Unseen For a Century? Views of Fairlie, Ayrshire

This rather lovely book is a recent arrival at Withnail Books, and is evidently a rare survivor. I can trace no other copies available anywhere (it's another ABEwhack (tm)). I can't even find any reference to its existence. The title page has a few clues:

Charlie McNair, according to this page, ran the local Post Office and shop (which also served as the savings bank, telegraph station and chemists). He sold postcards of the area, which sometimes appear on eBay described as 'Fairlie, McNair series', and, it would appear, published this book of similar local views. It's beautifully produced, about 5 in x 7in, with a gilt stamped debossed design to the cover, which won't have come cheap. It was probably only ever available in McNair's emporium, as the posh alternative to a postcard for the well-heeled tourist.

There's no date in the book, but the title page reveals it was 'Photographed and Printed by G. W. Wilson & Co, Ltd, Aberdeen.' Wilson was a pioneering Victorian photographer, who popularised stereo views (early 3D prints), and worked for the Queen and Prince Albert, but his company had been wound up by 1908, so we know this book has to be earlier than that. Looking at the clothes in this close up of the image above, I'd guess 1890s to early 1900s was about right.

(An aside: I've just had it pointed out to me by a regular customer that G. W. Wilson & Co in Aberdeen was once the employer of writer, photographer and entertainingly bonkers cult figure Frederick Rolfe, aka Baron Corvo. In fact, such a dedicated employee was he that he continued to work for them even after he'd lost his job there. They had trouble getting rid of him...)

Fairlie is a little town in North Ayrshire, on the eastern shore of the Firth of Clyde looking out to Arran. Wikipedia perhaps unfairly dismisses it as 'little more than a commuter town' these days, with Hunterston B nuclear power station, a deep sea shipping terminal and a NATO base all on the coastline nearby. Charlie's little book is a souvenir of a different time, when the pier was still up and running, and the internal combustion engine was still pretty new-fangled, let alone nuclear...

So here, for what is very possibly the first time in over a century, is the complete Views of Fairlie...

(2019 update: Every few months since this blog was posted back in 2013 I get an email asking if this book is still for sale. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it sold almost immediately, and went to the USA, as I recall.)

(That's Charlie McNair's shop, above.)

A Penrithian Photo Mystery: Trying to Track Down J. C. Varty-Smith

This photograph arrived as part of a batch of old prints from various photographers which included one I've already mentioned, but it stood apart from the others, which were all posed portrait shots.

The scan above doesn't really do it justice. It's not large, about 8in x 5 1/2in, and has a sheen of what I assume might be silver nitrate around the edges, which gives it a kind of halo effect. While it's obviously a snow scene, there were additional white dots/blotches added to the image at the printing stage to heighten the 'snow' — at least I think they were; they don't appear to be signs of ageing (they are part of the printed image), though I admit I'm no expert in these things.

So, perhaps the photographer was experimenting a bit at the developing stage, aiming for an 'artistic' effect to heighten what is already a nicely composed, rather atmospheric picture.

The print is signed in pencil, bottom left, 'J. C. Varty-Smith 1904'. It turns out Mr Varty-Smith was a Penrithian of some note, and evidently a gifted photographer: this page, detailing an exhibition of recently acquired items at the Penrith and Eden museum (which is just down the road from Withnail Books) includes a mention of 'medals awarded for photography to a Penrithian J C Varty-Smith (d.1924) an early patron of the Museum.'

