#PE73
Ca. 1920s
Oblong Folio album (ca. 26x36 cm or 10 ¼ x 14 ¼ in). 12 card stock leaves. With 96 original gelatin silver photos, mounted in windows, all ca. 9x14 cm (3 ½ x 5 ½ in). Two images are captioned in negative, otherwise no captions. Period brown quarter morocco with faux leather boards; decorative endpapers. Binding mildly rubbed on extremities, a few photos with mild fading or mild silvering, but overall a very good album of interesting strong photos.
Interesting collection of original photos, documenting military service in the Western Provinces of British India, mostly in modern-day Pakistan, in the 1920s. Most photos (over 50) show military activities. The album opens with four photos of an “N.W.R.” train (North Western Railway, operated in modern-day Pakistan and northwestern India in 1905-1947) with the sign “Military” on the side and young British soldiers looking out, officers on a railway platform and the train moving across a plain. The other images show British infantry troops on a march, military tent camps (including several images of the campgrounds partly flooded), officers mounted on horses, soldiers with their belongings laid out for examination by superiors, members of a regimental band eating on the grass, ox-driven carts and camels laden with supplies, cooks with pots of food, &c. Several views with the soldiers marching next to a group of buildings were, most likely, taken in the Sialkot Cantonment. Other, identified photos of Sialkot feature the Clock Tower (built in 1922), Holy Trinity Cathedral, St. James Catholic Church and the 0-mile milestone monument in the Cantonment. The album also contains three views of a bridge – most likely, Kotri bridge across the Indus River, a photo of the railway station in Kamoke (Gujranwala metropolis, Punjab province of Pakistan), and several views of local villages and portraits of their inhabitants. Two photos captioned in negative show the Memorial Church and Wheeler Barracks in Cawnpore (Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh), related to the events of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Overall an interesting collection of original photos of British military activities in modern-day Pakistan in the 1920s.
