The Wet Dock has been a place of innovation in Ipswich since its creation in the early 1840s, right from the early days of photography itself. While most surviving photos from that era were taken in big cities like London and Paris, Ipswich is home to something truly special: some of the rarest early photographs ever captured, taken in and around the brand new Wet Dock during the 1840s.
Over the past decade, our Image Archivist, Stuart Grimwade, has poured countless hours into digitally restoring over 2500 remarkable images. Thanks to his work—and the generosity of those who’ve donated their collections—we now hold an ever growing Image Archive at the Ipswich Maritime Trust. This includes full collections such as that of Leonard Woolf, who spent his life gathering picture postcards of the Port of Ipswich and the River Orwell throughout the Victorian and Edwardian eras.
We are in the process of sharing our extensive and rare collection of images with the Suffolk Archive, to ensure that they have museum quality protection into the future. Once Suffolk Archives have fully accessioned our collection they will be fully accessible by people all over the world who are searching for specific local history images.
Members of Ipswich Maritime Trust also have access to all images to our image library hosted on this website. Below is an example from each of our collections. If you'd like to become and member and have access, please take a look at our membership types here.
We love hearing from people who can add stories, memories, or details to the images in our archive. If something sparks a memory—or you have information that could help bring these moments in history to life—please drop us a line at. Every bit of knowledge helps us preserve these images while there are still people who remember the ships, events, and places they show.
If you have photographs or images you think might interest us, or if you’re researching a particular time or place around the dock from about 1850 onwards, we’d be delighted to hear from you.