AROUND 6,000 old photographs of Bradford depicting life in bygone years are being made available for the public to buy.

The digitised photographs of the district and beyond can be bought online from the Bradford Museum’s Photo Archive for the first time.

The official launch of the archive’s website, which includes images of the Bradford district, iconic buildings and famous faces from Bradford’s past, as well as local people at work and at play, will take place at the Bradford Industrial Museum on August 15.

The launch, starting at 2pm, is the culmination of over 30 years’ work by the council’s museums and galleries service.

The project was also aided by a grant from Museum Development Yorkshire.

Over the past four years TMD Friction helped the council to acquire photo capture equipment to accelerate the digitisation programme. Students from Bradford College took part in photographic projects. iBase Media Services Ltd from Ilkley, are the web hosts and database experts on the project and Maraid Design from York are the website designers. Bradford City of Film has given the project a city centre presence, by showing the images on the Big Screen in Centenary Square.

Coun Sarah Ferriby, Bradford council’s Executive Member for Healthy People and Places, said: “Having our images made easily accessible to the public, not only to see but also to buy, is the culmination of years of hard work by council officers and partners.

“This is a fascinating look in to our recent and not so recent past and I am sure people will be fascinated by the images available.”

Invited to the launch are the Lord Mayor of Bradford Coun Zafar Ali, councillors, current and former council officers who have been involved in the project, local photographers and supporters including Ian Beesley and Tim Smith and representatives from project’s partner organisations.

It will include a practical demonstration showing how easy it is to purchase one or more images from the new website, as well as a display of the most popular photographs from several collections within vast photographic archive.

The archive holds collections from C.H Wood and images by Bradford industrialist Christopher Pratt.

Images from the Belle Vue Studio also form part of the archive. The collection is mainly made up of images of the people who came to live and work in Bradford from all over the world.

With just a few clicks people can own and print out copies of iconic, historic or quirky images for £6.

People can view and purchase images at https://photos.bradfordmuseums.org/