Conservation of the Photograph Albums of Edward Walter Hutchinson

Last week, I had the great pleasure of going to Frome, Somerset, to pick up two photograph albums from the conservator, Sarah Allen, specialist photographic material conservator of Lux and Livre. These albums were created by Edward Walter Hutchinson whilst living in Thailand in the first half of the 20th century. The Royal Asiatic Society is very grateful to Graham Jefcoate, a researcher into the history of the foreign community in Siam/Thailand in the early 20th century, who organised the fundraising to enable the conservation. He worked with the manager and staff of the 137 Pillars Resort, Chiang Mai, to hold a special event to raise the money, and the donors included a number of Chiang Mai residents and other people with an interest in the city’s history. This support has enabled the Society to commission both restorative and protective measures to ensure these albums will survive and remain accessible into the future.

I am also grateful to Graham for providing an extended biographical timeline for Hutchinson’s life which has increased my knowledge of him. I first came across Hutchinson when I worked with an archival volunteer in 2016 to catalogue both the albums and a set of his personal papers. At that time we could only discover a limited biography. The papers were given to the Society by a relative of Hutchinson, J.A. Howell, in 1972 and it is assumed that the albums were donated then as well.

Edward Walter Hutchinson was born in Herne Hill, South London, in 1881. He was educated at Dulwich College before entering Peterhouse, Cambridge, from where he graduated with a Classics degree in 1903. In 1904 he was appointed a Forest Assistant in the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation (BBTC) and arrived for the first time in Chang Mai working under the manager, W.W. Wood. He continued to work with the BBTC, with some periods of leave, until 1925, stationed mainly in the Phrae province of Thailand. After retiring he was awarded an M.A. at Cambridge and he compiled A list of books by the King of Siam H.M. Mahâ-Vajiravudh, or Râma the sixth, presented to the Cambridge University Library. He returned briefly to Chiang Mai in 1927 to replace a BBTC employee but was back in England by 1929.

However, in 1931 he sailed on the SS Meonia from Southampton to Bangkok with the intention of undertaking scientific research, and in 1933 he built his residence at Nong Hoi, on the River Ping. He worked as a bank branch manager and began to publish articles in the journal of the Siam Society whilst researching for other publications.

He left the bank in 1940 and began work for the British Consular Service. 1940 also saw the publication by the Royal Asiatic Society of his book, Adventures in Siam in the Seventeenth Century. Hutchinson was appointed Vice-Consul in Saigon and he left his property under the care of his neighbour, Mr Wood. On the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941 he was interned in Saigon and his property was seized for use by the army. He was re-appointed to the Consular Service in 1946 (Acting Consul-General at Saigon) and in 1947 was transferred to Chang Mai as Acting Consul where he applied for compensation for the damage done to his property. Hutchinson had retired again by 1949 and resided first in Zimbabwe and then South Africa until 1969. During this time he continued to publish. In 1969 he returned to England and lived in Bournemouth until his death in 1972.

The photograph albums document both Hutchinson’s life while in Thailand, and ethnographic and geographical details providing a fantastic insight into the history of the country at that time. Before going to the conservator the albums were in a delicate condition – one had lost its tie binding and several of the photos had come loose and were creased or torn. It was important to maintain the integrity of the albums rather than removing individual photographs as Hutchinson had compiled some detailed annotations describing the images. With the work completed the albums are much improved and are able to be handled again. We are extremely grateful to the many people who have been involved in this project to both finance and care for the albums. They are now in a suitable condition for survival into the future.

In other collection news we are pleased to announce the acquisition of two new sets of personal papers. In late October we took possession of the Maulana Jamal Mian Firangi Mahali Archive which also includes historical family papers and documents inherited by Jamal Mian from his father Maulana Qiamuddin Abdul Bari Firangi Mahali. We are grateful to Professor Francis Robinson for initiating this acquisition and to the family of Jamal Mian for agreeing to deposit it with the Society. Professor Robinson used this material in the creation of his book, Jamal Mian: The Life of Maulana Jamaluddin Abdul Wahab of Farangi Mahall, 1919-2012, published by Oxford University Press in 2017. Since acquiring the papers, they have all been housed in archival packaging and are safely stored with our other collections. They will require specialist cataloguing as the majority of the papers are in Urdu.

This week, we acquired a small collection of notebooks belonging to the archaeologist, Reginald Campbell-Thompson. These had initially been deposited with the Griffith Institute, Oxford, who contacted us to inquire as to whether we would be interested in acquiring them as they had no other Campbell-Thompson material. We already had a considerable number of glass slides and a film made by Campbell-Thompson, so we were delighted to acquire some archival papers to supplement them. These arrived yesterday and a volunteer is already researching them to create their catalogue.

Nancy Charley, 8 November 2024.