The Defence School of Photography (DSoP) is a training centre for all photographers drawn from the three arms of the British Military and the Civil Service. The School has been located at RAF Cosford in Shropshire, England since 1963 and in its own purpose built building at Cosford since 1965. The school has gone through several iterations being firstly a Royal Flying Corps school, then a Royal Air Force School, then a Joint school before becoming the DSoP in 2003.
Its origins lie in the advent of the First World War, with training being developed as far back as 1912; the school lays claim to being the oldest technical training environment in the Royal Air Force, pre-dating the formation of the RAF itself.
In 2003, the school was renamed as the Defence School of Photography which widened the scope on training it could offer across governmental agencies. Since 2006 it has been under the command and control of the Defence Intelligence and Security Centre (DISC) at Chicksands alongside the Defence School of Intelligence (DSI), the Defence School of Languages (DSL) and the Royal School of Military Survey (RSMS). In 2015, DISC was renamed as the Joint Intelligence Training Group (JITG) which the DSoP still works under.
History
Background
The formation of aerial military photography was down to the determination of a small number of men who were in the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) but it was mostly down to Frederick Charles Victor Laws (affectionately known as 'Daddy Laws' by photographers). Laws was initially a Sergeant in the RFC and had a passion for photography. Despite Field Marshall Haig's reputed maxim that reconnaissance was best achieved by the Cavalry, Laws and his cohort proved that aerial photography could provide information at a level of accuracy unseen before in theatres of war.
In January 1915, Laws, Lieutenant J T C Moore-Brabazon, Lieutenant C D M Campbell and 2nd Air Mechanic W D Corse were sent to test and report back on aerial photography. They produced such detailed reconnaissance of Neuve Chapelle with its intricate hidden defences that when the attack took place, the eventual human toll was far less than that of previous similar campaigns.
A School of Photography was established in 1915 with a formalised training centre at Farnborough (later RAF Farnborough) in January 1917. Laws came back as Commanding Officer twice; first as a Squadron Leader in 1924 and secondly as a Wing Commander in 1933. Because the school was created in 1915, it is referred to as the oldest technical training environment in the Royal Air Force (even though it is a defence school, it operated primarily for the RAF due to the aerial reconnaissance responsibility). The school was responsible for holding millions of exposed glass-plate negatives from the First World War. 130,000 would be gifted to the Imperial War Museum, whilst many others not considered important enough were simply buried in a hole in the ground at RAF Farnborough.
On the formation of the Royal Air Force on 1 April 1918, all photographers from the Royal Navy and the Royal Flying Corps became part of the RAF Photographic branch. The Royal Navy established its own photographic school at Tipner Ranges (under HMS Excellent) in 1920. This was a dedicated gunnery and torpedo school.
During the Second World War, as the need for reconnaissance and photographic experts became paramount, a second school was opened at a hastily converted technical college in Blackpool, Lancashire to cater for the upsurge in personnel. During this period, the School(s) of Photography came under the Royal Air Force Technical Training Command.
In 1945, the RAF school moved to Farnham in Surrey then onto RAF Wellesbourne Mountford in Warwickshire in 1948. It used Avro Anson aircraft in its aerial photography training and stayed for fifteen years at Wellesbourne Mountford before moving on to RAF Cosford in Shropshire in 1963. A new building was designed and built specifically for photographic training at Cosford which is supposed to resemble a Rail Camera from the aerial perspective with Bellows as the front doors. Alec Brew in his book of photographs of RAF Cosford, describes the building opened in December 1965 as '...being a drab place enlivened by a marvellous mural.'
During the same period, the Royal Naval School of Photography had moved from Tipner Ranges to Felpham at Bognor Regis (1943), then in 1947 it moved on to HMS Peregrine at RNAS Ford. It moved to HMS Daedalus (Lee-on-Solent) in 1961 and then onto HMS Fulmar. (where the Naval aerial photographic training was undertaken).