Albert George Clayton's Story

By Tricia Leonard

Albert George Clayton

from Tricia's collection

Daniel Edward, Albert George and Rosina May Clayton

From Tricia's collection

BORN-25TH Dec 1890
DIED -2nd Nov 1971

Albert's daughter, Georgina remembers her father carrying a huge leather box on his back with the camera inside.  He used to work from a hut on the beach at about the boating lake. He would take photographs of the visitors to all the hotels and then go to his darkroom in Air Street to develop and print. He would then return the following day and pin them up on a board outside his hut for the visitors to identify and purchase.

He lost his eyebrows during one photographic session when his brother-in-law was helping him, and had to go to the eye hospital.

He also worked for Nash in the Kingsway, a chemist.  He would drive around all the local chemists collecting films for processing, then develop, print and return. He would do his 'rounds' in this car, an Austin, probably belonging to Nash.

Georgina also remembers her father talking about walking all the way from Upper Market Street in Hove to the Dyke as a young lad to work on the funicular railway, she is not sure in what capacity, perhaps he took the money for tickets.  Georgina's son Derek has found some of the wooden sleepers embedded in the hillside while out hiking.