I noticed earlier this month that the Royal Mail has just issued a Working Horses stamp set featuring “six contemporary photographs of Working Horses performing therapeutic, ceremonial, environmental, draught and police duties” They’re beautiful stamps which immediately brought to mind the stunning photographs by Eric Guy in the MERL collections.

Eric Guy (1892-1966) was a commercial photographer based in Basingstoke and later in Reading. The MERL collection consists of 2000 glass negatives and some original prints, showing agriculture in central southern England from the 1920s to 50s. Our Honorary Fellow, Dr Jonathan Brown, has written a book about his work – ‘The Rural World of Eric Guy (Old Pond Publishing, 2008) so perhaps I should ask him to blog about this collection in more detail at some point!

Caroline Benson, MERL Photographic Assistant, has selected her favourite images of working horses from the Eric Guy collection.

Here horses are being used to transport felled trees. It is interesting to see that forestry is still included in the roles of contemporary working horses.

Click here for further details of the Eric Guy Collection and to explore our online catalogue.

by Alison Hilton, MERL Marketing Officer