60842: Photograph album of Capt. W. Harold Morgan: Mesopotamia
Creators: name: Project Team, Great War Archive
Publisher: name: University of Oxford
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 430304
subject: British history
classificationCode: 430308
subject: European history (excl. British, classical Greek and Roman)
classificationCode: 430316
subject: International history

description: A photo album kept by Capt. W. Harold Morgan, (born Worcestershire, and lived near Ross-on-Wye). An electrical engineer and stores master, he was awarded the OBE (military division) for his service in Mesopotamia during the First World War.
Each page is annotated, most photos are captioned. For example the album records:<br>
* the sea voyage from Britain around South Africa on SS Kenilworth Castle<br>
* boxing matches on the deck<br>
* Sierra Leone<br>
* Cape Town, South Africa<br>
* Officers: AC Clarke, GR Renwick<br>
* Durban<br>
* Zulu rickshaw men<br>
* SS Franconia taken 2 minutes before it was torpedoed. The wash of the SS Nile in foreground, listening for submarines.<br>
* SS Nile, on which Morgan travelled from Durban to Bombay<br>
* Persian Gulf<br>
* HT Ellenga, on which Morgan travelled from Bombay to Bashrah [Basra, Iraq]<br>
* Ezrah's Tomb, near the reputed site of the Garden of Eden<br>
* Arabs near the Tigris river<br>
* Clearing the battlefield after the battle for Kut 1917<br>
* Railway bridge over Diala River near Baghdad<br>
* the ancient ruin of Ctesiphon, the scene of Gen. Townsend's defeat of the turks<br>
* British Monitor warship on the Tigris<br>
* Flat bottomed Swimender barge<br>
* Baghdad views<br>
* Gen. Maude reviewing troops after the fall of Baghdad<br>
* Street scene in Baghdad on Armistice Day (11 November 1918)<br>
* Group of Kurds<br>
* Arab woman <br>
* S. Sgt P. Graham, Rail and Port Section<br>
* Lieut. J. Muirhead<br>
* SSM Porter, Sgt Cook, Pte Wild<br>
* J. Muirhead and JRS Worral<br>
* FJ Mills<br>
* Officers at Right Bank Depot, winter 1918, AE Salmon, Dobson, R. Kilgour, RC Betteridge, AS Blew, JRS Worral, FJ Mills, T. Hipkins<br>
* 50,000 gallons of petrol on fire at Right Bank<br>
* Capt Napier's gazelle<br>
* Jacko [monkey] drinking beer<br>
* Hindoo [Hindu] and Mohameddan [Muslim] butchery at Right Bank<br>
* Sgt Hopkins, Lt Mills, SSM Catt<br>
* Political officer giving Arab sheikh his first ride in a car. Lt Wattleworth on left<br>
* Entraining an Indian regiment at Hinaudi<br>
* Armenian girls<br>
* Mysore transport core [on oxen or water buffalo?]<br>
* An office dug-out<br>
* C and D section staff 1917. Cpls Ollett, Doughty, Price, Sgt Hesketh, Sgt Nuttall<br>
* Date trees, Sgt Cook on right<br>
* German railway station, Baghdad<br>
* First train of supplies leaving Baghdad for Feluja<br>
* Miss G. Lothian Bell arriving at Hinaidi Races. Col. O'Connor, Gen. Dixon<br>
* Scenes near Babylon including Nebuchadnezzar's Lion, the Gate of Ishtar or Ashtaroth, pillars supporting Nebuchadnezzar's walk from his palace to the Hanging Gardens on the Euphrates<br>
* Akar Khuf near Baghdad<br>
* views of Khazimain<br>
* officers 1917-1918, and sergeants' mess 1918<br>
* A. Stanley Blew, Frank J. Mills, Walter C. Parsley, Lt GP Davies<br>
* Jewish girls<br>
* the arrival of the first Handley-Page [aircraft] at Baghdad en route to India. Note the monoplanes<br>
* Views of Bombay<br>
* Canadian 5-masted auxillary schooner 'Margaret Hanney', and a camouflaged ship - [dazzle] - at Basrah
* Port Said<br>
* Crossing France on the way home to Blighty<br>
* modern newspaper articles about the life and work of Gertrude Bell (Miss Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell 1868-1926), whose photograph is included in this album, archaeologist, linguist, mountaineer, advisor to Winston Churchill and TE<br> Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia").
Corporal 2127 William Harold Morgan, Herefordshire Regiment, gained a commissioned and ended the war as a Captain in the Army Service Corps.