HISTORIC photographs taken by a prominent Worcester man in the 19th century are set to be conserved,

catalogued and shared, thanks to a lottery grant.

The Arthur Henry Whinfield Lantern Slide Collection was donated to the Worcester Diocesan Church House Trust in 100 years ago.

The collection holds 1,800 glass slides, 1,200 of which were taken by Whinfield during the 1880s throughout the UK and across Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia and the Americas.

It includes images of cathedrals and churches across the UK and Western Europe, plus pictures from at least two of Whinfield's world tours, including some now-lost landscapes, and sites of world importance.

The collection also includes slides Whinfield used at church services, including projected hymn lyrics for the parishioners of St John Baptist Church in Claines.

The trust, in partnership with Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service, successfully bid for £39,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

To mark the centenary of the donation, the archaeology service and Redhawk Logistica will hold a series of events, lecture evenings and presentations.

Whinfield was proprietor of the Nicholson Organ Company from 1903 to 1916; the company built the organ at the Claines church which he often played.

The project will present lecture evenings at venues, including churches where Whinfield organs are still used, and other venues, which will re-enact his lectures relating to the world tours.

It will also digitise all the photographs to make them more widely viewable.

Cllr Lucy Hodgson, cabinet member with responsibility for localism and communities, said: "I am delighted that the archaeology service and the trust has been awarded National Lottery funding for the Whinfield project. The centenary month of March 2018 will be particularly fascinating."