Processing History
Scope and content of Collection
Preferred Citation
Publication Rights
Access
Biographical/Historical Note
Acquisition Information
Arrangement
Digitized Material
Contributing Institution:
Special Collections
Title: Poona Plague Pictures
Creator:
Adams-Wylie, Charles Henry Benjamin, 1871 or 1872-1900
Identifier/Call Number: 96.R.95
Identifier/Call Number: /repositories/3/resources/607
Physical Description:
1 album(s)
(147 photographs and 4 loose items)
Date (inclusive): 1897-1908, undated
Abstract: The album, most likely compiled by Dr. C. H. B. Adams-Wylie, the plague medical
officer at the General Plague Hospital in Poona (Pune), India, from 1897-1898, records the work of that hospital in great
detail. The photographs
portray the daily work of the hospital and include portraits of hospital staff, views of the hospital wards and grounds, and
detailed close-up studies
of plague patients. Photographs taken outside the hospital compound document the measures instituted by Pune's Special Plague
Committee and enforced by
the British and native soldiers, such as forced house inspections and the holding of residents within observation and segregation
camps.
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Language of Material:
English .
Processing History
Cataloged in 1996 by Ruth Lachman. In 2014 Beth Ann Guynn substantially updated the cataloging and wrote the finding aid.
Scope and content of Collection
The album was most likely compiled by Dr. Charles Henry Benjamin Adams (later Adams-Wylie), who served as the plague medical
officer at the General
Plague Hospital in Poona (Pune), India, from some time in 1897 until his departure on January 15, 1898, as jubilantly noted
in the caption for a general
view of the hospital.
The album records the work of the General Plague Hospital in great detail. The photographs document the daily work of the
hospital and include
portraits of hospital staff, views of the hospital wards and grounds, and detailed close-up studies of plague patients. Photographs
taken outside the
hospital compound document the measures instituted by Pune's Special Plague Committee and enforced by the British and native
soldiers, such as the
white-washing of homes; views of the segregation camps where residents were sent while their districts were disinfected; and
views of the observation
camps that held households with family members known to have the plague; as well images of burial grounds and Hindu funeral
pyres.
Also included in the album are plague-related photographs taken in Bombay, including a view of the Jamisetji Hospital, and
other photographs taken in
Sukkur and Reti that appear to be of a more personal nature. Adams-Wylie appears in the General Plague Hospital staff group
portraits in the album's
opening pages as well as in the snapshot captioned "The Chummery."
Several of the 148 photographs (including the two-part group portrait panorama) in the album are by or can be attributed to
Pune-based British
photographer F. B. Stewart, including a number that were reproduced in the illustrated weekly news journals
The Sketch
and
The Graphic. Other photographs of a more amateur nature were likely taken by Adams-Wylie or his close associates.
Titles for the photographs are taken from the handwritten captions, unless otherwise noted. Consequently, some titles may
include language now
considered to be racist or biased. All photographs are gelatin silver prints except for a handful noted as being albumen prints.
Inserted loose in the album are four additional items, at least three of which can be tied to C. H. B. Adams-Wylie and his
wife Lilian. These include a
letter from Lilian's uncle, Alexander Sclanders, primarily concerned with the setting of her wedding date to Dr. Adams and
asking the couple to
reconsider going to plague-ridden India when, as he suggests, Adams could easily set up a practice in a desirable location
in England. He asks that both
Lily and Adams discuss their plans with him. Also present are a small snapshot of two young couples in fancy-dress marked
"Adams" on the verso and a
group portrait of the staff of Adams-Wylie Hospital taken in 1908. A photograph of an Indian temple complex is the fourth
item found loose in the
album.
The album is half-bound in green and black morocco leather with "Photographs" embossed in gilt on the front cover. The front
flyleaf bears the title
Poona Plague Pictures written in a devised font composed of bones and skulls.
