About the Archive

The Vernon MacAndrew Photographic Archive is a coherent early-twentieth-century body of photography created by Vernon William MacAndrew (1880–1940), spanning roughly c.1900–1940 and including a major early colour Autochrome series from c.1909–1912.

Overall it consists of 4,500 glass slide images and 500 negative slides, at least 1700 of which are in true colour, making it one of the largest repostitories of early colour in public ownership.

It's home and largest subject is Dartmouth, the river Dart, and the sailing waters around Torbay and Start Bay, with Vernon and Marie MacAndrew's house, Ravensbury House in Warfleet being the archive's spritual and physical home.

It documents travel and maritime life with particular strength in Mediterranean Spain—especially Valencian and Mallorcan coastal communities—alongside wider maritime and social subjects (including shell collection expeditions to the Red Sea and the Philippines, later Dartmouth life, British shipping, yachting scenes such as Cowes Week, and notable maritime events such as the wreck of the Herzogin Cecilie).

This site is not a “best-of gallery” but a public reference repository: evidence-led notes, context, corrections and project progress intended to support wider understanding and sharing of the archive. Dartmouth Museum cares for the material and is linked throughout for collection context and enquiries; the precise route by which the archive entered the Museum’s care