1-192-158 - © London Museum/Heritage-Images

Carts outside the Tower of London, c1930. Street scene with pedestrians, horse drawn carts and a double-decker omnibus. In the distance on the left is Tower Bridge. Reid, an amateur photographer of independent means, began an ambitious project to record, in photographs and prose, an extended walk through the historic Cities of Westminster and London. By the time of his death in 1933 he had taken over 700 photographs, organised geographically into a series of albums, and had compiled two manuscript books, entitled The Route Ornate, which served to annotate the photographic journey. The photographs are remarkable for their pictorial and technical quality.