Eden Gardens, Calcutta - 1875

Photograph by W. G. Stretton taken in the 1870s, part of the Dunlop Smith Collection: Sir Charles Aitchison Album of Views in India and Burma. Eden Gardens, situated at the northern end of the Maidan, in Calcutta, was named after Emily and Fanny Eden, the sisters of Lord Auckland, Governor-General from 1836-1842. The sisters tended the garden (laid out in 1834) when it formed part of the Viceroy's estate and later it became a famous public garden, which now contains the Calcutta Cricket Club. Part of the garden forms the Ranji Stadium where the first cricket match was played in 1864; today Eden Gardens is renowned as a hallowed cricket site where Test matches draw crowds of 100,000. Eden Gardens also contains a Pagoda, brought from Prome in Burma and erected in 1856, by Lord Dalhousie, then the Governor-General.

View of a cricket match in progress on the sports ground at Naini Tal - 1885

Photograph of a Cricket Match at Nainital from the Macnabb Collection (Col James Henry Erskine Reid): Album of views of 'Naini Tal' taken by Lawrie & Company in 1899. The area of the Kumaon Hills had come under British rule after the Anglo-Nepal War (1814-16) but it wasn't until 1841 that P. Barron built the first European house in Nainital. The town became the summer headquarters of the colonial administration of the province. It was a popular retreat for the residents of the plains. Being popular with the British, the town developed a British character with several European schools, barracks and a sanatorium. This view shows a cricket match taking place on the recreation ground known as 'The Flats', built after the landslide disaster of 1880 and situated close to the edge of the large eye-shaped lake from which Nainital takes its name.

Reeta Roy - Miss International Air Hostess 1964

Miss Reeta Roy, an Air-India hostess from Bombay, has won the title of Miss International Air Hostess 1964, from 15 entrants representing many major international and local airlines, at a contest held at Surfers Paradise, a luxury beach resort on the south Queensland Gold Coast Australia

Photographed in 1964

Dhobie (washerman) Ironing - 1870

Carte-de-visite of a dhobi ironing, one of a series of portrait studies of ethnic types and occupations taken by Bourne and Shepherd in the early 1870s. A Dhobi is a washerman and the word is derived from the hindi word dhona meaning 'to wash'. It is commonly used even today in India.

These photographs represent a common theme of traveller’s memoirs and diaries during the period of Colonial expansion in the latter half of the 19th century. As Europeans came into contact with other peoples there was an urge to document different races, customs, costumes and occupations. The diverse racial and cultural composition of the subcontinent became a photographic genre in its own right, due to both the rising science of ‘ethnology’ and to serve the demand for ‘exotic’ souvenirs of the east.

Hill coolies with dandy & Kilta - 1863

Hill coolies with dandy & Kilta
Carte-de-visite portrait of porters, one of a series of prints of ethnic types and occupations taken by Samuel Bourne in 1863. A coolie was a hired labourer or burden-carrier. The term dandy was applied to a kind of vehicle used in the Himalayas consisting of a strong cloth slung like a hammock and attached to a bamboo staff carried by two or more men. The traveller would either sit sideways or lie on his back. A kilta is a wicker basket carried on the back, such as the one shown here in between the porters.

Hindu Sadhu - 1870

one of a series of prints of ethnic types and occupations taken by Bourne and Shepherd in the early 1870s.