Description
Object description
One album of photographs relating to the service of William Atkinson with the Royal Tank Corps in India, 1929-1934. These include images taken on the voyage out to India showing Gibraltar, Port Said and the Suez Canal. The RTC barracks at Lahore are shown in a number of photographs, one of which depicts the dining hall decorated for Christmas 1929. Vehicles covered include Rolls-Royce armoured cars and tenders and Guy armoured cars (including one being pulled from a roadside ditch near Ahmednagar). An interesting sequence of photographs shows a demonstration of 'unditching' an armoured car under cover of a smokescreen. Atkinson also took part in tank and tractor trials at Rawalpindi and a number of prints show some of the four Light Tank MK IA (A4E6 - A4E10) being put through their paces. The practice deployment of the tanks and tractors to Razmak on the North West Frontier (NWF) and subsequent trials in April 1931 are also covered. Another sequence of images cover a RTC armoured car company at Ahmednagar (Deccan District) including a number showing the manual 'unditching' of an armoured car. The 1930 Peshawar Riot is covered by four photographs including one showing a RTC armoured car on fire. Atkinson also took photographs when his unit were operating on the NWF covering the Khyber and Kohat Passes, Kauram Valley, parts of the military road linking Razmak, Bannu and Wana in Waziristan, Landi Kotal (fort and rail station), Landi Khana, Bara, Miri Khel, Kakab-Kot, Karawal, Razmak and Wana Camps along with Bannu Fort and post office, Bara Fort and Fort Alexandria. There are also a number of photographs of buildings, monuments and street scenes taken in Bombay (including the Gateway to India), Lahore (including Shalimar Gardens), Dalhousie (the hill station for Lahore), Murree (hill station for Rawalpindi), Peshawar (Edwardes Gate, Matheson memorial). Other important/interesting structures photographed include the Indus and Attock Bridges over the River Indus between Rawalpindi and Kohat, bridges under construction to take the Bannu light railway across the Indus, Salaba Khan's tomb at Ahmednagar, Parsi/Parsee (Zoroastrian) 'Tower of Silence' (Dakhma) including view of decaying corpse and human bones in the interior of the tower, a Pathan village with watch towers near Wana, the Taj Mahal, Legislative Assembly building in New Delhi and the old observatory in Delhi. A final photograph shows part of the annual Proclamation Parade held on New Year's Day to proclaim the British monarch as Emperor/Empress of India. The collection also includeds two sketch maps of the NWF, plus a plan of the 'Tower of Silence' entered by Atkinson and two colleagues with an account of the escapade, which took place on 23 October 1931.
Physical description
Green cloth-covered album with 'Photographs' stamped in gold lettering on front cover. Also on front cover is an adhesive label with number '1'. A map of india is glued inside the front cover of the album. Pages of the album are brown and carry caption information for each photograph (handwritten in ink). Photographs are fixed into the album using photo-corners.