A REMARKABLE collection of photographs by pioneering Cilgerran photographer Tom Mathias will be the subject of a talk by Emyr Phillips at the Dyfed Family History Society’s AGM in the Tower Room at Cardigan Castle on Monday, April 4 (7.30pm).

Using simple equipment, Mathias, a self-taught photographer at the turn of the 20th Century, recorded the daily life around his home village.

Following his death in 1940 all his negatives were dumped in an outhouse, where they lay forgotten for more than thirty years.

By the time Maxi Davis, a local professional photographer, discovered the lost archive in the 1970s the glass negatives were in a very poor condition.

Many broken and damaged beyond repair.

Enough had survived however for Maxi to appreciate the importance of what he had found and he set about the task of conserving and restoring the photographs.