Ilford

Alfred Harman began making gelatin dry plates in the town of Ilford, east of London, in 1879. The firm took the town’s name and became Britain’s main maker of film and photographic paper.

Its black-and-white films, such as FP4 and HP5, and its papers were used by generations of darkroom workers. After it collapsed in 2004, managers bought the black-and-white business and formed Harman Technology.