Photo 1256/2

Blue cloth-covered photograph album measuring 185 mm x 275 mm, containing 164 b/w prints, most measuring approximately 63 x 104 mm (or reverse), neatly captioned in ink on the print. The photographs were taken during military service in Iran during World War I: scenes include soldiers embarking at Karachi, views at Basra, Baghdad, Amara, Kermanshah, Bisitun, and portraits of Persian types.

Biographical note:

Arthur Reginald Brand MBE (1895-1971), was the son of Major George Ellard Brand, 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 Sybil Mary 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.