‘Visual interpretation of industry can be as glamorous as fashion photography.’
Maurice Broomfield, publicity booklet

I recently attended an excellent exhibition of the work of post-war industrial photographer, Maurice Broomfield. (‘Industrial Sublime’ is at the V&A, London until 6 November, 2022.)

Broomfield saw romance in steel works, chemical plants and cooling towers. He found beauty in bottling lines, paper mills and shipyards. He identified heroes in glass blowers, weavers and welders. He celebrated manufacturing infrastructure, mechanical engineering and applied science. Through his outstanding imagery he created what he called ‘industrial ballet.’

‘I felt it was necessary to make the best of what we were good at and sell our products.’

Born in the village of Borrowash, Derbyshire in 1916, Broomfield was the only child of a lace designer and grew up in modest circumstances. Having left school at 15, he worked as a lathe operator at Rolls-Royce in Derby and in the evenings he studied at Derby College of Art. 

‘[My mother] always wanted me to be a clerical worker in a clean shirt… Instead, I put on overalls, went to work in a factory and promptly got covered in oil.’

This led to a job as a graphic designer at Rowntree’s, the confectioners in York, a position that was interrupted by the Second World War. A conscientious objector, Broomfield served as a driver in the Friends’ Ambulance Unit, based in Whitechapel, East London.

‘I started out thinking ‘What shall I do in life?’ I was looking for something that would give me that satisfaction of a purposeful way of life. In a way I spent so long looking around that I realised that perhaps my career was actually finding out what other people do.’

After the war Broomfield set up his own commercial photographic studio in Highgate, specialising in industrial subjects. He was commissioned by the likes of ICI and the Milk Marketing Board to provide images for trade reports and advertising at a time when British business was looking to project a progressive, future-facing impression.

In those days industrial photography was characterised by banal shots of grey factories or dull close-ups of esoteric equipment. Broomfield determined to take a different approach. He selected machinery, apparatus, gear and tools that offered abstract interest and sculptural beauty. He stripped away the clutter and carefully framed, staged and lit his subjects. And he shone a spotlight on the skilled craftspeople bent at their tasks in fixed concentration.

‘When taking an industrial photograph, the subject should be carefully selected and concentrated upon to show it as dramatically as possible. To do this light should be used in the same way that a brush might be in painting to build up the subject matter in tonal gradations.’

Broomfield was so meticulous that he would have walls repainted to create a better mood, close a production line to get a better image, shoot at night to get better light.

‘The problem was not the object, but what you leave out.’

A white-coated scientist examines a row of circular fluorescent tubes. A red-headscarfed woman carefully prepares a warp while her colleague attends to ranks of pristine nylon bobbins. Two fettlers remove the rough edges from crankshafts while a pair of welders labour inside a giant boiler. A flat capped shipbuilder buffs a shimmering propeller destined for a luxury liner and a man cutting steel wire is engulfed in sparks. A worker is framed by a gigantic circular bearing and another is dwarfed by a massive paper mill. Men are reduced to mysterious shadows in the infernal blast furnace. A menacing figure in a mask stares at us through round protective goggles. 

‘My job was really to crystallise things that were happening in industry and make drama out of industry. I must confess I used industry like a stage – staged lighting, lots of light, very dramatic - and it produced pictures that made the industry stand out – literally stand out from the mundane pictures that you generally get without lighting.’

Broomfield’s clients represented a cross section of British industry in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Crosse and Blackwell in Bermondsey, Raleigh in Nottingham, Qualcast in Derby, Royal Doulton in Tamworth, Ford’s in Dagenham, Bowater Paper in Northfleet, British Nylon Spinners in Pontypool, Bull’s Metal and Marine Shipyard in Glasgow.

There is of course a melancholy to this roll call. Since Broomfield retired in the late’70s, most of the factories that he exalted have been diminished or destroyed. Many of the businesses and trades have disappeared. Whole communities have been laid low by recession and redundancy, globalisation and Government.

‘It is not only the beauty that is encapsulated by the camera, but a moment of industrial history now no longer to be seen.’

A few years ago Broomfield’s son Nick made a moving documentary about his father’s work and their changing relationship: ‘My Father and Me’ (2019). It celebrates Maurice’s achievements and relates how his son subsequently pioneered a style of documentary making that was spontaneous, confrontational and wilfully chaotic - very much at odds with Maurice’s formal, precise approach. While Maurice sought to romanticise industry, Nick sought to reveal its dark secrets. Where Maurice saw expertise, pride, social clubs and fellowship, Nick saw exploitation, poor working conditions and cohorts of young people raised as ‘factory fodder.’ 

This fundamental disagreement became a barrier between them. But after a time father and son learned to respect each other’s work. In the film Maurice explains his position.

‘There’s always two sides to many things. But I felt in fairness to the employees I had not to downgrade it, but to upgrade it.’

Of course, nowadays we may share Nick’s concerns about the indignities of factory life and the environmental damage caused by certain industries. Nonetheless I left the exhibition mourning the UK’s loss of its manufacturing heritage, and with it generations of craftsmanship and countless jobs; grieving for corroded communities; reflecting on the dignity of labour.

‘In that period of time I found that there was a lot of fun, a lot of happiness and pride in their work.’

Maurice Broomfield should perhaps give all of us employed in commercial creativity pause for thought. 

Could we do more to celebrate the work and workers that make our brands? Should we sometimes find a stage for the process and turn the spotlight on the technology itself? Should we see our role as ‘not to downgrade industry, but to upgrade it.’

In 2010 Maurice Broomfield passed away. He was 94. His archive was donated to the V&A Museum. He had been a meticulous craftsman, a chronicler of the industrial age, a persistent voice for humanity and optimism.

‘Whatever we have on this earth we never own it. We are temporary keepers. Everything is on a kind of leasehold really.’

'Five miles out of London on the Western Avenue,
Must have been a wonder when it was brand new.
Talking about the splendour of the Hoover factory,
I know that you’d agree if you had seen it too.
It`s not a matter of life or death,
But what is, what is?
It doesn't matter if I take another breath.
Who cares? Who cares?’

Elvis Costello, 'Hoover Factory’ 

No. 357