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Christy collection of photographs on Africa

 Fonds
Reference Code: GBR/0115/RCS/Y304A

Scope and Contents

Contains loose photographs relating to various of Christy's travels; some photographs are his own and some are by professional photographers. Subjects include: scenes on the Nile including pyramids; railway views in Kenya; rubber trees and cultivation in Nigeria, Uganda and the Cameroons; scenes in the Congo including sufferers of sleeping sickness and ethnic groups of Central Africa of shorter than average height described as Pygmies; scenes in India; scenes from travels in Norway, Argentina, France, The Canaries, Madeira, Tenerife, England and reproductions of photographs in Egypt, Ceylon and Bombay.

Dates

  • Creation: 1880 - 1913

Creator

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).

Biographical / Historical

Cuthbert Christy was born in 1863 and qualified in medicine at the University of Edinburgh. In the early 1890s he travelled to South America and the West Indies. From 1898-1900 he was senior medical officer to the Second Battalion West African Field Force in northern Nigeria, after which he served for a brief time in India. He was a member of the First Uganda Sleeping Sickness Commission in 1902 and a medical expedition to the Congo in 1903. He travelled in Ceylon, East Africa, Uganda, southern Nigeria, the Gold Coast and the Cameroons. After official posts in the Congo and the Sudan he served in the First World War in Africa and Mesopotamia. After the war he explored in the Sudan, Nyasaland [Malawi] and Tanganyika, and was a member of a League of Nations Commission enquiring into slavery and forced labour in Liberia. On 29 May 1932, when he was nearly 70, he died as a result of being gored by a buffalo while on a zoological investigation in the Congo.

Extent

3 archive box(es) (419 images in 3 boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Presented with other material by the Royal African Society in 1972.

Existence and Location of Copies

This collection is available on microfiche: Africa, fiche number 1-6.

Related Materials

Views relating to Christy's time in India are at Y3022V.

Bibliography

Y304A/62-120 are reproduced in: Christy, Cuthbert (1911). The African rubber industry and Funtumia elastica (kickxia), London : J. Bale, Sons and Danielsson. Y304A/141-Y304A/245 are reproduced in: Christy, Cuthbert (1924). Big game and Pygmies: experiences of a naturalist in Central African forests in quest of the Okapi, London: Macmillan.

General

PJ. Details of the Mau Escarpment verified: Mau Escarpment Encyclopædia Britannica http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=52745> [Accessed August 6, 2002].

Originator(s)

Christy, Cuthbert, 1863-1932, explorer and zoologist

Includes index.
Date
2002-07-23 12:23:14+00:00
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Repository Details

Part of the Cambridge University Library Repository

Contact:
Cambridge University Library
West Road
Cambridge CB3 9DR United Kingdom