Description
Object description
Album of 174 black and white photographs, plus 10 loose prints, relating to the career of Captain Edward Hale CBE in the Royal Navy. Although Hale served from 1921 through the Second World War, the album only covers the years 1926 - 1929, when he was on the Mediterranean Station as a cadet and midshipman on HMS MALAYA and VOLUNTEER, his time at RN College taking courses for promotion to rank of Lieutenant and a year on the China Station onboard HMS VALENTINE. There are nice portraits of HMS MALAYA entering the Grand Harbour, Malta on 25 October 1926 and the destroyer HMS VOLUNTEER. Also photographs of Gibraltar; an aerial view of the Grand Harbour; the Japanese training cruiser IDZUMO and HM tug RESPOND at Malta, the destroyer HMS WHITSTED at sea and a portrait of Lieutenant G K Rolfe onboard the VOLUNTEER. There are also tourist photographs of places, such as The Acropolis at Athens and Alexandria in Egypt, visited by Hale whilst he served on the Mediterranean Station. The latter include photographs of RN officers during an off duty visit to the beach at Alexandria. Also included in the album are six photographs of exterior views of the buildings making up the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, taken in October 1927. From the following year there are three photographs of HMS DRYAD's sub-Lieutenants Team in the Field Gun Competition at Whale Island (11 May 1928) and a group photograph, with signatures, of 'G' and 'H' Sub-Lieutenants, Whale Island, July - September 1928. From Hale's time on the China Station are a panorama of Hong Kong harbour, dated 10 January 1929; portraits of the destroyers HMS SERAPH, SERAPIS, SIRDAR, SOMME and STERLING; the Yangtze river gunboat USS GUAM (later WAKE) and British cruisers HMS CORNWALL and CUMBERLAND at anchor in Hong Kong harbour; a diver cleaning the propellers of HMS VALENTINE whilst anchored at Hong Kong and Chinese junks and sampans off Hong Kong and Kowloon. There are also a number of interesting photographs showing the former German forts at Tsingtao along with general street views and the Japanese war memorial (taken May 1929) and scenes in Wei Hai Wei including the city gates and Joss House at Port Edward (taken May – June 1929). The album also contains a number of family photographs taken between 1926 – 1929 covering holidays at / visits to Burling Gap in East Sussex; Chagford on Dartmoor (including photographs of the prison at Princetown); Cowdray Park; Kilvedon; Petworth and Switzerland. Also of interest are three photographs of racing cars taking part in a 200 mile race at Brooklands on 25 September 1926 and a sequence taken at the wedding of Anne Elizabeth Adderley Cradock and Major Sir Edmond Adair Hodson (5th Baronet) at Hill House, Sherborne St John, Hampshire, on 28 July 1928.
Physical description
Blue cloth covered album, with black leather spine and corners including gold line detailing, produced by Johnson of London (Standard album S6013), (dimensions: H: 250mm x L: 300mm x W: 45mm), containing 174 black and white prints glude to album pages. Many of the pages bear caption information and dates handwritten in ink. The prints are a variety of sizes as are the 10 loose prints that accompany the album.