The Album

The Grayburn Album was acquired by Humberside Libraries in 1990 as the result of a donation from Mr John W E Grayburn. We are indebted to East Riding Libraries and particularly Hayley Nicholson, librarian of Goole Library where the original photographs are held, for granting this Society permission to make the album contents available to a wider audience through this website.

Asking to view the Grayburn Album at Goole library, you may be surprised to find that this is not a bound book with photographs attached to each page using adhesive photo corners. The photographs are kept in separate archive quality protective wraps which will certainly prolong their lives. We decided not to unwrap the images for scanning which is why you will notice that some of our images do show the protective cover. YWHS hopes that does not detract from your enjoyment of the contents.

While many of the photographs show a nautical or dock related subject, Grayburn also collected photographs of views from the districts adjoining Goole. 

Source of the Album

The album had been assembled by John Grayburn’s grandfather, William Echlin Grayburn, after he moved to Goole in 1882 to become Resident Agent and Docks Manager with the Aire and Calder Navigation Company. It has been suggested that it contains photographs taken between 1895 and 1899. There are 67 photographs altogether.  Twenty-four are 10in x 8in, believed to have been taken in 1899, and 43 are smaller snapshots.

While the album is attributed to William Grayburn himself  there is no evidence to confirm that he personally took all of the photographs. The larger prints look as if they could have been taken by local commercial photographers so would have been available to purchase locally. Perhaps the smaller photographs, the snapshots, were taken by William Grayburn himself.

Who was William Grayburn?

William Echlin Grayburn was born in Kilternan near Dublin in 1849. He was the 6th and last child of the Reverend William Grayburn (1816-1891), a Church of Ireland clergyman in Dublin. He worked as a purser on the White Star Line ships sailing between Liverpool and New York from about 1868 until 1882, when he moved to Goole, Yorkshire to become Docks Manager and Resident Agent for the Aire and Calder Navigation Company. He had married Margaret Ellen Markham in 1875 and they would have seven children. He was manager for the company for 33 years. He founded the Goole Fire Brigade in 1884.

He retired in 1915 and moved to Sandsend near Whitby. He died in March 1918 in Bognor.

Photograph descriptions

We have been able to turn to a number of sources to provide the descriptions you will find with each photograph.

John Grayburn had thoughtfully provided his interpretation of the Grayburn family photograph taken outside Navigation House, Goole. Goole Library holds a list of the photographs together with descriptions given by their local studies team, some of which are understandably brief. Local historians have also been approached to give us their interpretation of the photographs and that work will continue.

If you can add to any of our descriptions please contact us using the form at the bottom of this page.

Viewing the collection

Hover your cursor over the photograph and you will see a short title. Click on the photograph and you should see a larger version with more information.