Alfred John West

Alfred John West (1857–1937) was a British award-winning marine photographer in the Gosport firm of G. West and Sons from 1881 (for an early reference see Exhibition Catalogue of the Photographic Society of Great Britain) and from 1897 at the age of 40, a pioneer cinematographer. He was then active in both roles until 1913 when he sold his copyright in negative plates of yachting studies to Beken of Cowes, and his stock of positive moving film to a distributor in Glasgow who quickly went out of business and disappeared with the material without completing the purchase.

West tells us in his unpublished autobiography 'Sea Salts and Celluloid' (1936) that he '... kept the negatives' but the bulk of the cannot now be traced. A few tantalising clips remain as does a full descriptive catalogue in the British Library of all the moving film he created under the 'Our Navy' brand. The stock of AJ West's negative plates is professionally conserved and currently held as a working archive for the production and sale of yachting prints by Beken of Cowes. West's plates are numbered from 500 to 10250 in the Beken archive. Alfred West died in 1937 and is buried at Highland Road Cemetery Portsmouth in Hampshire (E Plot, Row 19, Grave 14).

From c. 1880 Alfred John West worked alongside his brothers and sisters in his father George West's photographic business 'G West and Son' at 97 High Street in Gosport Hants and later at 72 and 84 Palmerston Road Southsea. He became a nationally and internationally famous marine photographer, winning many national and international medals for his studies of yachts in full sail. His portrait of the 'Mohawk' racing at the Royal Southampton Yacht Club Regatta in 1884 was awarded the gold medal at the St. Louis Convention USA for which 9 other countries competed.

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