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Pratt (Henry Marsh) Album
2018.R.25
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Contributing Institution: Special Collections
Title: Henry Marsh Pratt album
Creator: Pratt, H. M. (Henry Marsh), 1838-1919
Creator: Shepherd, Charles, (Photographer)
Identifier/Call Number: 2018.R.25
Physical Description: 1.5 Linear Feet(1 album)
Date (inclusive): 1858-1906
Physical Location: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the
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Abstract: The album, which Lieutenant Colonel Henry Marsh Pratt began compiling in 1868, offers a uniquely personal record of Pratt's
professional and family connections in both India and England. Depictions of the Pratt family of Norfolk, England, with frequent
appearances by Henry Marsh Pratt, and views of country homes associated with the Pratt family circle made by unidentified
amateur and professional photographers, are mingled with views of India by professional photographers such as Samuel Bourne,
Charles Shepherd, and William Henry Baker (also represented as W. Baker & Co. and Baker & Burke), and with carte-de-visite-sized
portraits and views by photographers working in Europe and India, including André́-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri; Charles H. Reutlinger;
Hills & Saunders; the London Stereoscopic Company; and Window & Bridge.
Language of Material: Collection material is in English.
Henry Marsh Pratt album, 1858-1906, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2018.R.25.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2018r25
Colonel Henry Marsh Pratt (1838-1919) was the son of the Reverend William Pratt of Harpley, Norfolk, and a descendant of Edward
III. In November 1856 he joined the Indian Staff Corps, his section of which became the Bengal Staff Corps in 1861. He was
present at the 1857 mutiny of the 51st Bengal Infantry; served in the Second Anglo-Chinese War in 1860; took part in the march
from Kabul to Kandahar and the battle of Kandahar during the second Anglo-Afghan War of 1878-1880; and commanded a column
of the Hazars Field Force during the 1888 Black Mountain Expedition (Tor Ghar, now northwestern Pakistan). Pratt was made
Companion of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath (CB) when he retired from the British army in 1889. He married Evelyn Margaret
Freake Glyn in 1891 and they had two daughters, Pleasance Millicent Mary Pratt and Evelyn Lucy Pratt.
Sources consulted:
Buckland, Charles Edward, "Pratt, Henry Marsh (1838-),"
Dictionary of Indian Biography. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1906.
Cox, Horace, "Pratt, Col. Henry Marsh,"
Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. London: Horace Cox, 1912.
Ruvigny et Raineval, Melville Henry Massue, marquis de,
The Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal: The Mortimer-Percy Volume. Westminster, Maryland: Heritage Books, 2011.
Terpak, Fran, "Acquisition Approval Form for Pratt Family Album, ca. 150 albumen photographs from India and Norfolk, 1860s
and 1870s," accession no. 2018.R.25, April 6, 2018.
The collection is arranged in a single series: Series I. Henry Marsh Pratt album, 1858-1906.
Open for use by qualified researchers.
The collection was digitized by the repository in 2020 and the images are available online:
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Acquired in 2018.
Beth Ann Guynn wrote the finding aid in 2020.
Scope and Content of Collection
The album, which Lieutenant Colonel Henry Marsh Pratt of the Bengal Staff Corps began compiling in 1868, offers a highly personal
record of Pratt's professional and family life and connections in both India and England. Depictions of the Pratt family of
Norfolk, England, with frequent appearances by Henry Marsh Pratt, and views of country homes associated with the Pratt family
circle made by both unidentified amateur and professional photographers, are mingled with views of India, including images
taken by an amateur photographer(s) in which Pratt is present, as well as those made by professional photographers such as
Samuel Bourne, Charles Shepherd, and William Henry Baker (also represented as W. Baker & Co. and Baker & Burke), and with
carte-de-visite-sized (i.e. mostly unmounted) portraits and views by photographers working in Europe and India, including
André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri; Charles H. Reutlinger; Hills & Saunders; the London Stereoscopic Company; and Window & Bridge.
