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Details
ROYAL AIR FORCE — COOPER, Donald. [Photograph album. Iraq: 1923-1925.]
Rare album depicting RAF activity in Iraq during the 1920s as the British struggled to maintain imperial grip by use of 'Air Control'. This policy, promoted by Hugh Trenchard, Chief of the Air Staff, was designed to maintain an independent Royal Air Force, separate from the demands of the Royal Navy and British Army. As such, Air Control was a policy of maintaining British imperial rule through the use of air power, with strategic bombing replacing ground troops as a method of policing recalcitrant local tribal populations. This was seen as economically advantageous, and was supported by Winston Churchill, as Secretary of State for War and Secretary of State for Air. The current collection of photographs includes 26 images of military aircraft and scenes of military action, such as armoured cars. There are aerial photographs, including of other aircraft in the air, as well as various ground shots. Two notable photographs include the unveiling of the commemorative statue for Sir Frederick Stanley Maude and the Hinaidi Aerodome, the RAF station near Baghdad. There are 38 photographs of landscapes and landmarks including Maude Bridge in Baghdad, Baghdad North Station and the flood in Mosul in 1923. A further 17 photographs depict life scenes including mosques, silversmiths and women. The owner and photographer of the album is marked on one photograph, and there are two further smaller images of the same person in the collection.
99 original photographs, of which 21 are large format (approx. 155 x 270mm), 71 medium format (various sizes ranging from 84 x 127mm to 117 x 163mm), and small format (ranging from 60 x 60mm to 74 x 103mm), 61 of the medium-sized photographs mounted on 32 leaves, oblong quarto (170 x 237mm). Contemporary cloth (disbound, the whole loose, some protective tissue guards torn and missing; the remaining 38 photographs loose, some with minor marginal tears and dogearing, 2 images torn).
Rare album depicting RAF activity in Iraq during the 1920s as the British struggled to maintain imperial grip by use of 'Air Control'. This policy, promoted by Hugh Trenchard, Chief of the Air Staff, was designed to maintain an independent Royal Air Force, separate from the demands of the Royal Navy and British Army. As such, Air Control was a policy of maintaining British imperial rule through the use of air power, with strategic bombing replacing ground troops as a method of policing recalcitrant local tribal populations. This was seen as economically advantageous, and was supported by Winston Churchill, as Secretary of State for War and Secretary of State for Air. The current collection of photographs includes 26 images of military aircraft and scenes of military action, such as armoured cars. There are aerial photographs, including of other aircraft in the air, as well as various ground shots. Two notable photographs include the unveiling of the commemorative statue for Sir Frederick Stanley Maude and the Hinaidi Aerodome, the RAF station near Baghdad. There are 38 photographs of landscapes and landmarks including Maude Bridge in Baghdad, Baghdad North Station and the flood in Mosul in 1923. A further 17 photographs depict life scenes including mosques, silversmiths and women. The owner and photographer of the album is marked on one photograph, and there are two further smaller images of the same person in the collection.
99 original photographs, of which 21 are large format (approx. 155 x 270mm), 71 medium format (various sizes ranging from 84 x 127mm to 117 x 163mm), and small format (ranging from 60 x 60mm to 74 x 103mm), 61 of the medium-sized photographs mounted on 32 leaves, oblong quarto (170 x 237mm). Contemporary cloth (disbound, the whole loose, some protective tissue guards torn and missing; the remaining 38 photographs loose, some with minor marginal tears and dogearing, 2 images torn).
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Emily Pilling