The Cardiff Naturalists' Society is the longest established wildlife organization in the area having been
formed in 1867.One of it's key members in the early 20th century and onwards was Harry Morrey Salmon
(1890-1985) 72nd President (latterly Colonel). He was a pioneering nature photographer specialising in bird photography and
conservationist and he left his collection of glass plate negatives, along with some other items to the society in the 1980s.
Between 2022 and 2025 members of the society along with staff from the
Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Cymru / National Museum of Wales worked to conserve,
clean and digitise these images with a plan to put a selection of them into the public domain for non commercial use
As part of this work we scanned and transcribed many documents that were created by Morrey Salmon and also by his photographic partner
Geoffrey C S Ingram 53rd President
This page has been created to make available some of these supporting documents which do not fit within the structures of the Museum's web pages
(their links will be made available here when available).
The following notes are important and we hope will aid in the reading of the documents and the understanding of the people and processes mentioned in the
documents
The documents are provided as good faith translations. There may be mistakes as some of the handwriting and
abbreviations were not easy to read.
Some of the practises mentioned such as cutting branches for a better view of a nest were considered reasonable
at the time. Given the limitations of the equipment they were in fact necessary if any form of result was going to be achieved and the actions of the
authors should not be measured against current practises, Neither do we support or advise these as reasonable these days and, given the benefits of
modern equipment they should not be necessary
Some of the documents were created by Morrey, some were created by Geoffrey Ingram.
At the time of creating this page (2025/6) all of the original documents are housed in the CNS collections at the National Collections Centre in Nantgarw.
The museum have also been given an electronic copy of all the word files that the PDFs here were created from and as such should there be any problems
that we are unable to resolve please contact the National Museum, details at
https://museum.wales/curatorial/natural-sciences/
More documents will be added here as they are able to be prepared for internet publication.
Please click the filename link to open them in another tab
Project Documents |
| Locations.pdf |
A document created by the project team based on research into the locations that they visited which are named in the documents |
Salmon Diaries |
| HMS Diary 1903 -1908.pdf |
The earliest diary that there is of his birding adventures starting with simple records and then detailing some more adventures,
especially those with his future brother-in-law Bert Evans. His photography starts on page 10 with some failures and then the first sucessful picture taken on
March 21st 1908 which is in the collections and will be online |
| HMS Nesting Notes 1904-05.pdf |
Supplimentary information to that above detailing nesting records for the 2 years noted |
| HMS Diary 1910.pdf |
Morrey was getting into his swing with his photography by 1910 and this diary records a lot of trips with his close friend Bert Evans,
to quite a few locations that became favorite places. It's also interesting because this is the first year that he mentions Geoffrey Ingram.
The distances they cycled is impressive, especially when you consider the heavy weight of the kitl that they carried
|
| HMS Diary 1911.pdf |
Morrey first mentions going out with Geoffrey Ingram (February 18th), but also with others
A lot of local places get mentioned. Some incredibly long exposures such as 5 minutes under bridges
|
| HMS Diary 1912.pdf |
Morrey and Ingram are often visiting their favourite sites in and around Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan. A lot of detail about the
birds and their habitats, but not so much on the photography work
|
| HMS Diary 1913.pdf |
Morrey and Ingram are often visiting their favourite sites in and around Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan. Again there is a lot of detail about the
birds and their habitats, but not so much on the photography work
|
| HMS Diary 1914.pdf |
Morrey and Ingram are often visiting their favourite sites in and around Cardiff again. No entries after May 1914 even though Morrey was still UK based at this time (until 1916)
|
| HMS Diary 1918.pdf |
most of the information in this diary relates birds that he has seen during his service in France.
