Books on Coventry

That's a smashing little book, Ben - I only wish the images in it were much larger! If any of my Wingrave photos are of any use to you, please have a look through these in my collection and let me know. I can let you have the high resolution scans I took of them - generally 6 to 10 megapixels in size - particularly the ones I mentioned getting two years ago.

Rob, that's wonderful. Did you scan these at the archives or from another source? I'd be delighted to put them into Cov Dig.

My offer to gift a copy of Rise & Fall of St. Michael's is in no way dependent on a swap with a copy of the History of the Blue Coat School. I'd post it to anyone interested in this beautifully produced informative volume.

They're my own, Ben - I bought an original set of over 20 Wingrave photos a couple of years ago. I can share my scans via Google Drive with you, or if you need higher resolution scans, then you're welcome to borrow them.

You're a very kind man, Rob I think that the Herbert ought to do a series of exhibitions based on its artists and Wingrave was prolific enough to feature all on his own. I can assure people that the book the Prof is kindly offering is a great book.

Dear Rob Perhaps you might like to come over and scan them yourself on my equipment? I take photographs of negatives as the sensor of the camera is much better than a scanner. It's possible that by next month we could have your 20 Wingrave negatives on Cov Dig scanned on my soon-to-arrive Mirrorless CanonR5 with a brand new macro lens. You can obviously take copies home with you! FYI, I have also purchased a Zeutschel OMNISCAN OS C2 book scanner, which I expect to arrive in May. I purchased the Poole book you mentioned for a bargain £65 and intend to scan and OCR the book for Cov Dig. It would mean that the image of the page, and the text, would be searchable.

Thank you, Helen, you're so kind yourself! I definitely agree about Wingrave - I don't believe he gets the recognition he deserves as Coventry's very first principal photographer. Even 160 years later, many modern digital cameras would struggle to capture the quality of many of the images he took.... although, to be fair, at least people don't have to stand still for 60 seconds nowadays! I also agree about the book being kindly offered by Prof, which gives a complete history of the evolution of our "Old Cathedral" from its beginnings as a chapel in the bailey of the castle through its gradual enlargement to the huge church and cathedral we now recognise.

And wow, thank you, Ben, that's an extremely kind offer! It will be fascinating to see how your super new equipment operates, and to compare the quality with the scans I've obtained. My scanner is a reasonable one, though - an Epson V800 with an optical resolution of 6,400 DPI - but obviously there's more to scanning than pure resolution. And well done for purchasing that Poole book. Your idea to OCR it is fantastic, and will be a great resource for our members and many others. Ah, the wonders of having a University budget!

I can only second what Rob says about Wingrave and his son is well worth looking up as well. Father and son.

Just been browsing through some of my books and came across my copy of 'Coventry between the Wars' by Arnold Stringer. Although I can find reference to them in the CET, when he died they were inherited by his children and there were exhibitions of them. I wondered if anyone knew what finally became of the collection.

Are they photos or paintings Anne?

They are photos Helen. It says in the book he worked as an engineer but was an avid photographer. He took a lot around Coventry. The book contains just a few of them. Many of his pictures were reproduced in the Telegraph.

I think that I've got a copy of the book and I was a bit underwhelmed, not because they were bad pictures, just because I thought that I'd seen them all. So it could be that either the book had the more iconic (read well known) views or that his collection or part of it were already in the Herbert collection. I don't think that I've come across them as a separate archive somewhere.

Buy it now of the excellent Sydney Bunney book - Coventry - Impressions of a graceful city. £2.60

Bargain!