Today with the use of digital cameras and mobile phones, we take colour photography for granted. This is the story of how nearly a century ago, a pioneering invention, and a production plant in Willesden transformed photography.
The invention
In 1928 at a meeting of the Professional Photographers Association, LW Oliver and WTL Becker demonstrated their new technique of making colour photographs. They said it had taken two years of research with more than 5,000 experiments. Although there was the French autochrome method which produced colour photos, it was not widely available. For over 30 years photographers had been trying without success to find a practical and simple way of reproducing colours. Oliver and Becker used a modified camera to simultaneously produce a negative using three thin films sensitive to red, blue and green. The films were superimposed and printed on white paper to produce a colour image. Importantly, multiple prints could be made of the image. It received very positive reviews in the press and one industry expert described it as ‘the greatest discovery since wireless’.
Oliver and Becker patented their idea, and formed a company called Colour Photographs Ltd. They had a portrait studio named ‘Raphael’ at 1 Wilton Place Knightsbridge with a commercial studio at 37b Duke Street near Oxford Street, and an office and print works at Albion House in New North Street, off Theobalds Road. Becker ran the Raphael studio and advertised in the society magazine The Tatler, while Oliver looked after the office and the production works. 
Raphael Studio advert (1929)
The inventors
Wilfred Trevor Leigh Becker was born in 1891 in Manchester. He served as a major in France during WWI and died in New Jersey USA in 1972. At the time of the invention, he lived in Eccleston Square Pimlico.
Leslie Walter Oliver was born in Lavington Wiltshire about 1902 and died in Stoke Poges in 1971. In the 1930s he lived in Princes Gardens Acton. In 2009 his son Richard Oliver found that his father had written a paper describing the discovery of colour photography.
‘My father left school at fourteen and worked for a while in an engineering works and lived in digs. During much of that time he was poor, dirty and cold – a condition he spent the rest of his life trying (and succeeding) to avoid. Then, thanks to a pushy mum, he joined the Royal Aircraft Establishment as an apprentice. One of his tutors advised him that colour photography looked a promising new area to pursue, which led to him presenting this paper in 1928. In 1935 he was recruited to set up Technicolor UK, where he ended up as Managing Director for several decades.’
Very quickly the photographic industry recognised the potential of Oliver and Becker’s invention and in August 1928 the company was taken over. Oliver, Becker and their Italian partner, Michele Martinez were bought out by a new company called Colour Photographs (British and Foreign) Ltd. The company patents and the three premises were acquired by the new company. Directors were named, but of the three original partners, only Becker became a director in the new enterprise.
The chemist Dr Douglas Arthur Spencer soon joined the company as a director and improved the process, which became known as Vivex. His name was added to a 1932 patent. Today, he is credited as the inventor of colour photography and unfortunately Becker and Oliver have been forgotten. In March 1936 Doug Spencer, still a director of the company, was elected the youngest president of the Royal Photographic Society. He joined the Kodak Research Laboratory in 1939 and during the Second World War was in charge of research and development of aerial photography for the RAF. In 1957 he was appointed Managing Director of Kodak Limited.
The company expands to Willesden
The small London sites could not cope with the volume of work, and in November 1928 the new chairman Clifford Firth Middleton who was an accountant, announced to the shareholders that they had purchased land in Victoria Road North Acton to build a new works. He anticipated the company would leave central London and move to Willesden in Spring 1929, where they are shown in Victora Road in the 1930 directory.
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1934 aerial photo (Historic England)
Showing the Geographical Institute which was the George Philip and Son Ltd map factory. The Colour Photographs plant is just out of shot to the right. We could not find an aerial photo of the plant.
During the 1930s and up to the outbreak of WWII, the works in Willesden produced large numbers of colour photographs. The National Science and Media Museum says it was the first laboratory to offer a colour printing service to professional photographers. They estimate the Vivex process was used for over 90% of all the colour prints produced in Britain during the 30s.
Madame Yevonde
A photographer who used the process to great acclaim was Madame Yevonde.
Yevonde Philone Cumbers was born in January 1893 to a wealthy family in South London.
When photographer and suffrage movement supporter Lena Connell (see our upcoming blog) posted an advert for a young lady pupil at her St John’s Wood studio, this changed Yevonde’s life.
She visited Lena’s studio where many photographs of her heroines, leading figures in the suffrage movement, were on display. Although she declined the job, Yevonde decided on photographic career. She joined the WSPU – the Women’s Social and Political Union - in 1909.
After a three-year apprenticeship with the leading portrait photographer Lallie Charles, and a gift of £250 from her father, at the age of 21 Yevonde set up her own studio at 92 Victoria Street. She began to make a name for herself by inviting well-known figures to sit for free. Before long, her pictures were appearing in society magazines such as The Tatler and The Sketch.
By 1921, Madame Yevonde had become a well-known and respected portrait photographer, and moved to larger premises at 100 Victoria Street. Here she began taking advertising commissions and also photographed many of the leading personalities of the day, including Vivien Leigh, A.A. Milne, Barbara Cartland, Diana Mitford, and Noël Coward. In the early 1930s, Yevonde began experimenting with colour photography, using the new Vivex print process from Colour Photography Limited. Yevonde’s work popularised the use of the process.
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The National Portrait Gallery is currently running an exhibition of Yevonde’s work until October 15. It shows both her black and white photographs and her Vivex images: portraits, still lives and advertising material.
The company closes
With the outbreak of War, many workers joined the Armed Forces and the demand for colour reproduction from professional photographers abruptly declined. In October 1939 the company closed, and the printers Gee and Watson Ltd were asked to take over the Willesden plant and some of the workers. They seem to have run the plant for a short period, but Colour Photographs Ltd is not shown in the directories after 1940.
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