Manchuria and Mongolia (cine film)

Three spools of 16mm cine film (b/w), taken by Group Captain H St C Smallwood, of Manchuria and Mongolia.

Gp Capt Smallwood, OBE, was Honorary Secretary to the Royal Central Asian Society, 1952-67. Leach with Farrington, Strolling About on the Roof of the World (2003), note p. 56: "In 1901 he joined the Imperial Yeomanry, seeing service in South Africa, transferring there to the Transvaal Horse Artillery. In 1907 he was employed by a firm in Burma where he enlisted in the Burma Mounted Rifles. At the outbreak of the First World War he joined the Bengal Lancers, seeing service in Mesopotamia. In 1916 he was seconded to the Royal Flying Corps and, in the Second World War, to the Royal Air Force with postings in India, Burma, China. Between the two wars he was in China and Mongolia as Aeronautical Adviser to the Chinese government, where he organised the first air route from Peking to Ulan Bator." It is assumed that the spools of cine film date from this inter-war period of his career.

Also included is the front to an original storage box ("Sub-Standard Productions").

For a photograph including Gp Capt Smallwood, see Leach with Farrington, Strolling About on the Roof of the World (2003), p. 67.