You can now browse hundreds of images exploring Bradford’s history through family photographs on our new digital archive.

Bradford Family Album is a nationally important archive, bringing together an extensive collection of family photographs collected from diverse communities across the Bradford district.

From wide-lapelled 1970s wedding celebrations to garage-smoked Latvian meats, the photographs capture personal milestones, cultural traditions, and everyday moments of connection. This living archive is a collective record of how people have preserved heritage, adapted customs, and shaped new ones in the process of making Bradford their home.

The archive has been developed by Impressions Gallery and our young people’s collective New Focus: Bradford Young Curators along with a team of mentors, including curator Angela Brown, photographer and archivist Anand Chhabra and photography historian Brian Liddy. Throughout 2025, Bradford Young Curators worked closely with groups and individuals to hear stories and digitise photographs as well as documenting their own family histories. The archive will grown in the coming years and the photographs collected so far are the beginning of this journey.

Photographs from Bradford Family Album are on display as part of the exhibition Make Yourself at Home: Stories from Bradford until 20 December 2025.

Bradford Family Album is curated and produced by Impressions Gallery and New Focus: Bradford Young Curators. Commissioned by Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture.

Image: Ivy Roberts and Paul James, Canterbury Avenue, c.1975, courtesy of Lorna James