Five albums, ca. 1910-1940s. Oblong Folio (ca. 22x30 cm or 8 ¾ x 11 ¾ in) to Oblong Octavo (17,5x22 cm or 6 ¾ x 8 ¾ in). In all ca. 530 original gelatin silver photos (mostly mounted, several loosely inserted) from ca. 16x20 cm (6 ¼ x 8 in) to ca. 4,5x6,5 cm (1 ¾ x 2 in). At least half of the photos with period pencil, ink or pen captions on the mounts. Period full cloth or faux leather albums of various colours (brown, black, blue); four fastened with strings. One album (blue card) with both boards detached from the stub; three albums with several images previously removed; some photos slightly faded, but overall very good.

With 26 loose gelatin silver photos (over a dozen mounted on period card or album leaves), from ca. 18x30 cm (7 x 11 ¾ in) to ca. 6x8 cm (2 ¼ x 3 ¼ in); three with detailed printed captions on the mounts, all but one with period pen or pencil captions on recto or verso. Six photos with creases or minor losses on extremities, several images slightly faded, but overall very good.

With ca. forty manuscript and typewritten documents and newspaper clippings from the archive of William Stephen Benton (private and official letters, telegrams, notes, birth, marriage and employment certificates, photo IDs, curricula vitae, &c.); in all over 140 pp. of text. With about a dozen original envelopes (several addressed to Lahore, Bihar & Orissa, Bombay, & Port Said). Three letters with printed letterheads of “Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge,” one letter with a printed letterhead of “The Benevolent Fund of the Institution of Civil Engineers.” Documents with ink stamps of “The Automobile Association, Northern India, Lahore,” “Railway Department” (New Delhi), a paper seal of “Secretary of State for India,” &c. Fold marks, occasional tears on folds and extremities, but overall very good documents.

With ca. 30 manuscript private letters and notes from the archive of Dorothy Benton, with several original envelopes, ca. 1880s-1983 (correspondence between her parents and family members, manuscript poems, jokes, a photo ID of her mother Annie Elizabeth Gardiner, &c.). With three typewritten documents on the genealogy and history of “The Leitch Families of Arbroath, Armagh, Helensburg, and Belfast.”

With printed “The Complete History of the Royal Naval Division by James W. Fry & Thomas McMillan, Sub. Lieutenants, R.N.V.R.” 12mo (ca. 18,5x12,5 cm). [8], 92 pp. Period blue full cloth with gilt-lettered title on the front board. Period ink inscription on the front free endpaper “W.S. Benton, Lieut. R.E. O.C. Signals, 188th Inf. Bde, 63rd (RN) Division.”

Interesting extensive archive of original photographs, official and private letters, documents, and newspaper clippings, from the estate of William Stephen Benton, a prominent engineer and executive of Government Railways in British India in 1919-1948, and his second wife, Dorothy Charlotte Benton. Born in “Forres, Morayshire, Scotland, [Benton] was educated at Aberdeen and Glasgow Universities. He served with the Gordon Highlanders from the beginning of World War 1 until 1915. Appointed Brigade signals officer with the Naval Division, Royal Engineers, he joined the Indian service of Engineers after demobilization in 1920, when he was responsible for railway and bridge construction, linking coal fields in Bihar and Orissa. Between 1928 and 1932, he designed and built the Benton Bridge, later renamed the Chiniot Bridge in the Punjab. From 1933 he was divisional and later, deputy chief engineer with the N.W. Railway in Lahore. He was appointed director of civil engineering of the Government of India Railway Board in 1943” (Obituary: Mr. W.S. Benton// News Letter: Ulster’s Newspaper. June 9, 1983, p. 2). Two manuscript Benton’s curricula vitae included in the archive provide more dates and details of his service in British India, i.e. “repair of flood damage to railway in the United Provinces in 1924,” “1929-1941, North Western Railway – survey of Lyalpur-Chanawala Railway and construction of combined road & railway bridge over the River Chenab at Chiniat,” &c. According to Dorothy Benton’s handwritten note on one of the newspaper clippings, she was employed by MI6 during WW2: “I worked in “Webb’s Dept.” London 1942-3, and in N. Delhi (Nabha House, 1943-45, Old Delhi), secretariat.”

