Chief Olowa at Jubilee Durbar, Lagos, June 22 1897

A print measuring 207 x 139 mm. The print is mounted on card, on the reverse of which is the carefully printed caption reading: 'Chief Olowa and other representatives from His Majesty the Awajale of Jehu at the Durbar held at Lagos on the 22nd of June 1897 on the occasion of the celebration of Her Majesty the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Orange House, Lagos, West Africa'. A group photograph showing Chief Olowa and retinue gathered in the garden of Orange House, Tinubu Square, Lagos.
The annual report for 1897 includes a description of the event: 'The celebration of the 60th Anniversary of Her Majesty's Accession was utilised by him [Governor H.E. McCallum] as the occasion for bringing together at headquarters a representative gathering of native kings and chiefs, collected from all parts of the Colony and Protectorate, that was probably unique in the history of Lagos for numbers and importance. Many distant and widely separated people met at Government House in June last, to find for the first time that they had one interest and sentiment in common - that of allegiance and loyalty to the Queen - and it cannot be doubted that such a gathering of the clans, some of them perhaps not over-fond of one another, under one standard, must have a vast and most important effect upon the Colony'.

The card on which this print is mounted is stamped in gold 'Holm. The Native Photographer, Gold Coast, Lagos and Districts, West Africa'. Holm (b. 1865) went into business as a photographer in Accra in about 1882, and was enrolled as a member of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain in 1897. He moved the business to Lagos in 1896. In 1910 he went to England and studied law, being called to the Bar in 1917 and then returning to Lagos to practise as a barrister. His son J.A.C. Holm (b. 1888) had meanwhile joined the firm around 1906 and ran the business while his father was in England. A new branch was opened in Accra in 1919.

Unless restrictions apply, the collection is open for consultation by researchers using the Manuscripts Reading Room at Cambridge University Library. For further details on conditions governing access please contact mss@lib.cam.ac.uk. Information about opening hours and obtaining a Cambridge University Library reader's ticket is available from the Library's website (www.lib.cam.ac.uk).

Photograph presented by J.A. Otonba Payne, cousin of the Awajale of Jehu, July 9th 1897.

Includes index.

A catalogue of the collection can be found on ArchiveSearch.

CN This collection is available on microfiche: Africa, fiche numbers 42.

Good condition.

For further information on N. Walwin Holm and his son, J.A.C. Holm, see: Macmillan, Allister (1920), 'The red book of West Africa; historical and descriptive, commercial and industrial facts, figures and resources', London, W.H. and L. Collingridge, pp.132 and 210.

This collection level description was entered by KS using information from the original typescript catalogue.

Holm, N Walwin, b 1865, photographer