Oxfordshire, Oxford, Cotswolds, Photographs, History, Memories 

In Victorian and Edwardian Oxfordshire, although it had its share of material progress, there lingered an older England existing side by side with the new. Most of its area was devoted to agriculture, and what manufacturing industries there were, drew mainly on agriculture for their raw materials. The attractive features of the county, its scenic prettiness, the robust customs and traditions of its people, the comparative simplicity of life, should not mislead us into an idyll: the work was hard, the hours long, and the wages low for the great majority of the population. The full weight of the industrial revolution in the form of the motor works was soon to descend on the county, but the for time being its association with the past was perhaps stronger than with the future. That we can recapture some of this in photographs is in part due to the prolific output, often of very good quality, of contemporaries. 

Undated - post-1971