Photo 1085/6

Red cloth bound album measuring 280 x 225 mm, containing 19 pasted down prints and 114 loose prints, the majority uncaptioned. Only a few pages of the album are filled and the loose prints were presumably intended for pasting in. The material dates from the period when Hugh Lewin Monk worked as an engineer on the Mu Valley State Railway in Burma (see biographical note below) and contains portraits of colleagues, railway construction scenes, landscapes and architectural views. Some of the photographs, which are of varying and mainly amateur quality, may well have been taken by Monk himself.

Hugh Lewin Monk (b. 1844) was trained at the Thomason Civil Engineering College at Roorkee and joined the Indian Public Works Department as an Apprentice Engineer, Central Provinces, in September 1865, transferring to the Punjab in December of the same year. In 1869 he transferred to the State Railways Department and was posted to the Indus Valley State Railway in December, transferring to the Punjab Northern State Railway in January 1870. In 1873 he was posted to the Jhelum Bridge Division and in 1874 to the Indus Valley Railway (October) and the Sutlej Bridge (November), returning to the Indus Valley Railway in May 1879 after his return from furlough (1877-79). He subsequently worked on the Sukkur-Dadur Railway (September 1879), the Kandahar Railway (February 1880), the Rewari-Ferozepore Railway (September 1881), the Jumna Bridge Division (August 1883), the Benares-Rae Bareli Railway Survey (December 1883) and the Cawnpore-Kalpi Railway (April 1884). In August 1884 he was posted to the Kalpi Bridge Division and was placed in charge of the Kalpi-Jhansi Division of the railway in addition to his other duties in December 1885. His services were lent to the Indian Midland Railway Company from March 1887 to March 1888. He was on special leave from 1888-89 and on his return became Personal Assistant to the Chief Engineer of the Mu Valley Railway, Burma. He remained in Burma, rising to Officiating Engineer-in-Chief of the Burma State Railway, until 1896, when he was posted to the North-Western Railway. In November 1897 he was appointed Engineer-in-Chief, Railway Surveys, North-Western Railway and in May 1898 he became Consulting Engineer to the Government of India for Railways in Assam.