Revealing relationships: colonial photograph albums of the Niger Delta at the British Museum: a case study

Abstract

• The focus of this paper is a collection of photographs currently housed in the British Museum. Two albums (British Museum reference numbers Af,A46 and Af,A47) are identified as belonging to Arthur Purt, thought to be a European trader in the Niger Delta in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Using this collection as a case study, this paper discloses previously unknown details about the identity of the album’s owner and analyzes how his commercial and personal relationships and local trading networks provide insights into a key period in the colonial history of the Niger Delta. This critical engagement with Purt’s albums reveals, at a more nuanced level, shared social and cultural histories that are profoundly relevant today and considers what personal photograph albums conceal as well as what they reveal.