John Henry Ahern (9 July 1903 – 24 December 1961) was a British

model railway Railway modelling (UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland) or model railroading (US and Canada) is a hobby in which rail transport systems are Model building, modelled at a reduced Scale (ratio), scale. The scale models include locomotives ...

enthusiast, photographer and writer.

Career Overview

He is considered a pioneer of scenic model railways and one of the first to place a model railway within a landscape. The magazine ''

Railway Modeller ''Railway Modeller'' is a monthly British magazine about model railways now published by Peco Publications in Beer, Devon. It has been in publication since 1949 with Vol. 1 No. 1 published as ''The Railway Modeller,'' being an Ian Allan Prod ...

'' described Ahern's impact on the hobby as "fundamental and far-reaching". His

4mm 4 mm may refer to: * 4 mm caliber, gun cartridges between 4–5 mm diameter * 4 mm scale 4 mm scale is the most popular model railway scale used in the United Kingdom. The term refers to the use of 4 millimeters on the model equat ...

layout In general terms, a layout is a structured arrangement of items within certain limits, or a plan for such arrangement. Specifically, layout may refer to: * Page layout, the arrangement of visual elements on a page ** Comprehensive layout (comp), ...

, Madder Valley, built in the 1930s is preserved at the

Pendon Museum Pendon Museum, located in Long Wittenham near Didcot, Oxfordshire, England, is a museum that displays scale models, in particular a large scene representing parts of the Vale of White Horse in the 1920s and 1930s. The scene, under constructio ...

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire ( ; abbreviated ''Oxon'') is a ceremonial county in South East England. The county is bordered by Northamptonshire and Warwickshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the east, Berkshire to the south, and Wiltshire and Glouceste ...

. Ahern was also an avid photographer alongside his wife Gladys. In 1932 he was elected a fellow of the

Royal Photographic Society The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, commonly known as the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), is the world's oldest photographic society having been in continuous existence since 1853. It was founded in London, England, in 1853 as th ...

. His work published in the Society's catalogues, such as The Year's Photography, and was regularly exhibited there from the 1930s to the early 1940s. His photography was also published in Photograms of the Year.

Books

* * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ahern, John Henry Rail transport modellers 1903 births 1961 deaths 20th-century British photographers Fellows of the Royal Photographic Society