Stunning colourised pictures show how the working lives of British cabbies, nurses and teachers have been transformed by tech

THESE incredible pictures, seen for the first time in colour, show how Britain's oldest jobs have been transformed with the rise in technology.

Historic photographs taken of British workers between 1870 and 1920 have been expertly colourised and recreated by their modern day equivalents, using a Dell laptop.

Some of the professions depicted include a taxi driver, nurse, courier, sign-painter and school teacher.

Thanks to GPS navigation to card payment systems and high-tech medical instruments, some of our oldest occupations barely resemble their humble beginnings in the 19th century.

Artist Matt Loughrey, who painstakingly reproduced the snaps, said: "What struck me is how similar we are to these people, even after 100 years.

"Seeing them side by side shows in a way, that nothing has changed – behind the transformation that technology has brought to the roles, the people have the same aspirations, family lives and routines as us."

Matt Loughrey transforms pictures using a touchscreen tablet and specialist software which enables him to reveal the hidden colours and bring them to the surface.

"I source the colours accurately using an algorithm that matches monochrome shades to their colour equivalents in red, green and blue hues” continues Loughrey.

"It’s a painstaking process but endlessly rewarding because other people get the same out of the final photograph as I do when they look at it – a chance for self-reflection and connection with people from centuries ago."

Historian Professor Kate Williams, has explored the lives portrayed in the photographs and how they have changed.

"What these images show is how technology changed these roles at different paces. Many people will be surprised to know that by 1900, when the first ‘point-and-shoot’ camera came to market revolutionising the way photographers worked, the abacus was still being used in the classroom.

"The calculator was an invention of 1967 so students had to rely on textbooks and their teacher for assurance of more complex arithmetic”.

"The twentieth century also saw huge change for the role of the nurse. At the time the picture was taken in 1900, nursing was only just being seen as a profession thanks to Florence Nightingale – but even then most of the work was domestic – cleaning and rolling bandages – as the technical side of medical care was performed by doctors".

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