A collection of photographs of Britain's poor taken in the 1960s and 1970s is to be shown for the first time in a new exhibition at the Science Museum, opening Thursday, 02 October, 2014. Photographer Nick Hedges spent three years visiting areas of deprivation throughout the UK to create this seminal body of work for the housing charity Shelter. Launched in December 1966 (the same month as Ken Loach's influential television drama 'Cathy Come Home') the charity's campaign put paid to the myth that only people living on the streets were homeless. Hedges' photographs were central to its message. He photographed slum housing in major cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford and London, documenting the distressing conditions faced by more than three million people. At the time it was highly unusual for a documentary photographer to focus on domestic issues - war and international stories held sway. Hedges's empathy for his subjects is evidenced through his detailed contemporary notes, extracts of which will appear in the exhibition. He donated 1,000 prints from his Shelter work to the National Media Museum in 1983. However, because many of his photographs feature children, their use has been restricted to protect the privacy of his subjects. Hedges said: ‘Although these photographs have become historical documents, they serve to remind us that secure and adequate housing is the basis of a civilised urban society. The failure of successive governments to provide for it is a sad mark of society’s inaction. The photographs should allow us to celebrate progress, yet all they can do is haunt us with a sense of failure.’ The exhibition, co-curated by the independent Dutch curator Hedy van Erp and the National Media Museum’s Curator of Photographs Greg Hobson, continues until 18 January, 2015 at the Media Space, Science Museum, Exhibition Rd, London SW7 2DD. Entrance is free. Above: Mr and Mrs M and their four children lived in a council owned house in Vincent Crescent, Balsall Heath. Apart from the poor state of the property – no bathroom, no hot water, outside lavatory, inside walls running with damp – these children were sleeping in the middle of winter, on two sodden seat cushions covered by a couple of old ‘macs’, there was no heating in the room, the snow lay thick outside and the windows were broken. Birmingham, January 1969. Picture: © Nick Hedges / National Media Museum, Bradford

Credit : © Nick Hedges / National Media Museum, Bradford