Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album

Part of the Spotlight feature People of India

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

A snapshot of a visit to the Rob Roy tea estate in Kotagiri, 1915, accompanied by a watercolour painting and a portrait of Lord Pentland

Early albums typically consisted of commercially produced vistas, city views, and commissioned ethnographic and studio portraits, often lacking the personal touch. As the access to photography grew, however, more people wanted their individual and family portraits as keepsakes. By the late 1880s, the Eastman Kodak Company had introduced box cameras with roll films, transforming photography into a more accessible hobby. It became so popular that in 1898, one photography journal reported that over 1.5 million Kodak roll-film cameras had got into the hands of amateur enthusiasts. The command and skill of the commercial studio to choreograph a beautiful setting was no longer required. Owning a camera made individuals independent in manipulating and controlling their visual narratives and autobiographies.

Subsequently, a very private archive evolved — the personal or the family album. The family album became the most ubiquitous artefact, a historical record, and a memento of bygone relationships, perceptions and experiences.

Albums of the Sinclair family

One stellar sample of family portraiture is a set of three albums belonging to John Sinclair, the First Lord Pentland, and the Governor of Madras between 1912 and 1919. His tenure saw some of the significant developments of the region, like the construction and opening of the sea bridge linking the mainland and the island of Rameswaram, British India’s participation in World War I and the Home Rule Movement in Madras, led by Subbaiyar Subramania Iyer and Annie Beasant.

These albums, part of the Sarmaya photography collection, contain over 800 silver prints arranged in a scrapbook-like format, accompanied by ephemera, handwritten captions and visual commentary, possibly by the Baroness Pentland, Marjorie Adeline Gordon Sinclair.

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Snapshots of the public arrival of Lord and Baroness Pentland in Madras and surrounding, October 20th, 1912, photographs by Mrs. Elliott

The albums illustrate the personal and official lives of Lord Pentland, Baroness Pentland, their children Margaret (Peggy) and Henry, between the years 1912 and 1922. While there are photos taken in Britain too, their years spent in India are showcased exhaustively in these albums. They also highlight the pomp and circumstance of British India at the beginning of the 20th century. Scenes from high society are portrayed alongside administrative and missionary views. Let us see some of the features of these three albums collectively.

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Experimentation with flashlights and camera, Cambridge square, Christmas Holidays, 1921

First, it’s surprising to discover that these albums have rather economical covers with no introductory or embellished details on the cover or the first page.

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Covers of two out of the three albums belonging to the Sinclair family

Like any typical family album, it has vernacular views and spontaneous moments, influenced by the trends of early-20th century photography culture. Some everyday casual portraits with close friends and relatives also appear in the mix.

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

‘Ooty Mice at Play’: Peggy and John, children of Lord and Baroness Pentland with their caretaker and Miss Bemister, Ooty, 1913, photographs by Miss Bemister

 

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

‘Hunting of the Shark’, 19 February 1913, Madras Harbour

 

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Snapshots of picnics around Ooty with Peggy, John and Baroness Pentland, between 6-15 March, 1915, photographs by Miss Smith

Given the colonial context, the albums offer elaborate photographic documentation of official receptions, formal group portraits, travels, and community pastimes giving us a flavour of the political and cultural milieu of the British Raj. They present an unfailingly decorated picture of a colonial administrator’s life.

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Garden party hosted by Veerabhadra Raja Bahadur, the Zamindar of Kurupam, Vizianagaram district, 20 February 2013. In this picture is also Annie Beasant, a prominent British theosophist, women’s rights activist, and Indian independence leader

 

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Since 1876 there had been schemes for crossing the sea from India to Sri Lanka at the narrowest point in the south called the Adam’s bridge. In 1914, the South Indian Railway completed its new Indo-Ceylon connection between Mantapam, Danushkhodi and Talimanaar. The Pamban railway bridge was opened for traffic on 24 February 1914. The bridge was the only connection to Rameswaram until 1987. The bridge is India’s first cantilever bridge. Lord Pentland was invited to inaugurate it. Pictures show the opening of the South Pier at Dhanushkhodi and ceremonial breakfast with dignitaries and guests.

