The recent Alfred Vowles Photographic Competition has inspired us to look in more depth at the information we hold on Alfred Vowles. He was a prolific photographer of Exmoor landscape, people and events from the early 1910s until his departure from Exmoor in 1947. He had a shop and studio in Minehead and sold a wide range of postcards of his photographs.
Sadly, there is little information about Vowles available through searching on the internet. The Society’s Exmoor Review in 1989 had an article on Vowles’ life by Malcolm Scott. This is the most comprehensive account I can find. But Scott did not know about why Vowles left Exmoor in 1947. He writes “Despite his long and remarkable career on Exmoor, active and prominent in so many roles, Alfred’s departure soon after the war was mysterious and obscure.”
Searching further in our Archive, I came across a note sent in 2000 to the Exmoor Review Editor, Victor Bonham-Carter, by BJ Pearson, which explained what happened in and after 1947. In December 1947, Vowles, whose first marriage had ended in divorce, married Dorothy Una Phillips, a wealthy widow and writer of poetry, drama and travel books. She published over 50 titles in her lifetime, under the pseudonym Dorothy Una Ratcliffe, with Vowles contributing photographs to her books published during their marriage. They lived at Acorn Bank manor in Cumbria, which Dorothy donated to the National Trust in 1950, and then moved to Edinburgh. Vowles died in 1965, and Dorothy two years later.
Dorothy had an enduring love for the Yorkshire Dales, as deep as Vowles’ love for Exmoor. Much of her poetry was in the Yorkshire dialect. She also had a fascination for Gypsy customs, folklore and culture. Perhaps Alfred shared her interest in Romany life. He had lived in a Romany ‘Vardo’ caravan in Porlock before the First World War.
Alfred Vowles’ photograph of gypsies and their caravans also appeared in the 1989 edition of the Exmoor Review.
Graeme Horn, Archivist
