Aristocratic Family Photograph albums
Two albums, 1910 and 1919. 1910 c.25 pages, photographs mounted in pairs recto and verso, in leather binding; 1919 c.20 pages, photographs mounted in fours recto and verso, in cloth binding, with wedding photograph mounted on upper pastedown.
The first appears to be the album of the Tennants of Lympne Castle, Kent. Lympne Castle is the first main featured location and amongst the guests are Kathleen (later Duchess of Rutland) and Elizabeth Asquith, daughter of Herbert Asquith and Margot Tennant. The album is an almost stereotypical presentation of Edwardian family life - with trips to the beach and shots of picnics in the countryside - but the younger children still do their best to break the carefully presented image with natural action. There are a number of shots at the opening of the golf course at West Hill, with pictures of guests including Lords Ribblesdale, Bingham and Westmorland and Gerald Balfour (later 2nd Earl of Balfour). The result is a specimen in amber: a freezing of easy power, genteel manners and family connections caught in the twilight years of such lives before the War.

The second album leaps to the other side of that conflict, with an oblique reference in the 'Peace Sports'. The family here is that of the 2nd Marquess of Lithlingow, with a focus on Doreen Hope nee Milner and her children. Doreen was the daughter of Sir Frederick Milner and married Victor Hope, 2nd Marquess, a politician and later Viceroy of India. Again, the album is striking for the idyllic presentation of childhood, with trips to the beach, games in the garden and a pony and trap. The lighter side - including a picture of Doreen changing into bathing suit (a pair of legs emerging from a small tent) - is balanced by the formal wedding photograph, but in general there is a light-hearted sense of fun from following the children about.