Photographs of the West Indies

An album of predominantly commercial photographs of varying size. Each photograph is mounted on the album page with a short typescript caption beside it. These captions appear to have been added at a later date. A small number of the photographs are professional prints and have captions within them as well. The photographs are chiefly views of places in the West Indies, together with a few portraits. They mainly show Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Guyana but the album also includes images of Barbados, Dominica, Saint Vincent, Antigua, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Nevis, Saint Thomas and Martinique.
Only eight of the images have definite, identifiable photographers.
Y307A/1 is stamped 'Cooper and Company', presumably of Barbados for that is where the photograph was taken. No further information is available.
Y307A/71-73, 75, 80-82 are by Julio Augusto Siza, a commercial photographer active in British Guiana (now Guyana) during the 1880s and 1890s. He had a photographic studio, known as 'The Lusitana Photographic Gallery', in Water Street, Georgetown, from the mid-1880s to around 1896. Siza was awarded the Bronze Medal at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, London 1886, two medals at the Chicago Exhibition circa 1896 and an Honourable Mention at the Berbice Exhibition.
The photographers of the remainder are unknown. No information is available concerning the identity of the compiler of the album or its provenance.

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).

Includes index.

A catalogue of the collection can be found on ArchiveSearch.

This collection is available on microfiche: South America/Caribbean, fiche number 1-2.

The album, which has been rebound, is in fair condition although the pages are warped, possibly due to water damage, and the ink from the typescript captions has marked them. The photographs are generally in fair condition, with some fading and marking.

This volume forms part of a group of albums containing images from many parts of the world. The others in the group can be found at Y302B, Y3022U, Y30377A, Y3039A and Y305D. They appear to be the collection of a widely travelled individual, but nothing definite is known about their origin.

This item level description was entered by NE and MJC using information from the original typescript catalogue. The first few pages of the catalogue for this collection were lost. As a result, descriptions for the first ten photographs were re-written in February 2004. It has not been possible to establish all the sources used by the original archivist.

Various