LAMMER, Alfred 1909-2000. Photographer and RAF navigator. Alfred Ritter von Lammer was born in Linz, Austria and moved to London in 1934 working for the Austrian state travel bureau. He resigned his job and decided to stay after the Germans annexed Austria in 1938, dropping the ‘Ritter’ and the ‘von’. He joined the RAF in 1940 and spent most of the war in night fighters as a radar navigator, ending as a squadron leader running the RAF school for navigators at Charter Hill. By then he had been twice mentioned in despatches and was awarded the DFC and bar.
After the war, Lammer pursued his interest in photography, teaching at the Central School of Art and at Guildford School of Art where in 1952 he set up the first school of colour photography in Britain. He specialised in close-up photography of plants, and his pictures were used by the Royal Mail for a series of flower stamps issued in 1987. He also took the photographs for John Baker’s English Stained Glass (1960), a project which made full use of his skill as a climber. After retiring from the Guildford School of Art in 1976, he taught photography part-time to graduate students at the Royal College of Art for another ten years. He was an honorary Fellow of the RCA and decorated by Austria for his services to art. He lived at 12 Pickwick Road, Dulwich Village for nearly forty years.
Bernard Nurse