Who Built Britain?
How the John Laing PLC Collection gives visibility and representation to the workers of a construction company in post-war Britain
Workers unloading bricks from the back of a lorry during the construction of Berkeley Nuclear Power Station 29 April 1957 © Historic England Archive. John Laing Photographic Collection JLP01/08/049478
The John Laing PLC construction company helped to shape post-war Britain. It was responsible for major places of worship like Coventry Cathedral and London Central Mosque, sections of the motorway network, housing estates, bridges, power stations, hospitals, offices, and shopping centres.
The John Laing Photographic Collection is one of the Historic England Archive’s largest collections. It contains approximately 230,000 images of buildings and engineering that were created by the company. As part of its Breaking New Ground project, Historic England is making 10,000 images from the Collection available online.
Site nurse Betty Mitchell wading through mud on Section B of the London to Yorkshire Motorway (M1) during its construction September 1958 © Historic England Archive. John Laing Photographic Collection JLP01/08/053292
The Collection originally existed as an assortment of marketing photographs. While the construction projects themselves are the motivation for most of the photographs, the deliberate inclusion of people ensures the Collection has a strong sense of dynamism, connecting the employer, employee and the built environment. Architects rarely feature; instead, many of the images record Laing employees – the men and women who worked on site and in the offices to help build the Britain we recognise today.
Unsurprisingly, Laing’s branding is often prominent in the photographs but it is the workers themselves who appear to serve as symbols for Laing’s achievements. Recorded at the worksite, their visibility within the photographic frame reveals how the hands, eyes, skills and tools of the labourer, craftsman, driver, surveyor, nurse and caterer made vital contributions to what most of us only witness in its final, completed form.
Civil engineer Kik Hong Ong at work during the construction of the Birmingham to Preston Motorway (M6) 18 July 1961 © Historic England Archive. John Laing Photographic Collection JLP01/08/060505
These visible workers can be viewed as contributors to great achievements. Even if many remain unknown as individuals – identifiable but not necessarily identified – we can use the images as a visual resource to gain an understanding of, celebrate (and criticise) the efforts that were required day after day to complete ordinary and monumental feats of design and engineering.
It is probably safe to say that the Laing Collection is the Historic England Archive’s most representative collection with regard to the visibility of Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) and women workers. With much of its content covering the post-war years to the end of the 20th century, the Collection can help to illustrate the working lives of BAME and women employees in a period of British history that saw the arrival of ‘the Windrush Generation’, the Race Relations Act 1965 and the Equal Pay Act 1970.
Men covering marginal haunch as part of the construction of the M1 motorway Circa 1958-1959 © Historic England Archive. John Laing Photographic Collection JLP01/14/00004
Historic England’s Breaking New Ground project will enable and encourage diverse audiences and users to investigate, evaluate and enjoy this illuminating photographic collection.
Gary Winter, Ciaran Davis and Ashley Mackenzie-White, Historic England
