Harold Jenkins Photo

Harold Jenkins with his work, dispatching taxis, surrounded by his passion, photography.

Harold Alison Jenkins (1906-1983) operated a taxi and truck business in Windsor, Nova Scotia but was best known for his extensive photography of the Dominion Atlantic Railway from 1921 until the 1980s. Beginning with a camera borrowed from his sister, he took countless railway photographs and had a number of pictures published in Railroad Magazine. His work attracted the attention of railway collectors and he sold many prints to collectors across North America. Hundreds have ended up in the collection of the Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa. The largest collection of his negatives now reside at the Middleton Railway Museum where they were purchased with help from a group of Nova Scotia railway collectors in 2018. Many of these negatives are featured on this website with permission of the Museum.

Mounted historical reprints by Harold Jenkins for sale in Windsor, unknown date.

Jenkins took countless photographs of railway activity in his hometown of Windsor. He also traveled across Western Nova Scotia photographing the Dominion Atlantic Railway, but also the Halifax and Southwestern Railway and other Canadian National branch lines. In addition, he also made copy negatives of many old photographic prints which were taken by earlier generations of railway photographers. These reprints often bear his distinctive signatures. He often marked his prints with a conductor's ticket punch, by an embossed name stamp or by signing them in light-coloured photographic ink. Jenkins maintained a correspondence with railway authors and collectors across Canada such as Omer Lavallée, H. B. Jefferson and Jim O'Donnell who often wrote him to identify or trace the history of old and rare pieces of equipment which ran on the DAR.^[1]

Harold Jenkins in the Windsor Citizen's Band.

Barrie MacLeod provided us with this colourful information:

"This from a friend of mine who asked his friend at the Windsor Historic Museum: 'Perhaps you missed out on knowing "Hallie Jenkins". He was a friend of mine for many years. His home (along with Poole's Hotel) was where the Fire Station now stands on King Street. Frank Poole was as much of a character as was Hallie. His real name was Harold Jenkins. He was a bachelor with a faithful "house-keeper"! He was the bass drummer in the Windsor Citizens Band. His father had a stable and horses to rent before 'cars'. He had Jenkins Taxi and met the trains morning and evening for 'fares'. He loved the girls of town and was great for spreading 'news'. He also loved trains and photos. His home was full of framed enlargements that he took about town. When he died, a nephew from Boston, named 'Skip' Hatt, (who used to spend summers with Hallie - and played tennis with some of us Windsor kids) came and took everything away to USA, much to my sorrow...' "^[2]

References

Obituaries: Halifax Chronicle Herald Feb. 24, 1983 and Hants Journal March 3, 1983, located by courtesy Garry Shutlak, Nova Scotia Archives.
Railroad Magazine October 1971

↑ Scotia Railway Society correspondence, Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management, RG28 Series S, Vol. 186
↑ Barrie MacLeod, email, January 27, 2010