 

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Madras War Fund Subscribers visit on the Hospital Ship, Madras, 14 November 1914. On top are two before-and-after photographs of the H.S Madras. Pentland’s first contribution to the emergency brought by World War I was creating the Madras War Fund, which he established on 11 August 1914, to support British and Indian troops. Altogether the Fund raised nearly seventy-four lakh rupees, adding to the total just from Madras of one crore rupees. This money was used to equip and maintain the Hospital Ship Madras. The ship had 300 beds, an operating theatre, X-ray and sterilizing rooms, and all the latest apparatus on her maiden voyage in 1914; by 1916 it could house 600 beds. It continued to function as a hospital ship till May 1918.

There are also photographs produced in line with early practices and techniques that betray the photographers’ curiosity about local cultures and people. The images are arranged chronologically and captioned meticulously. Interestingly, what gives the albums a scrapbook-like personality is the ephemera surrounding the photos establishing an emotional connection to certain significant events.

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Snapshots of the local people and market, New Year’s celebration meal, and administrative views from Tinnevelly (Tirunelveli)

 

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Snapshots from Lord Pentland’s tour of South Canara presenting staged scenes and views with the local people, 12-13 November 1914

Finally, the album reveals a growing interest in photography at the time. The photographs in these albums were contributed by several accomplished amateur/professional photographers identified as Lady Flora Poore, Mrs Elliott, Miss Bemister, Miss EJ Torrie, Miss Sinclair, Mrs Corbet, Miss Lloyd, Mrs Scott, Mr Cotterell, Rev. GR Ennis and Mr J Hornell, plus some by Henry John Sinclair.

A comprehensive visual archive like this set of albums prompts us to pause and inquire, ‘What do these photographs reflect?’ If there were no captions, would these albums have the same impact on the viewer as they do now? How did a personal album of a prominent British family find its way out of the family and in another country? Will the album’s standing within the archive change at some point in the future? Furthermore, what possible relationship do I, as a viewer, have with these images?

I looked at the work of experts and scholars who have explored theoretical and practical framing around the subject of family portraiture and albums. I used their understanding and ours to see what can be used to construct logic and interpretation and unlock the spirit of the Sinclair albums.

Idealised narratives

The idea that albums present a romantic view of the family is not uncommon, and many researchers have recognised that in their works. As Mette Sandbye, who studies family portraiture and amateur photography, observes, “Family photography has most often been regarded as a ritualised and deeply ideological bourgeois self-representation.” In her ethnographic study, Şahika Erkonan too notes that photos are chosen exclusively for albums in order to portray a positive and idealised view of the family in the sociocultural context.

This seems true in the case of the Sinclair albums. Given the historical background and the family’s standing, it is reasonable to believe that these albums likely functioned to actualise the features of the Indian natives and the imperial landscape for viewers in another, foreign land.

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

War work at Ladies recreation club, Madras Guards Diamond Jubilee and Subscriber’s meet, 1917

 

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Investiture Ceremony, Madras, 5th April, 1916. When Pentland held Investitures for conferring decorations of the Orders of the Star of India, the Indian Empire, the British Empire, the Kaisar-i-Hind medal, and so on, he had to wear a G.C.I.E. mantle. He had S. Kumaramuthaya, nephew of the Raja of Ettyapuram and Patinjara Covilageth Virarayan Raja, of the Zamorin of Calicut’s family as his attendants

 

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Assorted snapshots, 1916-1917. The bottom most picture shows the Fern Hill, Ooty meet between the Yuvaraja of Mysore and Lord Pentland with stationed officers, possibly getting ready for a hunt, 30 May 1916

Robert Zussman, professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, observes in a 2006 essay that albums toggle between being mere chronicles and absolute blown-up narratives. They are simple listings of events without beginning or ending, nearly without the linking threads that offer them any moral significance. In the Sinclair albums, the juxtaposition of images shows the comfortable yet industrious life of the Governor, and harmony between imperial and native agencies, presenting an idyllic view of that period and glossing over any political tensions. This careful selection and structuring therefore presents a distilled view of the family’s life and works.

