V&A's new permanent photography gallery, called the Photographs Gallery, will open on 25 October with a display of works by "key figures of photographic history including Victorian portraits by Julia Margaret Cameron and significant works by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Man Ray, Alfred Stieglitz, Diane Arbus and Irving Penn."

V&A plans to "chronicle the history of photography from its invention in 1839 up to the 1960s," using the photographs it holds in its collections. The display will be "re-curated" every 18 months, says the museum.

As part of its first exhibition, V&A will showcase its oldest photograph - a daguerreotype from 1839 of Parliament Street from Trafalgar Square in London. It will be shown alongside works by Curtis Moffat, Anna Atkins and Gustave Le Gray, among many others.

The new gallery will also have two "In Focus" spaces, each featuring the work of one photographer "represented in depth in the V&A collection." The first two photographers are Julia Margaret Camera and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

For more details, visit www.vam.ac.uk.