#PF75
Ca. 1920s
Quarto (ca. 26,5x19 cm or 10 ¼ x 7 ½ in). 12 card stock leaves. With 48 original gelatin silver photos, all ca. 8x13 cm (3x5 in), mounted in windows. No captions. Period brown bull cloth album; front cover with a black cloth label with a gilt-lettered title. Paper label with an ink note “Photographs by Verner-Furlong” mounted on the inner side of the rear cover. Binding mildly rubbed on extremities and slightly weakened on hinges, a couple of mounts with minor worm holes, but overall a very good album of interesting strong photos.
Interesting collection of original gelatin silver photos of motor vehicles, garages and mechanical workshops of the Egyptian Ministry of Communications in the 1920s, the period of the country being under control or pronounced influence of Great Britain, either in the form of “veiled protectorate” (1882-1914), formal protectorate (until 1922) or continued military presence (until 1952). The Ministry of Communications was established by the decree of Sultan Fuad (later King Fuad I of Egypt and the Sudan) in 1919, to manage government post office, railways, road communications, and telegraph and telephone lines.
The photographs include several views of government garages and mechanical yards, likely, in Cairo (exterior and interior), automobile and trucks with signs “No. 4 Cairo Fire Brigade,” “G.P.O.” and “Govt. fever hospital,” motorcycles, a pile of rubber tires, portraits of mechanics inside their workshop, a group of firefighters posing with their truck, &c. Several vehicle registration numbers are clearly visible (73 EG, 90 EG, 102 EG, 123 EG and many others); there are also parallel registration numbers in Arabic. Other images show a street in Cairo with the building of the “Motor Union Garage” on the left; trucks on a platform ready for transportation at a railway station; four scenes of the cars’ transportation on barges along the Nile, &c. The album closes with two views of automobiles parked in front of the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut in the Valley of the Kings and at the main entrance to the temple of Edfu. Overall, an interesting collection of early photos of automobiles, garages and mechanical workshops in Egypt in the 1920s. The photographer was probably 2nd Lieutenant William Albert Verner-Furlong (1883-?) of the Royal Flying Corps.
