Bradford museum's magic lantern images offer vivid glimpse of Victorian life

National Science and Media Museum has acquired more than 2,600 magic lantern slides from the 19th and 20th Century

A collection of vivid and colourful images showing life in Victorian Bradford has been acquired by a museum.

The National Science and Media Museum (NSMM) is archiving more than 2,600 magic lantern slides which tell a visual story of the city's heritage.

The images had been part of the lending library run by the family firm which first brought movies to Bradford.

The magic lantern is an early type of projector developed in the 17th Century.

The images feature models poising to tell stories

It uses an artificial light source such as a bulb or candle to project hand-painted images, prints or photographs on a glass slide.

The collection acquired by the NSMM includes 182 sets of slides featuring local people and cityscapes in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

The slides depict life in the late 19th and early 20th Century

The images were produced by posing models, either volunteers or the photographer's family and friends, alongside props or real-life landscapes.

They were part of the lending library of the Riley Brothers of Bradford, a company established in the 1890s on Godwin Street that made magic lanterns and sold slides and equipment.

Pictures show recognisable locations in Victorian Bradford

The images show locations around Bradford including the former banking hall on Hustlergate.

However, the NSMM said some of the places were difficult to identify and it encouraged the public to get in touch if they recognise any of the locations.

The slides were part of the lending library at Riley Brothers of Bradford

Vanessa Torres, conservator at the museum, said: "Our collections are constantly growing, and new acquisitions can take on many different shapes and sizes.

"When we acquired this large collection of magic lantern slides, it was a truly a cross-department effort to document, conserve, and digitise the objects to ensure that these fascinating images can be accessed and enjoyed by everyone."

Magic lanterns remained in common usage until the 1950s

The NSMM also holds the Riley 'Kineoptoscope' projector which converted magic lanterns into motion picture projectors to bring movies to the theatres of Bradford in 1896.

While the popularity of magic lanterns as a form of entertainment waned with the emergence of movies, they remained in common usage until the 1950s.