These photos were taken by Clifton R. Adams, who was sent to England by National Geographic magazine to photograph life in the country.
(Most can be slightly enlarged by clicking on them.)

Mr Adams, who died in 1934 aged just 44, had instructions to record its farms, towns and cities, and its residents at work and play. He took the images in colour using Autochrome Lumière, which was the most advanced colour photographic process of the day. The plates were covered in microscopic potato starch grains coloured red, green and blue-violet, with about four million per square inch. Light passed through the colour filters when an image was taken, with the plate then processed to produce a positive transparency.

Children on a beach. Isle of Wight, 1928.

A postman in Oxford, 1928.

A fashionable lady posting a letter. Oxford, 1928.

Girl standing outside a cottage in Clovelly, Devon. 1928.

Proud of their sandcastle. Bournemouth, 1932.

Boy posting a letter. Sussex, 1928.

More cottages in Clovelly, 1928.

Boy Scouts on parade in Surrey. Exact date unknown.

A girl outside the Cat and Fiddle Inn, Exeter. 1931.

Passengers ride on ‘Billy’, a miniature locomotive running at the Kent seaside resort of Margate, 1931.

A tradtional thatched-roof cottage in Hampshire. 1931.

A girl harvesting barley. Lincolnshire, 1929.

Yeoman Warders parade at The Tower of London. Exact date unknown.

Kew Gardens, London. 1929.

On the white cliffs in Sussex, 1931.