G.H. Williams' collection on North Africa

This material is held atRoyal Commonwealth Society Library

Scope and Content

A collection of albums containing postcards and photographs of French North Africa.
These form part of the G.H. Williams' collection, details of which are given in the Manuscript Catalogue entry. This includes a diary kept by Williams during a visit to North Africa 6 March - 10 April 1922. It has several references to collecting postcards (11, 47, 48, 105-106) and mention of photographs is made on almost every page - these have been noted on pages 4,6,7,11,14-22 (some pages with several references), 24-28, 30-32, 37,45, 49, 54-57, 59-60, 64-67, 69-70, 72-75, 78-79. However, none of these clearly relates to the contents of the albums, with the possible exception of Y304L, and indeed, this visit was a very limited one, to a comparitively small area of Tunisia. He was accompanied by his father, also a keen photographer, but his mother remained at home. It is clear, however, that the Williams family often visited North Africa, and most of the following albums therefore relate to one or more visits other than the spring of 1922. Y304J-L have virtually no captions, and brief descriptions have been given - in a few cases a firm identification can be obtained by comparison with items in Y304H-I, but no attempt has been made at an exhaustive comparison.
References to people in the photographs normally refer to indigenous men and women.

Access Information

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).

Acquisition Information

Presented by the Museum of London in January 1985.

Note

Includes index.

Other Finding Aids

A catalogue of the collection can be found on ArchiveSearch.

Physical Characteristics and/or Technical Requirements

generally in good condition.

Related Material

Some account of the collection as a whole will be found in the Manuscript Catalogue and RCMS 53, and Williams' postcards of Canada are found at Y3062I, and photographs of Egypt at Y3041D.

Additional Information

This item level description was entered by NE and MJC using information from the original typescript catalogue.

Williams, George Howard, 1893-1975, businessman