Sunderland Museum is hoping their newly-digitised collection will bring in more visitors.
Old photos are the focus of the museum’s new internet project aimed at preserving Wearside’s past for the future. Thousands of historical images from the archives of the museum have been digitised and uploaded to the Flickr website.
Martin Routledge, Keeper of History at Sunderland Museum, said: “I have noticed the number of [online] visitors are starting to go up. Hopefully the general public are starting to find it interesting and will visit us in the future.
“We have had an opportunity to digitise the collection over the last 10 years or so and it seemed like the right time to put them online.
“[The photos] have been given to us by various people over the last 100 years or so. A number of shipbuilding companies gave us part of their collections. The vast majority are donations from the general public.”
Topics ranging from industry and shipbuilding, to beach scenes, military units, football and public services are included.
There are hundreds of images from the Williamson collection, charting how the city centre has changed from the late 1960s to 2000.
Never-before-seen photos of 20th (Service) Battalion of Durham Light Infantry during World War One are also included.
The archive can be contacted via 561 8609. The Sunderland Museum Flickr page is at: www.flickr.com/photos/137368687@N02/albums