Brislington Community Museum

Find the photographers

Around a century ago, more than five hundred photographs of Brislington and St Anne's were published as postcards. Already, nearly a hundred of these are online as exhibits, but we could do so much more.

Many postcards could be added as exhibits if we knew who took the photograph (so we can work out if the picture is out of copyright). The problem is - most postcards don't show the photographer's name, so we need help to make the breakthrough.

For example there may be a clue in the publisher - some were local shopkeepers - so we've listed the postcards by both place and name of the publisher (some photographers published their own postcards, but who?)

This is a major project for us, and more publishers (and their postcards) will be added in in due course, so please check back soon. This outreach phase of this postcard project is time-limited due to the measures that make this possible, and is scheduled to end on 30 Sept 2026.

Please follow the links below for more information and to see the postcards we're trying to trace.


(New 13 Feb 2026) - Brislington & St Anne's postcard publishers

Brislington Parish Church
Coe, E
Comer, A & J
Elson, L
Foster B'ton
George
Hollister, C & E
Parker, D
Red House, The
Village policeman
West, F & N


Information on all known local postcards



Restrictions on publishing the pictures

For some years we've been preparing to apply for 'orphaned works' licences to publish postcards of Brislington where the copyright owner (if any) isn't known. Part of that process is to conduct research to identify a picture's copyright status. An initial phase enabled us to publish a good number online (postcards published already), but the status of many more remains uncertain.

An authorised avenue of enquiry is advertising for help in finding out about the origins and history of the pictures. When considering this, we felt a description was inadequate - people needed to see the pictures. But could we really publish a picture to find out if we can publish the picture?

Apparently, in certain circumstances, it is permissible. Having consulted with the administrators of the orphaned works application process, we've implemented some measures to safeguard the interests of any potential copyright holder, these include:


Ken Taylor