The Topical Press Photographic Agency, often known simply as Topical or the Topical Press Agency, was one of the leading photo agencies in London in the first half of the 20th century. Topical photographers captured images of contemporary events and stock footage that was sydicated to newspapers and publishers around the world,
The company was established in 1903 when J B Helsby, a press photographer, met Walter J Edwards, a travelling salesman. They set up in Helsby’s bathroom before moving to Fleet Street in 1907. Fleet Street during this time was the centre of the newspaper trade, so would have been full of potential clients for the new company. In 1910, it settled at Red Lion Court, just off Fleet Street, where it was to stay for many years.
Soon after the establishment of the Topical Press, around 1906, The Underground Electric Railways Company (U.E.R.L) commissioned the company to take photographs. This relationship continued with the U.E.R.L. and its successor, London Transport (L.T), for the next 50 years, until the agency went bankrupt.
During the first half of the 20th century, London Transport and its predecessors employed Topical Press to take photographs of the company’s daily routine. The Topical Press Agency took almost a third, or 65,000, of the black and white photographs in the London’s Transport Museum collection.
Topical Press also worked for many other clients. It claimed to supply ‘anything from anywhere at any time’. In 1914, it acquired an interest in the Commercial and Educational Film Company, which produced propaganda and documentary films. The Commercial Department also specialised in railways and motor and mechanical photography, such as they were undertaking for the Underground group at that time.
By 1929, Topical Press had 1,450 agents and representatives based all over the world as well as staff photographers in its London headquarters. Staff at the London headquarters at 10 & 11 Red Lion Court would produce prints from glass plate negatives and write captions to accompany the images for the picture desks of newpapers in nearby Fleet Street or for the commercial clients in shipping, rail and transport industries.
In 1957 the company went bankrupt, having failed to adapt to changing patterns of photo publishing and facing increasing competition from the new medium of television, and from independent photojournalists. London Transport made an important decision to buy all the negatives and the copyright for most of the L.T. photographs. Hulton Getty now owns the rest of the Topical archive.