Preferred Citation
Poona plague pictures, 1897-1908, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 96.R.95.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa96r95
Publication Rights
Access
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Biographical/Historical Note
Bubonic plague, as part of the widespread third plague pandemic, reached the Indian subcontinent from China, where it had
first appeared in 1855,
around 1896. Appearing first in coastal cities, it spread to the inland city of Poona (Pune) in the state of Maharashtra late
in 1896, and by February
1897, with a raging mortality rate double the usual epidemic norm, half the city's residents had fled to outlying areas. In
order to bring the plague
under control W. C. Rand, an Indian Civil Service officer and head of Pune's newly-formed Special Plague Committee, instituted
what were seen by the
native population as excessively strict safety measures. These included the use of British and native troops to enforce entry
into private dwellings for
the examination of occupants and the discovery of afflicted or deceased persons; removal of residents to hospitals or observation
and segregation camps;
the destruction of possibly contaminated personal possessions; preventing plague victims from entering or exiting the city;
restriction of the burial of
plague victims to designated rather than traditional burial grounds; and the banning of traditional Indian medical practices.
Although the extreme
measures quickly brought the epidemic under control, response to their severity fomented rebellion in an already politically
charged district. Despite
the fact that the measures were lifted a few months later on May 19, resentment was such that on June 22 Rand and his military
escort, Lt. Ayerst, were
assassinated by the Chapekar brothers on their way home from the celebration of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee at Pune's
Government House. Such
events, along with the spread of plague to rural areas, caused the British government to switch tactics and focus instead
on mass inoculation using the
plague vaccine developed by Waldimar Haffkine, a Russian Jewish bacteriologist.
Charles Henry Benjamin (C.H.B.) Adams-Wylie was one of the junior British doctors who served at the General Plague Hospital
in Pune in 1897 and 1898,
where he was a plague medical officer known then as Dr. Adams. He was born in 1871 or 1872 and did his medical training at
Edinburgh University and
Middlesex Hospital. In 1899 he married Lilian Oimara Wylie, a trained nurse, and changed his name to Adams-Wylie by deed of
poll. Shortly thereafter
Adams-Wylie was commissioned into the Indian Medical Service as a lieutenant and the couple went to Bombay, where they worked
tirelessly vaccinating
victims against plague, paying for additional plague vaccination incentives and food for the poor with their own funds. In
1900, after the advent of the
Second Boer War, Lt. Adams-Wylie served as a medical officer to troops transferring to South Africa. He subsequently volunteered
as a sanitary worker at
Bloemfontein while Lilian, known to her family as Lily or Julia, went to Capetown as a nurse. Lt. Adams-Wylie died at Bloemfontein
from enteric fever
that same year. After his death Lilian Adams-Wylie continued in her nursing career. In 1902 she founded the Adams-Wylie Memorial
in Bombay for the poor
in honor of her late husband. In 1904, she married Charles Hotham Montague Doughty, an army officer and diplomat and the nephew
of the travel writer
Charles Doughty, who also appended Wylie to his name. Doughty-Wylie fell at Gallipoli in 1915; his wife died in Cyprus in
1961 after a long and
distinguished medical career.
F. B. (Francis Benjamin) Stewart was a British photographer and filmmaker who was based in Pune beginning in the 1880s. He
worked for the British
military and government as well as for private businesses such as the Warwick Trading Company. He died in Pune in 1919.
Acquisition Information
Acquired in 1996.
Arrangement
Arranged in a singles series: Series I: Poona plague pictures, 1897-1908, undated.
Digitized Material
The collection was digitized by the repository and the images are available online:
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/96r95
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Diseases -- Complications -- India
Epidemics -- India
Gelatin silver prints -- India -- 20th century
Pune (India) -- Social conditions
Plague -- India
Photographs, Original
Panoramas -- India -- 19th century
Gelatin silver prints -- India -- 19th century
Albumen prints -- India -- 19th century
Great Britain -- Colonies -- Administration
Great Britain -- Colonies -- India
Group portraits -- India -- 19th century
Photograph albums -- India -- 19th century
Sclanders, Alexander
Stewart, F.B. (Francis Benjamin)
Adams-Wylie, Lilian Oimara