The North Revisited
The Sunday Times Magazine
Special Issue: The North
by John Bulmer FRPS
28 March, 1965
The North
by John Bulmer FRPS
Bluecoat Press, Liverpool, 2012
Background
In the early 1960s photojournalist John Bulmer FRPS set out to document life in the bleak industrial centres of the North of England; over the course of his commissions Bulmer visited 15 towns and cities. His photographs of the North were taken at a time when society and culture was undergoing a vast transformation. Traditional industries - coal, steel, shipbuilding, deep sea fishing, textiles - that had been the wealth creators of the Industrial Revolution, were in a rapid and relentless decline.
A pioneer of colour photography, Bulmer worked for The Sunday Times colour magazine from the very first issue in 1962 until the 1970s. The magazine propelled Bulmer's photography in a new direction. The sudden switch to colour caught out most photographers, who continued to shoot in black and white. Bulmer made the adjustment seamlessly and became one of the magazine’s main contributors.
The hard times etched on the faces of Bulmer’s subjects told of a life of struggle framed against an often bleak industrial background. These were people forgotten as the ‘Swinging Sixties’ changed the cultural landscape of Britain.
Colour gave Bulmer a new way of seeing the North; perhaps less bleak but certainly more subtle. He embraced this new medium to capture the North in all its variety and colour, creating an incomparable social history archive that documents the North at a time when industries and their communities were facing inevitable collapse.
Revisited
It is more than half a century since photographer John Bulmer FRPS was commissioned by The Sunday Times to photograph the industrial and social decline of England’s northern counties. Since then, the post-industrial North has struggled to come to terms with the loss of employment, erosion of social cohesion, and decimation of community and local identity that followed the decline of the region’s industries - mining, steelwork, shipbuilding, textiles, fishing - and their communities.
Today, existing and incoming populations are working to build new prospects for the North. Community-led initiatives are encouraging more diverse populations into areas that were the traditional homelands of “white, working-class Britain.” Their collective ambition is to catalyse the commercial and cultural evolution of communities and establish a new and sustainable cultural and economic landscape.
Once synonymous with heavy industry, cities like Manchester, Leeds, and Newcastle are now leveraging a greater diversity of employment, striving to become vibrant cultural hubs. They are embracing their rich industrial heritage and creating a diversity of new communities and identities. Commercial innovation, the emergence of hi-tech industry, new retail, leisure and visitor attractions, are leveraging economic growth.
The North Revisited will revisit the towns and cities photographed by Bulmer to document, with more than 4000 photographs, this redefining of the North, recording and celebrating the diverse communities for which the Northern counties are now home. But the project will not turn a ‘blind eye’ to the problems and challenges that still exist and with which so many former industrial communities continue to struggle. Despite the positive strides made in revitalising the post-industrial North, there has been widespread criticism of failures to effectively address regional disparities and fulfil the ambition of "levelling up” with the South.
Over the next 15 months (October 2024 - December 2025), this project will visit all of Bulmer’s 15 North of England towns and cities plus an additional 20 that will provide a more complete picture of the North as its exists today. The photographs will be made using Harman's new and experimental Phoenix 200 colour film, manufactured - appropriately - in the north of England! This 'quirky' colour film provides an analogue aesthetic that simultaneously harmonises with John Bulmer's 1960 colour photographs while affording a unique character to this modern interpretation of what has become an iconic photographic legacy.
Eden Street, Horden
Simon Hill HonFRPS
John Rylands Library, Manchester
Simon Hill HonFRPS
Pride 2024, Leeds
Simon Hill HonFRPS
Hakan Turkish Barbers, Peterlee
Simon Hill HonFRPS
Locations
Over the duration of The North Revisited project, all of Bulmer’s 15 North of England towns and cities (shown in CAPITALS) will be visited plus an additional 20 (35 locations in total) that will provide a more complete picture of the North as its exists today:
Northumberland Ashington
Tyne & Wear NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE
Durham Durham, HARTLEPOOL, Peterlee / Horden, DAWDON / WALDRIDGE
Cumbria WHITEHAVEN, Barrow in Furness
Lancashire Blackpool, Blackburn, Burnley, NELSON, Preston, WARRINGTON
West Yorkshire BRADFORD, LEEDS, HALIFAX, HUDDERSFIELD, Wakefield
North Yorkshire Middlesborough, Scarborough, Whitby
South Yorkshire BARNSLEY, Doncaster, Rotherham, Sheffield
East Riding of Yorkshire Hull (Kingston upon Hull)
Greater Manchester Bolton, MANCHESTER, OLDHAM, Rochdale, SALFORD, Stockport, Wigan
Merseyside LIVERPOOL
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