Sir Benjamin Stone, Tony Ray Jones and Mr Bill Jay’s Amazing Time Machine

As editor of Camera User, founder and editor of Creative Camera and Album, teacher and lecturer and during a short but influential tenure as Director of Photography at the ICA, Bill Jay did much to instigate, support and promote a new wave of British photography in the late 60s and early 70s. He was instrumental in disseminating the creative work of David Hurn, Tony Ray-Jones and Don McCullen and played an important role in inspiring student photographers including Martin Parr, Dan Meadows, Brian Griffin and Homer Sykes. In addition to bringing the work of established American and European practitioners and young British photographers to wider audience Jay also shared his fascination with Victorian photography and photographers including amongst others Francis Frith (whose archive he discovered and helped preserve) and Sir Benjamin Stone (whose work he exhibited and published in book and magazine). This paper considers the influence of Sir Benjamin Stone’s work on Homer Sykes and Dan Meadows as facilitated by Bill Jay.