Alfred Martin Duggan-Cronin was an Irish-born South African photographer who undertook several photographic and collecting expeditions in South Africa and adjacent territories between 1919 and 1939, in the course of which he documented people and rural life throughout the subcontinent. Based in Kimberley, it was while working in the mine compounds that he initially encountered African migrant workers, stimulating an interest in ethnographic subjects. Duggan-Cronin was born on 17 May 1874 in Innishannon, County Cork, Ireland, and died on 25 August 1954 in Kimberley, South Africa.[ citation needed ].
Born in Ireland, Duggan-Cronin was educated at Mount St Mary's College in Derbyshire, England. Giving up an original goal of becoming a Jesuit priest, he went to South Africa in 1897, taking a job with De Beers Consolidated Mines in Kimberley, where he served as a security officer in one of the mine 'native compounds'. His daily interaction with the men who worked in the mines was undoubtedly influential when he later developed an interest in photographic portraiture and documentation. He worked for De Beers until his retirement in 1932. [1]
In 1904 Duggan-Cronin bought himself a simple box camera, while on a return visit to Britain, and his first photograph was of a swan house on Madeira. He honed his photographic skill taking still-life pictures of flowers, and animal studies including images of poultry and horses. He documented holidays to the Cape, Johannesburg and Bulawayo in the period 1906 to 1914, also compiling albums from trips in Europe. Important series include portraits of Kimberley personalities and, later, of visitors to the Duggan-Cronin Gallery. Geological photographs by Duggan-Cronin were commissioned for De Beers, while a significant contribution was his documentation of rock engravings, published as plates in Maria Wilman's 1933 book on the rock art of Griqualand West. During World War I, Duggan-Cronin took part in campaigns in German South West Africa and in East Africa, generating a photographic record of these events. [1]
Duggan-Cronin embarked on the first of his major ethnographic endeavours in 1919 when he went to the Langeberg to photograph the San people living there – the first of many expeditions into Kimberley's Southern African hinterland. Between the world wars he travelled some 128 000 kilometres, making at least 18 expeditions to photograph the peoples of southern Africa. He was accompanied by his Mfengu assistant, Richard Madela, on some of these expeditions.
A significant number of his photographs were published in The Bantu Tribes of South Africa: Reproductions of Photographic Studies by A.M. Duggan-Cronin, eleven volumes of which appeared under the imprint of the McGregor Memorial Museum, Kimberley, between 1928 and 1954. In 1925 he opened his first 'Bantu Gallery' at his home on Kimberley's outskirts, his collection of some 8,000 photographs and ethnographic objects being more permanently housed at what was named the Duggan-Cronin Bantu Gallery at The Lodge in Kimberley from the late 1930s. [2] [3]
At his Gallery, Duggan-Cronin hosted many eminent visitors including Olive Schreiner, the Free State President Reitz, Alfred Lord Milner, General Jan Smuts, Abbé Breuil, Noël Coward and the British Royal Family.
Sir Alfred Chester Beatty was an American mining magnate, philanthropist and one of the most successful businessmen of his generation, who was given the epithet the "King of Copper" as a reference to his fortune. He became a naturalised British citizen in 1933, knighted in 1954 and made an honorary citizen of Ireland in 1957.
Kimberley is the capital and largest city of the Northern Cape province of South Africa. It is located approximately 110 km east of the confluence of the Vaal and Orange Rivers. The city has considerable historical significance due to its diamond mining past and the siege during the Second Anglo-Boer war. British businessmen Cecil Rhodes and Barney Barnato made their fortunes in Kimberley, and Rhodes established the De Beers diamond company in the early days of the mining town.
The Wellcome Library is founded on the collection formed by Sir Henry Wellcome (1853–1936), whose personal wealth allowed him to create one of the most ambitious collections of the 20th century. Henry Wellcome's interest was the history of medicine in a broad sense and included subjects such as alchemy or witchcraft, but also anthropology and ethnography. Since Henry Wellcome's death in 1936, the Wellcome Trust has been responsible for maintaining the Library's collection and funding its acquisitions. The library is free and open to the public.
