James Gray, 1904–1998, was a local collector with a passion for the streets of Brighton and Hove, and, as time went on, further afield.
Working all his life in insurance, his initial collection of stamps gave way to local topographical photographs with the chance acquisition in the 1950s of a few images of Western Road. From then on he built up a massive collection: many of the entries are copies, exchanged with other collectors, others are views that he purchased or, more recently, that he commissioned.
Although there is today a strong general interest in old photographs, both for their factual content and also for their artistic value, when James Gray started his collection there was little: we must be grateful that he had the foresight and the single minded dedication to assemble this unique record of our City.
Upon his death, the Regency Society purchased the collection and digitised it to create the original James Gray Collection website: www.regencysociety.jamesgray.com
