A Rare Indian Discovery in Scotland
Historic environment scotland (hes)

A century-old collection of photographs of India was discovered in the archive of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS). This organization is now known as Historic Environment Scotland (HES).

The rare and fragile glass plate negatives, which date back to around 1912, show life on the subcontinent at the high point of the British Raj.

The 178 negatives were stored in their original five-by-eight inch plate boxes and wrapped in copies of the ‘Statesman’ newspaper dating from 1914. Founded in 1875, the ‘Statesman’ is one of India’s largest circulation English language newspapers, and is still published today.

It is unknown how the photographs arrived in the archives of HES,and the identity of the photographer is also a mystery. The photographs can be roughly dated by the fact that they feature the visit of King George V to Calcutta in 1912.

Highlights from the imagery include celebrations for the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to Calcutta in 1912 – the only visit by a British monarch to India while it was still part of the Empire – with the city’s buildings lit up at night in tribute; ships arriving at the Chandpal Ghat, the main landing place for visitors to Calcutta along the Hooghly river; pilgrims gathered for a religious festival on the Maidan, the large urban park at the centre of Calcutta; and merchants selling their wares outside the eleventh century Jagganath Hindu temple in Orissa. All 178 negatives have now been digitised, and you can browse a selection of the best images on the HES website at https://canmore.org. uk/gallery/887455


These are not the the only images of India in the archive collections, archivist Clare Sorensen is currently in the process of scoping other international material from the historic photo albums and more broadly within the collections for digitisation. Digitisation will allow HES to share more of its images of India. As the archive mostly relates to Scotland this is not a huge amount of material, but the Scots went everywhere and took photographs, and a digital copy is the way to share these images which are part of the shared heritage of both countries. In 2015 RCAHMS and Historic Scotland came together to form a new lead public body charged with investigating, protecting and promoting the historic environment. This organisation is called Historic Environment Scotland.