The work of an English press photographer whose iconic images captured during the Troubles including the night of the first police fatality of the conflict has been donated to an archive in Belfast.
The family of Mike Arron, who worked for the Daily Telegraph in Belfast from the late 1960s, said they wanted to see his photographs kept for future generations to see.
The donation to the Belfast Archive Project was made by Mr Arron’s daughter Clare, who followed in her father’s footsteps as a press photographer and was also sent to Belfast by the same newspaper in 1988.
Clare said her father, who spent more than 50 years working as a press photographer, was proud of the images he captured during his time working in Belfast.
“It is really important to keep the photographs, they are historic,” said Clare.
“We didn’t want them to sit gathering dust, people of future generations need to be able to see them.”
Photographer Frankie Quinn, director of the Belfast Archive Project, said it was a “generous donation” adding that “it’s important to get as much information about the past and keep it”.
Among the images provided to the archive are photographs from the night RUC Constable Victor William Arbuckle (29) was shot dead by loyalists.
He was the first police fatality of the Troubles.
The pictures, which were captured on Belfast’s Shankill Road during serious rioting on October 11 1969, became iconic.
Other images include the scenes captured at the police constable’s funeral in a small east Belfast gospel hall, which was attended by hundreds of people, including more than 250 uniformed colleagues who walked behind his coffin.
At the time it was one of the biggest cortèges ever seen in that part of of the city.
Also included in the package donated are original darkroom prints, a scrapbook of Mr Arron’s favourite stories he covered and a headed note from the Derry Citizens Defence Association giving him clearance to work freely in the city and signed by Paddy ‘Bogside’ Doherty.
In Derry, he snapped James Callaghan and Quintin Hogg, while some of his other images captured during his time in Belfast were of Labour secretary of defence Denis Healy arriving for a meeting in St Comgall’s School on the Falls Road.
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Mr Arron’s photographs of Ian Paisley with his family after his release from prison are also among those donated to the archive, as well as images of the Northern Ireland prime minister, Major James Chichester-Clarke at home with his wife and children.
Other images include a final parade of the B Specials on Royal Avenue in Belfast.
The technology of the time meant the typed caption was attached to the print and secured to a drum scanner that rotated while a light/tone pickup moved slowly across sending the information down the telephone to a receiver in Fleet Street, London.
His daughter Clare told The Irish News of how she felt it was important that the images captured by her father, who died just last year aged 94, be preserved.
“He spent a lot of time in Ireland, he found it a distressing time, but he kept the photographs,” she said.
“They were kept in an old photographic paper box, some of them were quite large, in the loft and then when he moved in with us, they came with him.
“We didn’t want them to sit gathering dust, people of future generations need to be able to see them.”
Clare added that her father, who only retired when he was 72, had clear, vivid memories of his time working in Belfast.
“He was a week off his 95th birthday when he died, I only wish he had of made the donation when he was alive to see it happen,” she said.
“He was ill for around the last six months of his life, he was in hospital and a care home, but despite his ill health he could tell you everything about his pictures, they were important to him.
“It’s really important to keep the photographs, they are historic.”
Mr Quinn, who has worked as photographer since 1982, documenting his community, including its role in the conflict, said he delighted to accept the donation to the archive.
“Clare sent a photo box over, she said it was special to him,” he said.
“Clare said that the photographs of Belfast were the only ones that he had kept. There’s pictures of Denis Healy, James Callaghan and Quintin Hogg - they are all in the collection.
“But the Arbuckle ones are particularly significant, he had written on the back of one of the photographs that Arbuckle was shot ‘yards from me moments later’.”
Mr Quinn highlighted how the donation of the Constable Arbuckle images, including one of his funeral cortege, came just prior to the 55th anniversary of the policeman’s death on October 11.
A married father-of-one, the constable was shot by the UVF during serious rioting as he stood beside other officers. He was one of 302 members of the constabulary killed between 1969 and 1998.
Mr Quinn said all the photographs were welcome additions to the archive, which is getting bigger by the day.
“We are getting contacted more and more all the time,” he said.
“It’s mushroomed into this massive project with the aim of preserving it all.
“We hope that eventually everything we have, remember everything is on film, will all go to PRONI and go into preservation.
“It’s important to get as much information about the past and keep it.”
