Uganda and Nigeria Photograph album of British colonial Africa taken c.1914-1919. Oblong 4to, black-leather backed boards, c.110 photographs, various sizes, mounted on 48 card leaves with ink MSS captions. The photographer appears to have been in Africa as part of the British Cotton Growing Association. The Association was founded in 1902 by organisations with a shared desire to protect the Lancashire cotton industry from reliance on US cotton. The Association turned to the Empire, offering seed and expertise free of charge to set up plantations and ginneries, later acting as agents for the growers. A number of the photographs show staff, factories, machinery and other elements of the trade in Uganda and Nigeria. Nigeria already had grew some cotton but it was less popular than other cash crops. By 1914 it looked as if the Association efforts would fail. The war boosted prices however and these photographs are from the point fortunes were turning round. Uganda proved to be an excellent location and cotton quickly became the principal cash crop. British links to the country were very strong through the king, Daudi Cwa II, who had been installed by the British after the deposition of his father Mwanga II. The king is shown in some photographs, both in formal poses and more informally with his football team. As well as the expected tourist shots of the source of the Nile, and colonial pastimes like golf, the photographer has attempted to capture the local culture. He is especially fond of contrasting images showing both a native wedding and an English one, or a tribal band next to the Missionary-led one. This extends to the architecture, with photographs of the British cathedral before and after it was destroyed by lightning. The sense is of an Africa on the cusp of modernisation, with a tension between the tribal past and Western future. This is highlighted in the captions to various images, such as the sons of chiefs attending Mission schools. Perhaps the most striking example of the tension from the immediate past is a photograph of a young local boy reading a bible. The caption identifies him as the son of the assassin of Bishop Hannington - killed by Mwanga II, who feared the increase in influence of Christianity at his court. The caption explains that the boy had been educated by Hannington's own son. The album is of great interest from a defining moment in the development of modern Africa - and a mostly forgotten theatre of WWI. It shows early efforts at industrialisation; the tribal lives of the people and the resolutely modernising views of the colonial class; and the landscape that surrounded them all. Even here though the deadly contrasts are emphasised. One shot of trees and water carries the stark caption ''A lovely spot but a death trap. The haunt of the Tetse fly.''