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African photographs in the Royal Commonwealth Society Library

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2022

John Falconer
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Extract

Originally named the Colonial Society, and also known variously in the stages of its history as the Royal Colonial Institute (1870-1928) and the Royal Empire Society (1928-1958), the Royal Commonwealth Society was founded in 1868 as ‘a place of meeting for all gentlemen connected with the Colonies and British India’ and as a centre for the study of colonial affairs. A library was one of the major objects of its founders and photographic material was early seen as an integral part of a collection attempting to present a comprehensive survey of the concerns of empire. The Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute for 1896, and for several succeeding years, invited ‘donations of photographs of the various Colonies … from Fellows and others’, and this brief appeal seems to have met with considerable success on an individual level, with many accessions dating from around this period.

Type
Articles
Information
African Research and Documentation , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , 1983 , pp. 12 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1983

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References

Notes

1. Although the racial composition of the membership was inevitably largely Anglo-Saxon, by the 1880s there were a number of Indian and African Fellows. For a more detailed description of the R.C.S. portrait collection, see, Simpson, D.H., Let this fellow be looked to (R.C.S. Library Notes, new series no. 188, February 1973)Google Scholar.

2. The collection contains much modern material on general topics, but this outline concentrates almost exclusively on pre-1914 material.

3. The originals of these daguerreotypes are no longer in existence, but aquatints engraved from them were published in Lerebours’, N.P. Excursions daguerriennes: vues et monuments les plus remarquables du globe (published in parts, Paris, 1841-43)Google Scholar.

4. Egypt and Palestine photographed and described. Preface.

5. The origins and growth of photography at the Cape are described in detail in Bull, Marjorie and Denfield, Joseph, Secure the shadow: the story of Cape photography from its beginnings to the end of 1870 (Cape Town, 1970)Google Scholar.

6. This memorial volume was evidently a financial success and the format was repeated in Shadbolt's two volume The Afghan Campaigns 1878-1880(1882).

7. For an entertaining history of Futki's career in Uganda, see, Thomas, H.B., ‘Futki’ and some other elephants (Uganda Journal, Vol.4, 1936, pp. 151–155)Google Scholar.