Zussman further remarks that the complexity of the content comes not in the arrangement of the subject matter but the reconfiguration of the specific subjects in varying combinations. This is critical in parsing the Sinclairs’ story from these albums.  For example, the page here depicts the Ootacamund (Ooty) Government House grouped with family snapshots that indicate the assembler’s intimate connection between the place and the family.

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Lord Pentland once said about Ooty: “Almost a keen October air and much in the scenery to remind one of Scotland.” The government had its headquarters moved to Ootacamund (Ooty) during the warm season. Ooty, hanging above the Indian plains, was considered an oasis of British culture. After 1870, every year during the summer months, ie from April to October, the machinery of the Madras government was moved there. The album has more photographs of the Ooty Government House than the Madras Government House, highlighting the many days spent at this picturesque location.

When interpreting personal albums, one should be very careful about interpreting someone’s role or demeanour. In building a distinct visual record like this, many variables play a part. Compared to the opulent and bustling photographs portraying life in India, the snapshots that display life in Britain seem much more straightforward. This contrast immediately forces the viewer to look at the photos differently.
Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Snapshots from the House of Cromar, 1-6 August, 1921, photographs by Henry John Sinclair

Talking pictures

What establishes the biographical quality for these albums is the arrangement of images and the handwritten captions. The careful ordering of the snapshots emphasises potential links between one picture and another and the carefully written notes aid in determining historical, social and political context.

Without captions, it is challenging to ‘read’ photographs. This is especially true in the case of the Sinclair albums. Captions are like a voiceover, says Liesbeth Ouwehand, who has studied several personal albums at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies. She believes that it is the moment of compilation that determines how a caption comments on a photograph. In the Sinclair albums, each photograph has a short caption that identifies the photographer’s focus, the year and names detailing who is who.

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Assorted pictures taken using a brownie camera between February and March 1919 around Madras and Dodabetta

The more elaborate captions are saved for more significant official events. One prominent example is this group photograph take at a Union Jack Fete to which various people donated funds. The page has copious notes on these donations.
Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Union Jack Fete, in the Banqueting Hall, 8 -9 December 1917, photographs by Burke B at the Government House, Madras, which hosted the War Fund Fete. The fete was also intended as a political event, in addition to being a fund-raiser for the Madras War Fund. With stalls, raffles, sports, entertainment and food and drink, it was a massive affair. It succeeded in collecting Rs 48,455.13

Apart from captions, we also come across autographs on some pages. In British art historian Geoffrey Batchen’s book Forget Me Not that focuses on the expressions of memory in photographic portraits and paraphernalia, he points out that a common technique used by those who wished to boost the picture’s power was the inscription of signatures. It was a compelling way to make a photograph more than a record of appearance, for a signature is the unambiguous declaration of an individual’s presence, identity and endorsement.

If nothing else, I believe that the signed pages may also function as a proof of their many viewings later in life by those who are represented in the albums. A few examples of these are shown below.

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Portrait of the Government House staff with their signatures, August 1916, arranged with a portrait of the Diwan Bahadur Ramabhadra Naidu, the zamindar of Doddappanayakkanur and his son Nagma Ramabhadra—grouped with a photo of the bridge erected by them in honour of the Governor’s visit

 

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Ooty Hunt Club breakfast meeting, 13 June, 1914. Signatures were taken at the club’s dinner on 10 October 1914

Ephemera like letters, certificate, labels, cards, etc., acts as an additional authentication of a visual story. They persuade the viewer to go back and forth between them and the picture, and create links of their own beyond the plot. The significance of captions and other accompaniments reside in its ability to make information available in many ways. The conscious effort to capture details and make the info noticeable also symbolises the album assembler’s innate attempt to present a narrative sequence that endures.
Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu
Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Opening of Madras Exhibition of Arts and Industries, 27 December 1915 -16 January 1916. The exhibition received over 1,34,000 visitors. A profit of Rs 65,000 was handed over to the Madras Fund

