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Platé and Co

 Organization

Dates and places

Active in Ceylon 1890s-1940s.

Legal status / Nationality

The firm became a private limited company in 1900.

Sphere of activity

The photographic business was established by A.W.A. Platé and his wife Clara in a small studio in the Bristol Hotel in 1890. It moved to larger premises in Colpetty in 1892.

'Mr Heinemann joined the firm as managing partner and the business continued to steadily expand, with the result that the present staff of the establishment comprises ten Europeans and over 60 natives. Besides their Colpetty studio and several others in Colombo, Messrs. Plate have a branch establishment at Nuwara Eliya… and, in addition, book-stalls at the Queen's Hotel, Kandy, and the Galle Face Hotel, Colombo. The Colpetty studio and office practically represent the headquarters of the firm, and here are located extensive work-rooms, dark-rooms, show-rooms and other adjuncts to a photographic establishment, in addition to the spacious studio, reckoned to be one of the finest in the East' (Wright 1907, p.XX).

The firm became a private limited company in 1900 and the business was enlarged to concentrate on the supplying of photographic apparatus and material. In 1907 the firm had an output of postcards of half a million. It probably took over the stock of W.L.H. Skeen. Platé and Co. were still trading in the 1940s.

Publications: Platé and Co. (19--), The hundred best views of Ceylon : from photographs taken by the publishers. Colombo.

Found in 2 Collections and/or Records:

 Fonds

Christ Church, Munnar, Travancore [i.e. Kerala]

 Fonds
Reference Code: GBR/0115/RCS/Y3022NNNN
Scope and Contents A collection of mounted photographs. The photographs belonged to Albert and Ethel Wright, members of the original congregation, when living in Madupatty Estate, one of a group of James Finlay tea estates in the area. Hatch (1933, p.166) notes: 'One of the most beautiful mountain sections of Travancore is found in the northernmost part - the High Range... This particular section is called the Plateau of the Anamalais. The plateau is over 5,000 feet above sea level, and possesses a most...
Dates: 1920 - 1929
Conditions Governing Access: Unless restrictions apply, the collection is open for consultation by researchers using the Manuscripts Reading Room at Cambridge University Library. For further details on conditions governing access please contact mss@lib.cam.ac.uk. Information about opening hours and obtaining a Cambridge University Library reader's ticket is available from the Library's website (www.lib.cam.ac.uk).
 Fonds

W.A. Davis Retirement Photograph 1935

 Fonds
Reference Code: GBR/0115/RCS/Y303M
Scope and Contents Framed photograph measuring 425 x 180 mm (print) and 590 x 260 mm (frame).It shows a group of 76 individuals (presumably Davis and his staff) outside a building. On the back is a label 'Presented to W.A. Davis Esq: Supdt. of Appln Surveys, on the eve of his retirement by the Staff of the Application and Field Sheet Departments. Surveyor General's Office. Colombo, 8th. May 1935'. William Arthur Davis, P.A.S.I., born in 1889, joined the Survey Department in Ceylon in 1913. He was...
Dates: 1935
Conditions Governing Access: Unless restrictions apply, the collection is open for consultation by researchers using the Manuscripts Reading Room at Cambridge University Library. For further details on conditions governing access please contact mss@lib.cam.ac.uk. Information about opening hours and obtaining a Cambridge University Library reader's ticket is available from the Library's website (www.lib.cam.ac.uk).