J. C.'s google-friendly name (how many other J. C. Varty-Smiths do you know?) crops up in various other places too. He wasn't just a patron of Penrith and Eden museum: a sample of Spring Sandwort he collected is in Manchester Museum, and the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge has a whole collection of glassware collected by J. C. and donated by his sisters, 'The Misses Varty-Smith', including a Rum Decanter made by the Bristol glassmaker Lazarus Jacobs. The Fitzwilliam doesn't have an image online, but it sounds similar to this one at the V&A:

J. C. didn't just collect things, he wrote about them too, including a paper on creepy-crawlies:

Some Staffordshire Myriapods in North Staffordshire Field Club Transactions and Annual Report, Stoke-on-Trent vol.LIII pp.88-90

He also turns up, brilliantly, on the Victoria and Albert Museum's 'Knitting Reading List' for his no doubt definitive:

'Some Knitting Implements of Cumberland and Westmorland', in Connoisseur, Vol. XXV, 1909

There is a very badly OCR'd archive of the text of Connoisseur magazine online here, alas it's too garbled to read much, though the tantalising opening paragraph of the article is clear:

To those living in the Midlands and the 
South of England the subject of this paper will no 
doubt be puzzling, and the accompanying illustrations 
may at a first glance be taken for instruments of war- 
fare used by some savage tribes. They are, however, 
innocent and useful instruments of industry, which 
were among the belongings of our grandmothers and 
their fore-elders of the eighteenth century. 

J. C. Varty-Smith sounds like a very cool Penrithian. I'd love to know more about him, and indeed shed more light on his photography, and specifically the background to the image above. I think a visit to the Penrith and Eden Museum is in order...

Arrested Development, circa 1890

Lots of interesting old things coming across my desk this week, of which more anon, but this photo really caught my eye. It's credited to J H Hogg, a photographer from Kendal, so it was taken in the Lakes in the 1890s at a guess. Would you mess with these guys? I bet their story would be every bit as entertaining as that of the Bluth family...

Lawrence of Arabia: A newly discovered photograph

It's not every day that a previously unpublished photo of T E Lawrence comes to light; in fact in the decade or more I've been collecting Lawrenciana, I can't remember any turning up (well, apart from one on eBay which turned out not to be him, a fact I know for sure because it was me who bought it and researched it to the extent that I could confirm it wasn't... but that's a story for another day).

Bonhams have this one going under the hammer next week...

From the catalogue:

*****

Photograph album belonging to an airman with No. 1 Squadron of the Australian Flying Corps, serving in the Palestine Campaign during the latter part of the Great War, comprising 24 photographs, the majority taken while stationed with his squadron in November and December 1917 at Gaza and Akaba (Aqaba), including a snapshot of "Major Lawrence, C.B./ Akaba. Dec. '17"; "My D.H.2 67/ Sq. 'Drome 25/11/17. Just previous to 1st scrap"; and "Dead Sea/ '67 Squadron Martinsyde with Guy & Self in B.F. on Bomb Raid. 21/11/17"; other photographs of the album owner's former "Vickers Bullet" (i.e. Vickers F.B.19) at Bela ("My old 'bus"), a SE.5a and Bristol Monoplane (M.1C) of No. 111 Squadron at Belah, Bristol Scouts at Aboukir, etc.,mounted in a small photograph album, minor foxing etc., but overall in good condition, average size of photographs 550 x 1000mm., grey cloth, oblong 8vo, Palestine, Hejaz and Egypt, late 1917

Estimate:

£1,000 - 1,500
€1,200 - 1,700
US$ 1,500 - 2,300

Footnotes

• A PHOTOGRAPH OF LAWRENCE AT THE HEIGHT OF THE ARAB REVOLT, showing him standing full-length, dressed in Arab robes and wearing his famous gold Meccan dagger (acquired by him that July). This photograph – which we believe to be hitherto unknown and was presumably taken by the anonymous owner of the album – shows Lawrence at a turning point of his life, having established his reputation and that of the Arab Revolt with the capture of Akaba the previous June; while at the same time having escaped from Turkish torture and custody at Deraa only a few weeks earlier in late November (an episode of course subject to much dispute). He had been appointed Commander of the Bath for his secret reconnaissance expedition into northern Syria that summer. In early December he accompanied Allenby's troops on their triumphal entry into Jerusalem, but was in Akaba in both early and late December (on the third, twenty-fifth and twenty-eighth); his movements being summarised in a letter to his family from Cairo on 14 December 1917: 'Well here I am in Cairo again, for two nights, coming from Akaba via Jerusalem. I was in fortune, getting to Jerusalem just in time for the official entry of General Allenby... I wrote to you last from Azrak, about the time we blew up Jemal Pasha, and let him slip away from us. After that I stayed for ten days or so there, and then rode down to Akaba in 3 days: good going, tell Arnie: none of his old horses would do so much as my old camel. At Akaba I had a few days motoring, prospecting the hills and valleys for a way Eastward for our cars: and then came up to H.Q. to see the authorities and learn the news-to-be. Tomorrow I go off again to Akaba, for a run towards Jauf, if you know where that is".
  