Something he wuold do again in World War 2 the documents of which are held in the National Museum of Wales, but we do have digital copies of some if anyone wants to research this
|
| HMS Diary 1920.pdf |
Mthis starts with general information, but gets ont bird information later in the year
|
| HMS Diary 1921.pdf |
A lot more information about birds and trips in this one
|
| HMS Diary 1922.pdf |
A very full diary with quite a lot of bird related information in it
|
| HMS Diary 1923.pdf |
Morrey often visiting his favourite sites in and around Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan.
|
| HMS Diary 1924.pdf |
Morrey often visiting his favourite sites in and around Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan again
|
| HMS Diary 1925.pdf |
More of the same in this one
|
| HMS Typed pages 1912.pdf |
A document by Morrey Salmon describing a photographic trip to Porthcawl and Kenfig in the summer of 1912 which reads somewhat like the
"Rip Roaring" adventure tales of old |
| HMS Typed pages 1913.pdf |
A document by Morrey Salmon describing photographic trip to Porthcawl and Kenfig in the spring and summer of 1913,
and a trip to North Wales with his father Edgar Salmon (46th President) which reads somewhat like the
"Rip Roaring" adventure tales of old. Absolutely hilarous reading is the section regarding "camping" at Mr Duck's house |
Ingram Diaries |
| GCS Ingram Photo Notebook No 1 1908-1909.pdf |
The earliest diary that there we have of Geoffrey Ingram's birding adventures starting with simple records and then detailing photography, but in this first
diary no Mention of his future working partner Morrey Salmon |
| GCS Ingram Photo Notebook No 2 1909-1911.pdf |
A really full diary of information, A lot of trips with "Herb" and from February 1911 onwards he records working with "Salmon".
It's also worth noting the early starts they had to do this before work |
| GCS Ingram Photo Notebook No 3 1911-1912.pdf |
Another very full and interesting diary with over 100 mentions of "Salmon" in this diary which was incredibly useful during the project for locating information
when Morrey had reccorded less, but we did at least have a date so we could cross match to this diary |
| GCS Ingram Photo Notebook No 4 1912-1919.pdf |
Another very full and interesting diary with over 250 mentions of "Morrey" or "Salmon" in this diary which was incredibly useful during the project for locating information
when Morrey had reccorded less, some really useful information. Some information on when they were on leave and able to work together during World War One. Large gap between August 1916 and March 1919 as it is noted "In the Interval served in the Army MTASC (ed. 'Mechanical Transport' and 'Army Service Corps'.) and Welsh Regt." |
| GCS Ingram Photo Notebook No 5 1919-1921.pdf |
Another very full and interesting diary with over 100 mentions of "Salmon" in this diary which was incredibly useful during the project for locating information
when Morrey had reccorded less, but we did at least have a date so we could cross match to this diary |
| GCS Ingram Photo Notebook No 6 1921-1922.pdf |
Another very full and interesting diary with many mentions of "Morrey or" "Salmon". A number of mentions of others including his wife Belle and son Louis |
| GCS Ingram Photo Notebook No 7 1922-1925.pdf |
Covers many adventures inclsuing a 4 day trip in Morrey's car to the Gower. Had breakfast (hot bacon & eggs & coffee) which sounds grear when camping! |
| GCS Ingram Photo Notebook No 8 1925-1927.pdf |
Morrey often gets abbreviated to "M" in this one, and they are often not out together, but it is noteworthy that he records where Morrey was and what he saw so the pair were clearly talking very frequently |
it is noteworthy that there are a lot more Ingram diairies that would be signficantly worth further invesigation as resouces of bird and especially
nesting information, but were of less use to the project we were doing as they had little or no information about Morrey Salmon's Photography.
It is also noteworthy that there is an immense
collection of letters that the wro of them sent and received suring their collations of the Birds of Glamorgan. This is held within the Cardiff Naturalists' Society Library which is held at the
Nantgarw site of the National Museum of Wales should anyone want to reserarch it all the Society would be happy to facilitate access |
In addition to this page and the linked documents there are already many online resources that have information about
Morrey Salmon, the project and some of the images that we have worked on.
