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Poona Plague Pictures
96.R.95
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Title: Poona Plague Pictures
Date (inclusive): 1897-1908,
undated
Number: 96.R.95
Physical Description:
1 album(s)
(147 photographs and 4 loose items)
Repository:
The Getty Research Institute
Special Collections
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles 90049-1688
reference@getty.edu
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/askref
(310) 440-7390
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: Collection material is in
English .
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.
Open for use by qualified researchers.
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Poona plague pictures, 1897-1908, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no.
96.R.95.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa96r95
Acquired in 1996.
Cataloged in 1996 by Ruth Lachman. In 2014 Beth Ann Guynn substantially updated the
cataloging and wrote the finding aid.
The collection was digitized by the repository and the images are available online:
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/96r95
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.
Arranged in a singles series:
Series I: Poona plague pictures,
1897-1908, undated.
Sclanders, Alexander
Stewart, F.B. (Francis Benjamin)
Adams-Wylie, Lilian Oimara
Diseases -- Complications -- India
Epidemics -- India
Plague -- India
Great Britain -- Colonies -- Administration
Great Britain -- Colonies -- India
Gelatin silver prints -- India -- 20th century
Pune (India) -- Social conditions
Photographs, Original
Panoramas -- India -- 19th century
Gelatin silver prints -- India -- 19th century
Albumen prints -- India -- 19th century
Group portraits -- India -- 19th century
Photograph albums -- India -- 19th century