The album was added to into the early twentieth century. Contributions to it were made by members of the extended Pratt family,
who are referenced throughout the album.
The album contains 22 large photographs; 52 photographs of various smaller sizes; 74 carte-de-visite-sized photographs; and
six prints in various media. Two loose photographs were also inserted in the album. Also in the album are four watercolor
sketches of country homes (one signed "Eva" and another "Evelyn Faskin," both likely by Pratt's youngest sister Evelyn): three
are of homes in England and one is of H. M. Pratt's home in Abbottabad, India. Twenty-four pages of the album are decorated
with watercolor borders signed variously B. & L.; Eva; L. L. P. (Laura Louisa Pratt); and Harriet Pratt. The borders range
from geometric designs, some of an Indian or eastern nature, to florals, and to charming vignettes and motifs that often relate
to the photographs they surround. For example, views of the Gaynes Park manor house are bordered with depictions of fruits,
vegetables, and agricultural motifs, while the photographs of the 1871-1872 Edwardesabad hunt season are surrounded by hunt
scenes and devices.
Indian subjects include views of Kashmir (Srinagar, the Jhelum River, and the Himalayas) and Dharamshala; a view of the Taj
Mahal; group portraits of Kashmiri Nautch girls, Tibetans, and Affreedies (Khyber Rifles); and two group portraits related
to HRH Edward, Prince of Wales's visit to India in 1876. Wales himself appears seated in the center of the large group assembled
in Lahore. The album also contains views of Sandringham, his country home in Norfolk. Carte-de-visite-sized portraits of personages
with connections to India include British army officers, doctors, and others associated with the Punjab and Sikh regiments
of the North West Frontier Expeditions; military wives; Indian officers such as Subadar Major Gomandha Singh and Mahammad
Hayat Khan; and the explorer and author Robert Shaw and his daughter, Clara Shaw Younghusband, who appear in Central Asian
dress. Most of these portraits are found in the later pages of the album along with portraits of friends and family members,
actors, courtesans, royalty (Napoleon III; Empress Eugénie; Louis Napoléon, Prince Impérial; Prince George, Duke of Cambridge;
Princess Alexandra of Denmark), and other English and European personalities of the day.
A few images are unrelated to either England or India. The album opens with two views of the pyramids of Gizeh by Wilhelm
Hammerschmidt. Found in later pages of the album are two full plate views of Hyrès, France, signed G. J.
The album is half bound in dark brown calf with gilt tooling and brown pebble-grained cloth boards. In most cases English
captions are written on the album mounts above or below the images; these captions are used as image titles unless otherwise
noted.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Country homes -- England -- Norfolk
Country life -- England -- Norfolk
Manors -- England
Pyramids of Giza (Egypt)
England -- Description and travel
Himalaya Mountains -- Description and travel
India -- Description and travel
Kashmir -- Description and travel
Norfolk (England) -- Description and travel
Srinagar (Jammu and Kashmir, India) -- Description and travel
Albumen prints -- India -- 19th century
Albumen prints -- England -- 19th century
Cartes-de-visite (card photographs) -- England -- 19th century
Cartes-de-visite (card photographs) -- India -- 19th century
Collodion prints -- England -- 19th century
Photograph albums -- England -- 19th century
Photographs, Original
Watercolors (paintings) -- England -- 19th century
Dharmāsla (India) -- Description and travel
Hyères, France -- Description and travel
Baker, William, -1880
Bourne, Samuel, 1834-1912
Disdéri, André-Adolphe-Eugène, 1819-1889
Hammerschmidt, W., -1869
Reutlinger, Charles H
Baker & Burke
Burgess & Grimwood
London Stereoscopic Company
W. Baker & Co.
Window & Bridge
Alexandra, Queen, consort of Edward VII, King of Great Britain, 1844-1925
Edward, King of Great Britain, VII, 1841-1910
Great Britain. Army. British Indian Army
Great Britain. Army. Khyber Rifles
Sandringham House (Sandringham, England)