'Bhutan. Photographs taken by J. C. White Esq., C.I.E. during his mission in that...

Black full-leather padded album measuring 318 x 430 mm with prints mounted one to a page with handwritten captions and identifications beneath. The photographs in the album document the mission sent to Bhutan under White's leadership to invest Ugyen Wang Chuk, Penlop (Governor) of Tongsa in central Bhutan, with the order of KCIE. Although there are a number of portraits of Sir Ugyen Wang Chuk in the album, only one photograph (print 15) is specifically connected with this investiture ceremony itself, the majority of the prints forming a record of the architecture, topography and people of Bhutan. White was chosen to lead this mission due to his friendship with the Tongsa Penlop, which had developed during the latter's position as mediator between the British and Tibetans during the Younghusband mission of 1904 (see Photo 430/53), and the decision to honour him was taken in order both to express British esteem and to cultivate his influence for the future. Accompanied by Major F.W. Rennick of the Intelligence Department and Alfred Wallace Paul (late of the Bengal Civil Service, and who had come out from England at the Tongsa's inviatation), the mission set out from Gangtak on 29 March 1905, entering the country from the west by the Ha Valley and travelling to Ugyen Wang Chuk's home at Bumthang by way of Paro, Thimphu, Punakha, Wangdue Phodrang and Tongsa. The party returned by the same route, but turned north at Thimphu to re-enter Tibet at Lingzi. The mission is described in detail in chapters XIII-XV of White's 'Sikhim and Bhutan' (London, 1909). Other descriptions of the mission by White, reproducing many of the photographs found in this collection, can be found in his 'Journeys in Bhutan' (Geographical Journal, vol XXXV, 1910, pp.18-42) and 'Castles in the air: experiences and journeys in unknown Bhutan' (National Geographic Magazine, vol XXV, April 1914, pp.365-453). Research by Michael Aris (unpublished typescript) has revealed White's efforts to obtain both sanction and payment for his photographic work during the mission, and he notes that one album of views was prepared for Ugyen Wang Chuk himself (still possibly in the possession of the Bhutan royal family) and another two were prepared for the India Office and the Foreign Department of the Government of India: the former must presumably be this album. An almost identical volume of 40 prints was also prepared for the Royal Geographical Society in 1907 (catalogued as D.7). A further and more extensive collection of 80 views of this first mission, probably White's personal album, was, together with a collection relating to White's second mission in 1907, sold privately in the 1990s.

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