The series comprises nine large photograph albums containing photographs of: buildings, predominantly in Manchester and the North West of England, designed or restored by Alfred Darbyshire and his partnership, Darbyshire and Smith (ADC/3/1-2); buildings and street scenes in Manchester and Salford (ADC/3/3); cathedrals, abbeys, castles and historic houses in Britain and Ireland (ADC/3/4-5); temples, monuments and other ancient ruins in Greece, Lebanon and Egypt (ADC/3/5 and ADC/3/8); buildings, monuments, street scenes and sculpture in Rome and elsewhere in Italy (ADC/3/6-7); buildings and street scenes in Belgium, Germany, Norway and Turkey (ADC/3/8-9); and buildings and street scenes in the United States and North Africa (ADC/3/9).
Most of the photographs are undated but appear to date from the last quarter of the nineteenth century. However, there are a few photographs from the 1850s and ’60s. ADC/3/8 contains photographs of scenes in Egypt, taken by Edmund Charles Buxton of Daresbury Hall, Cheshire, and printed by James Mudd of Manchester (1821-1906).
See also ADC/5/2, an album of photographs of members of Alfred Darbyshire’s family, as well as of his friends and associates, members of the professional and gentry classes from Manchester and its environs, and figures from the wider worlds of the theatre, art and literature.