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Henry George Loader & Son (Loader's Photo Stores)

postcard

Tower Mill at Arundel (erected 1830)

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Photographers, 24 Chapel Road, Worthing and in the 1930s and 1940s with works in the High Street. Henry George Loader took over the Chapel Road business in 1911; it had previously been Spencer's Photo Stores (see Geoffrey Godden, Collecting picture postcards, 1996, Phillimore, Chichester). At the time he was living at 31 Westcourt Road in Worthing.

Loader published high quality black and white and sepia real photographic cards of Worthing, ranging from views of the sea front and busy town centre to quiet residential streets. He also issued cards of the countryside and villages around Worthing, including Findon, Long Furlong, Chanctonbury Ring, Washington, Storrington, Thakeham, Ferring, Tarring, Arundel, Bury, Burpham and Lancing. The cards are labelled "Loader's Photo Stores, Worthing" on the reverse. Most are printed on Kodak photographic card and have neat handwritten captions reproduced on the front that are often remarkably small and use capitals only at the start of selected words. By contrast, a few cards have decidedly bolder captions, written entirely in capitals; these are possibly reprints of cards originally issued by Spencer's Photo Stores. Both types of card are generally numbered, and between 350 and 400 seem to have been issued. A neat multi-view of Worthing is known. An early 1930s Austin Ten-Four that can be seen parked by the pond in a Long Furlong card presumably belonged to the photographer. Its registration number is unfortunately illegible.

Loader was an artistic and enterprising photographer, who issued some very neatly composed and memorable cards, such as "By the banks of the Arun 270" and No. 357, which shows a back road lined with majestic elms, now long vanished. He also published aerial views of Worthing and Lancing College. A card of a seaside "bungalow moved bodily 20 feet" records the effects of a great storm in 1912. In the following year, gales wrecked Worthing Pier, which had to be extensively rebuilt. When the pier was re-opened amidst considerable celebration in 1914, Loader produced 11 or 12 postcards of the occasion, marked "Loader's Series"on the front, but with no reference to the "Photo Stores, Worthing" on the reverse.

Postmarks suggest that sales of the cards were greatest between 1911 and 1914, but Loader continued to issue new cards during the 1920s and 1930s (see, for example, his cards of the Duchess of York's visit to Worthing in May 1934 and the town's Silver Jubilee procession in May 1935). Postcard production was apparently abandoned in the late 1930s, but the firm was still in business in 1949.

Loader was born at Southampton in 1862, and in 1887 married Delilah Ann Griffin at Lymington in Hampshire. She had been born in about 1865 in Steeple Ashton in Wiltshire. The couple had two children, both born in Worthing: William George Loader, born in 1889, and Daisy Alice Loader, born in 1892.

When the 1901 census was taken, the Loader family was living at 4 Wenban Road in Worthing, and Henry George was working as a printer and compositor. By 1911 he and his family had moved to 31 Westcourt Road in Worthing; he was again described as a compositor and printer. Worthing Directories issued in the 1930s list William George Loader at 31 Westcourt Road and his father at 35 King Edward Avenue; both were still living at these addresses in 1939-40.

Henry George Loader died at Worthing late in 1947 at the age of 85.

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