Seven incredibly rare photographs of Sir Winston Churchill have been rescued and restored from a barn in Cirencester.
The delicate glass plate negatives were part of a haul of more than 90,000 images documenting every staff member and pupil from Harrow School between 1860 and 1965.
Churchill was a student between 1889 and 1892 when he was aged 13 to 17 and are believed to be the oldest surviving photos of him.
In the photographs, Churchill is depicted through his years alternating between unhappiness and contentedness, reflecting the statesman’s varied attitude towards his school years; though he didn’t excel at school, he revisited Harrow many times.
His future role as prime minister during World War II as well as his extensive military experience is acknowledged in the photo of him dressed in the uniform of Harrow School Rifle Corps.
The owner of the barn in which they were found and Save Photo have rescued the collection and relocated it to a secure and climate controlled storage at Save Photo’s headquarters in Warwickshire.
Save Photo are carefully cleaning, cataloguing, storing and digitising the images for future digital consumers to enjoy.