  It is evident that the owner of the this album served with No. 67 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps: this was, properly speaking, No. 1 Squadron AFC (Australian Flying Corps) but between March 1916 and February 1918 was renamed by the British authorities as No. 67 Squadron RFC, to avoid confusion with No. 1 Squadron RFC. It is the ancestor of No. 1 Squadron of the Royal Australian Air Force and was under the command of Major Richard Williams, 'father' of the RAAF. Other photographs show aircraft from No. 111 Squadron RFC, with which (on the evidence that he flew a Vickers F.B.19) the album's owner may have also served. This squadron had been formed in Palestine in August 1917 and early in 1918 was to hand over some of its planes to the No. 1 Squadron.
• 
  

*****

Fascinating stuff. Though I did email them to point out that they probably didn't mean to say that average size of the photos was a metre high...

I would dearly love to own this photo (and publish a limited edition book all about it), but something tells me it's going to go for a lot more than the upper end of that estimate.

... and here's another newly discovered photo of Lawrence...

UPDATE: The photo at Bonhams sold for £4000, including the Buyer's 20% premium, but not including the 20% VAT on top of that, so that's basically a five grand picture. I wonder if it will ever be seen or heard of again...

Not for sale promotional books for Hotels No.1:

Icons at the Pump Room

I have two books that I intend to sell which can be described as 'not for sale promotional books produced for hotels', so hey presto, my first series of linked posts! Try not to get too excited.

I've actually got various books which were created as promotional items, and never intended for sale. They don't have prices on the back, or ISBNs, and some of them are printed to a very high standard: one title I have, an illustrated history of a tea company which was originally given away to shareholders, has a quarter cloth binding, and even a full cloth slipcase.

This week's book is not quite as posh as that; it's a paperback, but printed on nice thick matte paper, and it's full of nothing but black and white photos of, yes, Icons.

For decades, the Pump Room at the Ambassador East Hotel in Chicago was the restaurant/bar where all the celebrities would go when they were in town. This collection of press and publicity photos of the great and the good, all pictured in the Pump Room or elesewhere in the hotel, was printed last year, and sent to the press to mark the reopening of the fabled venue at what is now The Public Hotel (which looks rather lovely, but rather expensive). 

I've no idea how many copies were printed, but I'd be surprised if it was more than a few hundred. Only a handful have made their way into the secondary market in the US (where the asking price is $30-$45), and currently none (other than this one) are on sale in the UK. I found this copy in a second hand book shop in Brixton. Perhaps it was sent to a journalist at a UK-based travel magazine or supplement. Who knows, but like the vast majority of such promotional efforts, it was evidently discarded pretty quickly by its recipient, who probably gets piles of PR tat every week.

This book ain't tat though; it's great. It's about 150 pages of full bleed photos, all of them unfamiliar, and some of them absolute corkers. How about this one of a very young and utterly luminous Sigourney Weaver...

Then there's a spread featuring two of the cooler human beings ever to have walked the Earth:

This is a good one of some of the Brat Pack in their pomp:

Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis back when they were King and Queen of Hollywood:

... and Dustin Hoffman, mucking about in a hotel porter's hat:

In fact, thanks to this this site, here are thumbnails of a bunch of the photos in the book. How many Icons can you identify?

Stay tuned for the second and last entry in this captivating 'not for sale promotional books produced for hotels' series, a title which manages to shed light on both Russell Crowe's daily habits and Boba Fett's family...