Catalogue - Reprints (Africana General)

Occupation of Mashonaland,
Photographs by W. Ellerton Fry

Books of Zimbabwe, 1982
285 x 380 mm, 170 pp., 153 illus., 1 map, Publishers' Introduction, New text by Peter McLaughlin, 1982.
ISBN (Std) 0 86920 193 X, (Dlx) 0 86920 192 1.

THE march of the Pioneer Column of 1890 was recorded photographically by Lieut. W. Ellerton Fry who previously held the post of Secretary and Computer of the Royal Observatory, Cape Town. A collection of 153 of these photographs, including some of Khama in Bechuanaland (Botswana), was made up into a large, elephant-folio-size album (465 x 325 mm), entitled Occupation of Mashonaland: Views by W. Ellerton Fry, only twelve copies of which are listed in the records of the National Archives of Zimbabwe. This rare pictorial coverage is known only to a handful of collectors, although a few of the pictures have been reproduced singly from time to time.

The work now produced is the first complete reprint of the photo series, the copies having been made from the album which carries the joint bookplates of Alfred and Otto Beit. The sepia pictures, which were taken on a glass-plate camera and are of excellent quality, have been enlarged from an average 145 x 195 mm to 190 x 255 mm, and printed one to a page in the smaller new format instead of the two per page of the original.

Whereas the album had no text, only brief captions, the new presentation carries a biography of Fry and an excellent article on the formation and progress of the Column, from the assembly point at Macloutsie (Botswana) to Fort Salisbury, written by Peter McLaughlin; also updated nominal rolls of members of the Pioneer Corps and of the British South Africa Police escort, a bibliography, and a map of the route taken by the Column.

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