A UNIQUE collection of lantern slides, with photos taken over 100 years ago by Worcester resident Arthur Henry Whinfield, has now been digitised.

The Heritage Lottery funded project to make Mr Whinfield’s historic collection of lantern slides available online has now been completed by the Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service (WAAS), who look after the collection at the Hive.

Last year marked a century since the donation of 2,532 lantern slides by Mr Whinfield’s widow, Laura Jane Curtler, to the Worcester Diocesan Church House Trust, and they can now be viewed at slides.uni-trier.de.

Justin Hughes, WAAS’ community projects officer, said: “It’s incredibly rare to have so many well-preserved slides of local, national and international interest available publicly.”

Mr Whinfield hailed from Claines and used photography to document his travels around the world.

The photographs, taken over a period of about 40 years between 1870s and the 1910s, include images of culturally important global landscapes, buildings and architectural features, some of which no longer exist.

Topics including religion and organs are also present in the collection.

Mr Whinfield, in his role as an organist, pioneered the use of contemporary technology, using some of these slides to project hymn lyrics during services at St John Baptist Church in Claines.

During his lifetime, Mr Whinfield shared aspects of his collections with many audiences through a lecture titled ‘Tour around the World in 80 minutes’. Over the last year, this lecture has been re-enacted and reinterpreted, with public performances at both St John Baptist Church in Claines and Huntington Hall in Worcester.