 

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Christmas greetings from the Hospital Ship, Madras, collected from 1914-1918

 

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Lord Pentland visiting Rob Roy, a 425-acre tea estate managed and owned by Mr and Mrs E Sydenham Clarke

Collective memory

In addition to helping us observe the history of a specific family, the photos in these albums allow us to look more closely at the structure and fabric of memory-making. Şahika Erkonan’s notes that family memory is reshaped and created through photographic storytelling in albums. She says, memory is more like a practice in which family members or close friends deal with images, gather them, order them, alter them. And before their narration, this process begins with the creation of photos. While the Sinclair albums focus on one family’s life and work, they also represent individuals and personalities who were part of their journey. The many individuals who contributed, for example, to taking pictures of different activities, whether the ceremonial or the everyday, also participated in memory-making. It is this quality, I believe, which makes the album a vehicle of collective memory.

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Inaugural photographs of the opening of the Pamban railway bridge, 24 February 1914, taken by Mrs Scott and Mr Cotterell

 

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Miscellaneous photographs, Guindy, from 1916 and 1917, photographs by Captain Carleton Smith, Miss Bemister, and Miss Watt

New contexts: challenges and possibilities

Provenance is an essential aspect of an object that determines if collectors and institutions will want to acquire it. It is a mystery as to how the Sinclair albums came to be found in India. One possible explanation for finding such objects far away from the assumed original place is given by Andrew Dearman who examined Danish family albums found in Australia. He states “The explanation given in these markets, for the presence in Australia of what were once highly personal objects originating from the other side of the world, is that death duties in Denmark are so high, deceased estates are often settled overseas to avoid paying inheritance tax.” This could be a plausible reason in the case of our Sinclair albums too. However, at this point, it’s still speculation.

The introduction of these albums to the Sarmaya collection has introduced a new context to the object’s biography. Cataloguing and documentation have also added to the interpretation of these albums. The work doesn’t stop there, the photos and the album as an object will go through a constant interpretation process for as long they continue to be relevant in the public domain. Observers and researchers will come, shape their own meanings and speculations, and therefore keep expanding our perception of the Sinclair albums.

Family Portraiture: An attempt at reading a personal album - Album, Chennai, Family albums, featured, Madras, Madras Presidency, Pentland, photography, Portraits, Tamil Nadu

Goodbye to Madras; various view on the last day in Madras and the harbour, 29 March 1919

Going through photo albums is a venture into nostalgia and the lands of the familiar and the unknown. The Sinclair albums can be variously valued as historical records. However, as a viewer, I understand that the meaning of each photograph is not static. Viewer’s perception, responsiveness or reactivity and knowledge help create a distinct meaning within a specific context. The Sinclair albums offer a rich visual narrative to connect the family’s identity and its memory in the cultural, political and social context of the mid-20th century. Through intimate portraits, they reflect the development in the articulation of the self, the empire and a new nation in the making.

 

References

Dearman, A. (2008, November). ‘Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.’ Performing disjunct memory through an early 20th century Danish family photo album—in early 21st century South Australia. Retrieved 2021

 

Erkonan, Şahika. (2014). Family Photographs: Exploring The Role of Photography in the Construction of Family Memory With the Ethnographic Method. Moment Journal.

Fineman, Mia. “Kodak and the Rise of Amateur Photography.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–.

Mette Sandbye (2014) Looking at the family photo album: a resumed theoretical discussion of why and how, Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, 6:1

 

Ouwehand, Liesbeth. (2019). Hidden narratives; Personal albums from the KITLV collection and their captionsUntitled. Wacana.

 

Sinclair, M., Lady Pentland. (1928). The Right Honourable John Sinclair, Lord Pentland, G.C.S.I: A Memoir. London.

Zussman, R. (2006). Picturing the self: My mother’s family photo albums. Contexts, 5(4), 28-34. Retrieved January 16, 2021