One of the albums in the collection (with a period manuscript inscription “Benton” on the front pastedown endpaper) contains twenty-six photos of a destroyed railway bridge in India, with a wrecked train and scenes of repair works with native labourers and British supervisors. The album with the label “Kashmir, 1923-1933” (over 40 images) shows Benton’s residences (exterior and interior) and automobile, Srinagar (general views featuring Jama Masjid and Hari Parbat fort), countryside in winter, mountains and valleys, rivers and campsites. An album with over 190 gelatin silver snapshot photos, titled “Kashmir” includes views of Srinagar (“Nagim Bagh”/ Nigeen Lake, Dal Lake, Jhelum River, Shalimar gardens, house boats), a series of images from trekking journeys in the “Lidder Valleys, 1930,” “Lidder Valley to Sind Valley – Pass 13,000 feet, September 1933” (Kolahoi Peak, camp in the high altitude pass) and “Sind River and Valley” (Sonamarg hill station, Lidder River bridge near Pahalgam), views of “Residency, Lucknow,” “Punjab Club, Lahore,” “our bungalow, Rawalpindi, Punjab,” Khyber Pass, Bombay, Aden, Port Said, photos from the couple’s leisure trips to “Ferozepore Nallah – Gulmarg, 1944” and Murree, portraits of a “fakir – Chiniot,” a snake charmer, the couple and their friends in New Delhi, Rawalpindi and Lahore, &c. The album, compiled by Dorothy Benton (with over 170 snapshot photos), includes portraits and scenes from her outbound trip to India on board the RMS “Carthage” (January 1937), trips to “Barian near Murree,” Khyber Pass (April 1938), picnics near “Ferozepore Nulla” and Gulmarg, “Pindi Point, Murree,” “off Lahore Road,” views of Rawalpindi (“in the garden of 275 Westridge Rd.,” “R.Pindi Club swimming pool,” portraits of native servants), Srinagar (during a trip on a houseboat – including two panoramas of the Dal Lake), Abbottabad, portraits of “Kashmiri women,” the couple and their friends and colleagues, &c. A caption to one of the photos identifies a depicted man as “Douglas Watterton, was beheaded by the Japs in 1944 after 9 months imprisonment for carrying secret code in a refilled tooth!” The collection also includes portraits of W.S. Benton in childhood and youth, during his military service in the 1910s, as well as images of their family and friends in the United Kingdom.

The loose photographs include five official group portraits featuring Benton during his service in British India in the 1930s- early 1940s: “<…> Inter Centre Kabaddi Tournament, Rawalpindi Division, 1937” “Railway Golf Club, Lahore, 1936,” “Rawalpindi, Punjab, 1940,” “Fare Well to Mr. W.S. Benton, Divisional Executive Engineer, N.W.R. Rawalpindi, 1937-1940” (printed caption with dates added in hand), “Before departure on home leave, 1940, with some of the servants, 275 Westridge Rd., Rawalpindi. There are also several early photos from the times of Benton’s military service in the 1910s (including a group portrait of “Officers Ride, Royal Engineers, Aldershot, 1917”), and portraits of the Bentons after their wedding and during their life in India. Four photos portray Dorothy Benton and her coworkers during the “Breaking-up Party at Nabha House, Delhi, Oct. 9th 1945,” referring to her service as a secretary in the MI-6 office in Delhi during WW2. Her manuscript captions identify several people, including “Deputy Director Censorship,” “Sheena […?],” “Diana,” “Penelope Hunter,” “Peter & Ingrid Papwork,” & others.

The document collection includes W.S. Benton’s and his wife’s birth and marriage certificates, his driving license (with an ink stamp of “The Automobile Association, Northern India, Lahore”), employment certificate from the “Railway Department of the Government of India,” several recommendation letters (during his search of a position in India), a group of private letters and telegrams dating back to the first year of their acquaintance and marriage, manuscript poems, newspaper clippings with biographical details, &c. Very interesting are three letters from the “Centre of South Asian Studies” of the University of Cambridge, sent to W.S. Benton in 1968 “in order to locate archival material of interest to scholars working on South Asia” and asking him to “be so kind as to supply brief biographical details of yourself to include with your material.”

Overall an interesting content-rich archive, illustrating the life of a high-ranking railway official in the Kashmir and Punjab regions of British India in the 1920s-1940s.