The Church Missionary Society photograph collection consists of photographic prints, glass and film negatives, and lantern slides. The prints in CMS 1-17 were selected from the CMS’s Photo Bureau, the majority being mounted on sheets of paper annotated with captions. Many photographs would have been taken to illustrate articles in the society’s periodicals including ‘Church Missionary Gleaner’, ‘Church Missionary Intelligencer’ and their successors.

Little is known of the provenance of the glass and film negatives CMS 18-23 and glass lantern slides CMS 24-35. They may have been produced to illustrate talks given by the CMS upon its missionary work. CMS 24 appears to be a commercial set of slides relating to Africa generally and is not the work of the society. The glass negatives and slides were unsorted when presented to the RCS in 1988. Some of the negatives had titles written upon the slide, but most were uncaptioned. They were re-organised along rough geographical lines and those without captions were given brief descriptive titles. Very little is known about many of the peoples, subjects and places depicted in the slides. The RCS will be grateful for any assistance to more accurately identify them. This may be achieved by research in the CMS periodicals, and its archives, which are held by the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham.

The captions, including the names of institutions, have been recorded as found and may include language which is offensive, inaccurate or inappropriate. They have been retained to reflect the context of the collection's creation.

The majority of the photographs and slides are post 1945 but there are earlier ones of historical interest. These include two slides of the 1895 Uganda Missionary Party (CMS 26/1-2) and a photograph of the 1896 Uganda Missionary Party (CMS 13/221). Some of the East African lantern slides date from the early 1900s. CMS 31 contains 32 slides of China, apparently taken from nineteenth-century artwork.