Royal Commonwealth Society : Embarkation of horses for the Boer War from Australia, 1900

Unknown

Royal Commonwealth Society

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Collection of loose prints, measuring approximately 200 x 150 mm. With the exception of Y308M/45, they all show horses on the quayside, being embarked, and stabled on board ship, or views of the ships which transported them. Two of the prints (Y308M/2 and 45) have inscriptions in pencil on the backs, in the same handwriting, and some individuals are identified by writing on the actual prints (Y308M/18 and 27). There are no other captions, but some of the ships' names are visible. Twenty-two prints are numbered (Y308M/1, 4-9, 12, 13, 15, 18-24, 28, 31, 34, 42); eight have letters on the back (A-C, F-H, J-K); the remaining fifteen are not numbered. </p><p style='text-align: justify;'> The photographs probably represent departures from two ports in New South Wales, Sydney and Newcastle, the majority from Newcastle. F.H.H. (Y308M/18) may be Frank Henry Houlder, Managing Director of Houlder Brothers, based in London but with branches in Buenos Aires, Sydney, Liverpool, Glasgow, La Plata and Rosario. This firm had acted as brokers for the Remount Department 1900-1901, furnishing shipping from its own and its associated company, Houlder Line, for about a fifth of the remounts and acting as agents for chartering the remaining ships. Houlder visited Australia twice during the War. The facts that Y308M/1-3 and 7-9 show Houlder Ships, and that Houlder's is mentioned on the back of No. 45, suggest that the photos were taken by someone connected with that firm in Newcastle and Sydney between January and July 1900.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'> The arrangement is of pictures of individual ships (Y308M/1-12) followed by embarkation on Cornwall and other ships (Y308M/13-26), scenes on board, chiefly stabling (Y308M/27-38), corrals on Newcastle quayside (Y308M/39-44) and a scene in Sydney (Y308M/45).</p>