Stephen Main was born in 1872 in Sheffield and he lived and worked in Sheffield all of his life. Stephen Main was a carpenter by trade and kept an open mind to changing technology. This was reflected in the skills and trades he incurred over his life including: wheelwright, cheese making, electric railcar conductor, and photographer.

Stephen’s interest in photography began in the 1890’s with trips to photography studios to have self-portraits taken and in 1898 he took his first photograph with his own camera. He used his local community for his subjects such as labourers and farmers whom he worked with, itinerant street performers, middle class people at leisure, church groups, homes of the wealthy, and landscapes.

The Stephen Sylvester Main collection consists of 461 black and white glass negatives most of which are identified. The subjects include houses, people, school groups, farms, barns, livestock, sight seeing, churches, self portraits, industrial, lake, funerary, and activities.