Photo 1256/1

Photograph album measuring 208 mm x 315 mm, containing 72 snapshots inserted in window mounts, the majority with captions written on the album page.

The photographs record the career, social and family life of A. R. Brand of the Indian Forest Service in the 1930s. Locations include Pycara, Beypore, Seringapatam, Madras (Chennai). The album includes views showing countryside, local inhabitants, river trips, houses, domestic life, etc.

Biographical note:

Arthur Reginald Brand MBE (1895-1971), was the son of Major George Ellard Brand (1865-1918), Principal of the School of Arts in Madras. He was born in Coorg in 1895 and attended the Bishop Cotton Boys' School in Bangalore, before studying at the Forest Research Institute and College, Dehra Dun, 1915-1917. He then entered the Provincial Forest Service, where he rose to the position of Assistant Conservator of Forests, Madras, from c.1933-1947. In 1929 he gained a commission in the Army in India Reserve of Officers, posted to the Queen Victoria's Own Madras Sappers and Miners, with the rank of captain. In 1933 he was promoted to the rank of major. In 1920 he married Ada Rolfe (d. 1934), and they had one son, Arthur Percival Rolfe Brand (1924-1994), who served in the Gurkhas with the rank of captain, and in civilian life worked for Royal Insurance, mainly overseas (Hong Kong, Haifa). In 1940, Brand visited the UK for the first time, where he met and married Mary Sybil Garland Payne (b. 1910). They had one daughter, Caroline Mary Garland Adams (b. 1944 in India). In 1946 he was awarded the MBE. They moved to England in 1947, where Arthur Reginald Brand died in 1971.