Author: [PHOTOGRAPHY - INDIA]. [W. RAHN (photographer).]
Title: [Album with photographs of the Tirah Expedition].Including:- Key [manuscript identifying sitters in 1 photograph in the album]. 2 loose leaves.- [Manuscript list of captions to 10 photographs in the album]. 1 leaf.Kirkee (Pune, India), Sappers and Miners' Press, [1898]. Folio album (40 x 33 cm). A photo album with 53 photographic prints on 12 paperboard leaves, hinged to stubs with 3 cords. Including 9 large albumen prints from 21 x 26.5 cm to 13.5 x 29 cm, 43 gelatin silver prints from 12 x 18 cm. to 9 x 10.5 cm., and a loosely inserted large albumen print 21 x 28.5 cm on a similar paperboard support. Contemporary cloth with closing straps. Manuscripts loosely inserted in the album.(2) PARK, Superintendent. 1898. Catalogue of photographs by Sergeant A.J. Clarke R.E. taken during Tirah Expedition, 1897-1898. [Kirkee (Pune, India), Sappers and Miners' Press, 1898]. Small folio (22 x 14.5 cm), [4] pp. With a lithographed title-page. Loosely inserted in the album.
Description: Collection of photographs taken by a British Indian Army officer who served in the Peshawar Column during the Tirah Expedition in the Northwest Frontier of India from June 1897 to April 1898, including a manuscript “Key” that identifies seven British officers that are in the first photo of the album and a list of captions to 10 photos in the album.The Tirah Expedition was aimed against the Afridi and Orakzai tribes in British India’s Northwest Frontier (modern-day Khyber Pashtunkhwa province of Pakistan). One of many Northwest Frontier campaigns of British India, the Tirah campaign concentrated on the area west and south of Peshawar, in the mountainous region between the valleys of the Bara and Kohat Rivers. The album primarily documents the actions of the Tirah field force’s Peshawar Column under command of Brigadier-General Arthur George Hammond (1843-1919), which followed the route of the Bara Valley.The present photo album contains 8 large albumen photos documenting the movement of the Peshawar Column. The large photos were taken by W. Rahn, according to the memoirs of Peshawar Column officer Richard Thomsett, “we had a photographer named Rahn with the column, and he accompanied us until we arrived at Ali Masjid in December [1897], when an accident necessitated his returning to India. Rahn was a German who had come out to the East some twenty years before and seemed to be ubiquitous, for wherever we were, there he was with his camera ready, and I must say he took some very excellent pictures”.The present album also includes 43 smaller gelatin photos, with manuscript captions for 10 of them on a small piece of paper, perfectly describing the photos on leaves 5 and 9 of the album. The album is supplemented with a rare 4-page brochure, no doubt produced in a small print-run, that lists 99 photos. About 20 have been marked by hand in pencil, probably by the album’s compiler. The brochure indicates that the present photos could be purchased from the Bombay Sappers and Miners.8 of the large photos have contemporary manuscript captions in ink on the mounts. 2 marks on the front paste-down reading "photographs by British Royal Engineers. Tirah Expedition 1897-1898”, [North India]. Binding slightly rubbed on extremities, the original 5 cords replaced with 3 new black cords, hinged to stubs . A few images mildly faded. The additional manuscript leaves foxed and worn. Otherwise in good condition.l The navy and army illustrated, V, no. 53, 24 December 1897, pp. 150-152 (4 of the 8 large photographs) & no. 57, 18 February 1898, p. 275; R.G. Thomsett, With the Peshawar olumn. Tirah expeditionary force, London, 1899, pp. 103-104.

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