Three Years in Cairo (1910-1913). Things Egyptian and otherwise.

Oblong small folio (238 x 320 mm). Photo album with 197 albumen prints, mounted between 3 and 6 per page on 49 cardboard leaves. Various sizes, typically 70 x 100 mm. Some larger small-format panoramas. Captioned in ink. Contemporary full cloth with handwritten title-label. An interesting album recording the construction of new British military barracks at Abbassia, Cairo, shortly before World War I. Compiled by James Frazer Annan (1887-1957), a British engineer working for the contractor Henry Lovatt Ltd. in Abbassia between 1910 and 1913. Some 40 photographs depict construction at its various stages, showing workers and equipment, including a concrete mixer, details of walling blocks, column caps and shells, scaffolding, and a consignment of cement, as well as a panoramic view of the construction site from July 1910. - Other images show memorable events including the coronation ceremonies for King George V in 1911, Lord Kitchener presenting prizes at a Rifle Meeting, and the Mahmal passing through Cairo during the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. City views of Cairo and Heliopolis, street scenes "in the Mousky district" and "among the Bazaars", the Eshekieh Gardens, the Pyramids, the Nile barrage and dam, tombs of the Khalifs and "typical Mosque tombs": A few more personal scenes such as Christmas dinner 1910 and a picture of baby "James junior" complete this appealing collection. - Occasional light spotting and duststaining. Provenance: Peter Johnstone, whose paternal grandmother, Elsie Amelia Johnstone, was housekeeper to James Frazer Annan. Peter Johnstone numbered the pages and loosely inserted an autograph description of the album, dated 13 May 1996.