Photo 430/7

Wooden box, 412x310mm, in mock-album form, with maroon full-leather covers. The dedication is stamped in gold on the front cover and the sides of the box are gilt. The photographs are individually window-mounted and stacked in the box. Each print has a handwritten inscription, either on the front or inner side of the mount. The photographs comprise topographical, portrait and architectural views in Armenia and Turkey. In his account of his journeys, 'Armenia, travels and studies,' published in two volumes in 1901, where many of these photographs are reproduced, Lynch acknowledged the help of his travelling companion: 'The illustrations are for the most part reproductions of my photographs, being a selection which fills several cases. On my first Armenian journey I was accompanied as far as Erzerum by Mr. E. Wesson of the Ploytechnic in London, who not only developed the films and plates upon the spot, but rendered the most valuable assistance in photographic work...' (preface, vii).

Henry Finnis Blosse Lynch (1862-1913) was called to the Bar in 1887 and joined the firm of Lynch Brothers, eastern merchants, of which he later became senior partner. He travelled extensively in the Middle East, his first journey in 1889 taking him from Alexandretta to Diarbekir via Aleppo on horseback, thence down the Tigris on a raft to Baghdad. He inaugurated a new river service on the Karun River, operating under the British flag and travelled from the Karun across the Bakhtiari mountains to Isfahan, surveying a new trade route into Persia, which was opened by his firm in 1900, through the construction of a caravan road with suspension bridges. His second journey of 1893-94 took him to the Caucasus and Armenia, where he climbed Mt Ararat, surveyed the crater of Nimrud and, assisted by F. Oswald, mapped the country. He was later MP for Ripon 1906-10. His Armenian travels resulted in his book 'Armenia, Travels and Studies' (2 vols, 1901).