Author(s): PA Photos

Photography SPECIALS

As an island, Britain enjoys volatile weather systems and accordingly its people have long been obsessed with the subject. Here we see why: extremes such as drought, hurricanes and snowstorms, certainly, but also the astonishing variety of rain that is to be experienced in such a small country. Throughout the century, the British people open their umbrellas, put on their Wellingtons and go about their lives - talking about the weather. PA Photos is the photography arm of the PA Group, which also owns the Press Association, the UK's national news agency. Established in the late 19th Century, the PA has been capturing editorial photography for 140 years, resulting in an extraordinary archive of over 15 million images recording British life over more than a century.