Pakistani man's search for owner of vintage photographs of Sheffield found 3,700 miles away in Quetta
10 years ago, a man bought an aging road atlas in a market in Pakistan - only to find two vintage photographs of Sheffield hidden inside.
Now, the owner, Shoaib Ahmed Mughal, is appealing for help from his home in Quetta to discover how the 90-year-old photographs travelled 3,700 miles to the Middle-Eastern city.
The electronics technician has contacted The Star about the mysterious find.
He said: “I bought an old road atlas, and while the book itself wasn't very valuable, I noticed the first page was stuck to the cover.
“When I carefully peeled it back, I found a hidden treasure - black-and-white photos, newspaper clippings, and records from 1926 and 1938 related to the Gallimore company in Sheffield.”
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The book - a 1967 John Bartholomew & Son ‘Road Atlas of Great Britain’ - hid two seemingly unconnected records but unmistakably from Sheffield.
One was a newspaper clipping from 1926, showing bread queues in Fitzalan Square during the UK general strike of that year.
The second was a vintage photograph of an enormous gear being lifted in a factory, with a caption written on the back revealing it to by from WM Gallimore & Sons Ltd, a historic Sheffield silversmith.
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The caption reads: “Remove of the big wheel (16 tones) from our Arundel Street works to our new Johnson Street/Stanley Street factory, 1938.”
William Gallimore & Co, later William Gallimore & Sons Ltd, was founded in 1858 in Arundel Street. It was liquidated in 1901 but the name was revived 1919, and indeed had a factory in Stanley Street, off The Wicker, until it ceased trading in the early 1960s.
Of note is how the caption on Shoaib’s photo refers to ‘we’ and ‘our,’ leading him to wonder who in the business took the photo.
The Hawley Sheffield Knives history page writes that by the time the photo was taken in 1938, WM Gallimore & Sons was managed by a Robert Walker Girdwood, son-in-law of Henry Gallimore, himself the son of the its founder, William.
Shoaib said: “For a decade, I kept these documents safe as a sacred 'Amanat' (trust). I reached out to relatives and people in the UK, but everyone dismissed it as 'worthless scrap.' But I couldn't throw it away. I have always admired British craftsmanship and history, and I felt a deep responsibility to return this piece of Sheffield’s heart to its home.
“To be honest, I had no direct connection to England. I was exploring the old market in Quetta with the simple hope of hitting a 'jackpot' or finding something valuable that might change my life—as many of us dream of doing. However, when I discovered these hidden photos and records inside that old atlas, my perspective shifted. I realised that my true 'jackpot' wasn't money, but this lost history of Sheffield that I had stumbled upon.
“Even though I was thousands of miles away in Pakistan, I felt a deep responsibility to ensure these 1926 and 1938 records returned to their rightful home. It has been a long journey of 10 years to reach this moment.
“Beyond the historical value, I am keen to trace the family or descendants of W.M. Gallimore. I believe these items belong to the history of Sheffield.”
Shoaib asks for anyone who could help him return the photograph to their rightful owner or can shed light on its history to contact [email protected]