Photo 1228

Maroon half-leather and pebbled buckram album measuring 460 x 315 mm, containing 76 albumen prints and 2 watercolours, the majority mounted one to a page, with titles and descriptive notes in Wingfield's hand; front free endpaper inscribed in pencil, 'Thos. W. Webber Late Conservator of Forests CP India, Kellyville Athy.' Beneath this: 'Photographs of Indian Forests & Forest Trees,' followed by a numbered list of trees featured in the album, with Latin and vernacular names. Most of the photographs are Wingfield's own work (prints 10 and 22 signed in the negative), taken in the course of his work as a forest conservator in the Central Provinces (present-day Madhya Pradesh), the majority apparently dating from around 1870 (a few are precisely dated to this year). In addition to these tree studies, there are a few examples of the work of other photographers, including Samuel Bourne (prints 1-2) and Benjamin Simpson (print 55). At the end of the album (prints 57-76) are a series of carte de visite portraits and stereographic views which appear to pre-date the tree studies and were probably made during the period in the 1860s when Webber was involved in survey and road-building work in the Naini Tal district.