52 Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Thurston Hopkins was one of Britain’s greatest photojournalists and, while working for Picture Post, captured the humanity, spirit and social inequality and contradictions of life in post-war 1950s Britain.

During the 1940s and 1950s Picture Post was to Britain what Life magazine was to America. Hopkins brought his eye for the comic, romantic and cinematic to the magazine. His photographs are often tales of the unexpected.

Although a versatile and reliable staff photographer on the magazine from 1950 until 1957, Hopkins’s first love was illustration and his second was writing — in 1946 he had arrived in London to consult George Orwell about the possibility of a writing career. The camera, said Hopkins, paid better than the brush or the pen.

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain

Extraordinary Black-and-White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Post-war 1950s Britain