Photo 667/3

Full leather bound album measuring 352 x 500 mm, decorated with blind tooling, and with initials 'A.P.' stamped in gold in centre of front cover. The album is numbered '4' on the front cover. The album is enclosed in a card slipcase. Prints are mounted several to a page, with handwritten captions and identifications in ink beneath each image.The views in this album are almost entirely amateur work, the majority taken by Parsons himself, and the contents can be broken down into the following broad headings:

Prints 1-117 Snapshot views in Rhodes, Istanbul, Cyprus, Damascus, Iran, 1932.

Prints 118-282 Snapshot views in Afghanistan and North-Frontier, with a few views of Delhi, 1932-35.

Prints 283-299 Snapshot views of Elephanta Island (283-4) and Sri Lanka, 1935.

Prints 300-316 Snapshot views of Malaysia (mainly Malacca and Penang), 1935.

Prints 317-458 Snapshot views of Sumatra and Java (general views, archaeological sites), 1935-6.

Prints 459-462 Snapshot views at Penang and Singapore, 1936.

Prints 463-469 Snapshot views of Egypt, 1936.

Prints 470-478 Snapshot views in the North-West Frontier Province,1936.

Prints 479-495 Snapshot views of architecture at Agra, Sikandra, Fatehpur Sikri and Multan, 1936.

Prints 496-530 Snapshot views on the North-West Frontier, 1937.

Prints 531-546 Snapshot views in England, Amsterdam, Naples and Basra, 1938.

Prints 547-588 Snapshot views in Afghanistan, North-West Frontier and the Makran, 1938.

Prints 589-595 Snapshot views in Delhi, 1939.

Prints 596-645 Snapshot views on the North-West Frontier, 1939. Sukkur, Quetta, Peshawar, Swat. Drosh, Gilgit, etc.

Prints 646-659 Snapshot views at Jaipur, Amber and Agra, 1939.

Complete collection comprises Photo 667/1-4. See also Mss Eur D. 696.

Major General Sir Arthur Edward Broadbent Parsons (1884-1966) entered The Sherwood Foresters in 1906 and the 52nd Sikhs Frontier Force in 1908. He joined the Indian Political Department in 1919 and served in the Third Afghan War 1919 and the Waziristan Operations of 1921-22. From 1936-39 he was Agent to the Governor General, Baluchistan, in the latter year also serving as Acting Governor, North-West Frontier Province. He served at GHQ, Middle East from 1943-44.