The Old Guildhall Museum and Gaol is the venue for The Raddy Collection Exhibition which is being held in memory of Colin Raddy who died last year.
The exhibition includes a collection of images dating back to the 1800s as well a postcards which were issued by the family business over the years. It also features over 470 gas plate negatives donated by Colin who was the fourth generation of the family to run the shop in Fore Street.
The plates have been digitised and are now for sale as prints, cards and jigsaws. A percentage of the sales will be incorporated into an annual ‘Colin Raddy Memorial Prize’ for young Looe photographers.
The Raddy family have links to Looe dating back to 1879 when Alfred Raddy delivered mail to Looe and Polperro. Much of his time was spent waiting for trains which was when he took up photography to occupy himself. He moved to West Looe where he set up as a professional photographer and the business moved to East Looe after the First World War. The family have remained in the same building since. Alfred’s son Tom carried on the family business and continued to take photos as well as growing a large collection of images taken by others including glass lantern slides from the late 1800s.
Tom’s son Rex followed in the family footsteps and ran the shop and studio providing a film developing service for holidaymakers and locals. Rex was Colin’s father and Colin carried on challenged by competition from digital cameras and mobile phones. The name of AE Raddy is still proudly there on Fore Street and is entrenched in the town’s history.
The legendary Raddy Collection of historic photographs reaches back to Victorian times and is on public view for the first time. The museum team have worked closely with the Raddy family to ensure the future of the collection and its availability as a unique photo-archive of people and places in Looe.
Petra Stephenson said, “Looe Museum is very proud of its collection of images handed down by the Raddy family, photographers in the town since the end of the 1800’s. Over the years we have been given sporadic access to the collection and also have been able to collect postcards issued by the family business over the years. At the end of 2019 we were presented with over 470 glass plates by Colin Raddy, the fourth generation of the family to run the shop in Fore St. We won a South West Museums Small Grant Big Improvement grant to digitise all of the plates. They are now all catalogued and are available for online sale as prints, cards, jigsaws etc. on our museum website”
Petra continued, “We were all saddened to hear of the death of Colin Raddy. The exhibition is in memory of him, and the support that he gave this project. Kevin Raddy will open the exhibition on 20th October with our Mayor. A percentage of the sales of the images will be incorporated into ‘The Raddy Memorial Prize’ for young Looe photographers, which will be awarded once a year. The museum is very grateful to Kevin Raddy and the Raddy family for their support for Looe museum.”
Kevin Raddy will open the exhibition on 20 October which will be held until 30 October between 11am and 4pm at Looe Museum in Higher Market Street.