realised just how significant they were for the history of photography, locally and nationally. He also realised that this significance was masked by their dispersal across library departments and that researchers less tenacious than he, would not uncover their riches. Pete successfully demonstrated to Patricia Coleman, City Librarian, the potential for raising their profile and research applications and he was appointed as the Central Library’s first specialist photographic researcher.
Pete embarked on a career-long commitment to make Birmingham’s photographic collections nationally and internationally renowned. His success in this regard was marked in 2009, when the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) granted him the ‘Colin Ford Award’ for Photographic Curatorship. By this time, Birmingham’s photographic collections were well regarded for photographic research, attracting world renowned photo-historians and practitioners to the Central Library. Pete chaired the Committee of National Photographic Collections, which brought together the U.K.s top photographic curators. He later became a founding member of the Photographic Collections Network.
After leaving the Library of Birmingham in 2015, Pete continued as an independent photographic researcher and curator. He worked on contemporary projects such as ‘Thresholds’ with Matt Collishaw, using Virtual Reality to provide an ‘experience’ of Henry Fox Talbot’s 1839 Birmingham exhibition of ‘photogenic drawings. Pete continued with his own research into the City’s early photography and submitted a major article on George Shaw for the RPS journal ‘Photo-Historian’, which was published shortly after Pete’s death.
I worked alongside Pete James for eight years, learning constantly from him about photographic history and photographic collections. I knew from the outset that I was working with someone gifted in his field, but I only gradually came to appreciate how truly exceptional Pete was – and what an asset for Birmingham he was. Pete’s passion for photography was matched by a passion to share his knowledge with students, practitioners and curators. His commitment to the photographic collections at the Library of Birmingham ensured that they attained wide recognition and he worked tirelessly to develop and extend them and maintain their relevance to new and emerging research agendas. Pete’s work in this regard and in developing an infrastructure to support contemporary photographic practice in the City and across the region needs more analysis than this short blog can provide. I hope that this will spur others to fully explore the tremendous contribution Pete made to photographic culture in Birmingham and beyond.
[H]is achievement is remarkable and it remains for others to build upon
Terry Grimley [2]
Jim Ranahan
Notes
[1] Stated in “Photographs and the Public Library: Back to the Future” the inaugural Pete James Memorial Lecture, given at the National Photographic Symposium, University of Salford 01/11/2018
[2] ‘Esteemed city photo archivist dies aged 60’ Birmingham Post 15/03/2018
The Iron Room 
Thanks Jim, for taking the time to write this tribute on the anniversary of Pete’s death. He has left a huge hole in our family, which we are still trying to come to terms with. Also thanks to Corrina for making it happen. Best wishes Heather, Nola and Evan. X
I enjoyed working alongside Pete in the last years of the 20th century. I wrote a biography of him for Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_James
Thank you Andy for writing that.. Pete enjoyed working with you too. I didn’t know that there was a piece in the RPS about George Shaw. I must try to get hold of this. Who was it written by?
Thank you; kind of you to say so.
It’s a paper written by Pete himself, for ‘The Photohistorian’:
http://rps.org/special-interest-groups/historical/about/the-photohistorian
I have fond memories of working with Pete and still think about him and the passion he had for photography and it’s history. He is missed and I only wish I could have spent more time in his company!