John Thomson was a pioneering Scottish photographer, geographer, and traveller. He was one of the first photographers to travel to the Far East, documenting the people, landscapes and artefacts of eastern cultures. Upon returning home, his work among the street people of London cemented his reputation, and is regarded as a classic instance of social documentary which laid the foundations for photojournalism. He went on to become a portrait photographer of High Society in Mayfair, gaining the Royal Warrant in 1881.
The Kimberley Mine or Tim Kuilmine is an open-pit and underground mine in Kimberley, South Africa, and claimed to be the deepest hole excavated by hand, although this claim is disputed.
The McGregor Museum in Kimberley, South Africa, originally known as the Alexander McGregor Memorial Museum, is a multidisciplinary museum which serves Kimberley and the Northern Cape, established in 1907.
Koffiefontein Mine is a diamond mine situated in the Free State province, about 80 km from Kimberley, South Africa. It is one of the many Kimberley mines of which Kimberley mine, de Beers mine, Dutoitspan, Bultfontein and Wesselton are its more famous neighbours.
Sir Lionel Phillips, 1st Baronet was a British-born South African financier, mining magnate and politician.
Jürgen Schadeberg was a German-born South African photographer and artist. He photographed key moments in South African history, including iconic photographs such as Nelson Mandela at Robben Island prison. He also lived, worked and taught in London and Spain, and photographed in many African countries.
The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, also known as MAA, at the University of Cambridge houses the University's collections of local antiquities, together with archaeological and ethnographic artefacts from around the world. The museum is located on the University's Downing Site, on the corner of Downing Street and Tennis Court Road. In 2013 it reopened following a major refurbishment of the exhibition galleries, with a new public entrance directly on to Downing Street.
Alfred Khumalo, better known as Alf Kumalo, was a South African documentary photographer and photojournalist.
William Carrick was a Scottish-Russian artist and photographer. The son of a timber merchant, Andrew Carrick, and Jessie née Lauder, he was born in Edinburgh on 23 December 1827. Only a few weeks old, the Carrick family took William with them to the port of Kronstadt in the Gulf of Finland. Andrew had been trading with this port for some time, and the family would stay there for 16 years.
Wilfrid Gore Browne was an Anglican bishop, the first Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman from 1912 to 1928. He was described as a saintly bishop with "a keen sense of humour" and "a winning courtesy."
John Hyacinth Power was the second Director of the McGregor Museum in Kimberley, South Africa.
The William Humphreys Art Gallery, in Kimberley, South Africa, was opened in 1952 and named after its principal benefactor, William Benbow Humphreys (1889–1965).
Richard Liversidge, naturalist, ornithologist and museum director, was born on 17 September 1926 in Blantyre, Nyasaland, and died on 15 September 2003 in Kimberley, South Africa.
The Duggan-Cronin Gallery, which is a satellite of the McGregor Museum in Kimberley, South Africa, houses in part the legacy in photographs and ethnographic artefacts of the photographer Alfred Martin Duggan-Cronin. It occupies a former dwelling known as The Lodge. Built in 1889, to a design by the architect Sydney Stent, The Lodge was the residence of John Blades Currey, manager of the London & S.A. Exploration Co. De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd acquired the extensive property of the London & S.A. Exploration Co in 1899, including The Lodge, which continued to be used as a residence.
Some African objects had been collected by Europeans for centuries, and there had been industries producing some types, especially carvings in ivory, for European markets in some coastal regions. Between 1890 and 1918 the volume of objects greatly increased as Western colonial expansion in Africa led to the removal of many pieces of sub-Saharan African art that were subsequently brought to Europe and displayed. These objects entered the collections of natural history museums, art museums and private collections in Europe and the United States. About 90% of Africa's cultural heritage is believed to be located in Europe, according to French art historians.
Helmut Petri was a German anthropologist.
Photography in Sudan refers to both historical as well as to contemporary photographs taken in the cultural history of today's Republic of the Sudan. This includes the former territory of present-day South Sudan, as well as what was once Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and some of the oldest photographs from the 1860s, taken during the Turkish-Egyptian rule (Turkiyya). As in other countries, the growing importance of photography for mass media like newspapers, as well as for amateur photographers has led to a wider photographic documentation and use of photographs in Sudan during the 20th century and beyond. In the 21st century, photography in Sudan has undergone important changes, mainly due to digital photography and distribution through social media and the Internet.
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