HISTORIC fairground photographs donated by a former Fordingbridge councillor is to form the nucleus of a collection commemorating Hampshire showmen.

Former town councillor Steve Bailey is a descendant of the Bartlett family – which operated a traditional fair with seven steam-driven traction engines, gallopers and other rides from Home Farm at Blissford and later West Street in Fordingbridge – from 1870 until the outbreak of the second world war.

More than 1,200 black and white images recorded by Southampton fairground enthusiast Ken Wise and his friends were passed to Mr Bailey, on the proviso the collection remained intact, when Mr Wise died about two years ago.

Now Mr Bailey has passed them on to Hampshire County Council’s Archives and Local Studies Service.

“There’s quite a good collection down there and it’s nice to keep them together rather than selling them on,” he said.

“And it’s honouring the promise I made to Ken to keep them together.”

The collection does not just feature the Bartlett fair, but many others around Hampshire, including Arnolds from the Isle of Wight.

The pictures will be digitally scanned and put on two hard drives, one for Mr Bailey and the other for the National Fairground Archives. The originals will stay with the county council in Winchester.

Dr Jo Ivey, from East Boldre in the New Forest is heading the Heritage Lottery Fund-sponsored Showpeople project team and she needs volunteers to help with the research, recording and cataloguing.

She said: “The main families around here are the Coles and the Walls, and there are lots of smaller families that get neglected a bit, and I want to cover them as well.”

The county archives team will be taking an exhibition to schools across the county to bring the history of showpeople to life.

Volunteers should contact Dr Ivey at jo.ivey@hants.gov.uk or telephone her on 01962 846154.