Smithfield Market by Beverly Conley

Shortly after moving to London in 1990, I began photographing at Smithfield Market. I was fascinated by the strong thread of family tradition among the employees and by their work methods which had scarcely changed in 130 years.

I had no idea that the 800 year old home to the meat trade was about to undergo a massive face lift. New hygiene standards put forth by the European Union forced the remodeling that included temperature controlled shops and sealed loading bays. These renovations I soon discovered would affect not just the building but the work itself.

In the not so distant past, tonnage was up, and meat came through the market all night long, and with it a lot more laughter. Down-to-earth porters with nicknames like Silly Billy, Caruso and Sexy George were more likely to exchange salty banter while waiting for the whistle that signaled the beginning of their day.

Times being what they were at Smithfield, the name of the game became ''task and finish'' or get your work done and go home. To change, to modernize, meant to risk everything for the men who, like their fathers and grandfathers before them, had Smithfield in their blood; it truly was a way of life. I wanted to document that world before it was too late.





Beverly Conley
Beverly Conley is a documentary photographer in Benicia, California. She finds true satisfaction in long-term, self-assigned projects that focus on individuals and contemporary society. Her quest has allowed her to enter the private worlds of Roma and Travellers in England, the Cherokee Nation in Northeastern Oklahoma, the Smithfield Meat Market in London, steelworkers in Weirton, West Virginia and the Cape Verdean Communities in Boston and in the Cape Verde Islands.

Solo exhibitions include the George Meany Center for Labor, the Boston Public Library, the Fort Smith Regional Art Museum in Arkansas, the Museum of Native American History and Culture in Bentonville, Arkansas, and the Black Arts Center in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her work has been featured in juried exhibitions and group shows such as the Festival of American Folklife at the Smithsonian Institution, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Collectors' Photography Gallery in Corte Madera, California, and the Cochran Gallery in La Grange, Georgia.

She is represented in numerous permanent collections including the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Museum of London, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the New York Public Library, the Toledo Museum of Art, the Boston Public Library, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Cleveland Public Library, and the Museum of Native American History and Culture in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Beverly is the recipient of a Michigan Creative Artist Grant and she has received awards from the Utah Press Association, the International Regional Magazine Association and an excellence award by Black and White Magazine for her contribution to their 2017 Special Issue. She is a member of the American Society of Media Photographers (''ASMP'')
www.beverlyconleyphotography.com
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