Det Con Dan Burgan said: “The theft of many items which carry a significant cultural value is a significant loss for the city.
“These items, many of which were donations, form part of a collection that provides insight into a multi-layered part of British history, and we are hoping that members of the public can help us to bring those responsible to justice.”
There are around 2,000 items in the film collections dating from 1920 to the 1970s, with footage from India and countries in Africa, and around 500,000 photographs dating from the 1860s to the 1970s.
On the Bristol Archives website, it lists key collections as “the African photographs of the writer Elspeth Huxley, the Crown Agents Railway archive and Charles Trotter’s collection of negatives from 1950s Nairobi”.
“Many of the less well-known collections from amateur photographers are equally significant in depicting untold stories of life in the empire,” the website adds.
The four men pictured are described as white.
