Archive of Photographs, Journals and Ephemera, Thailand, 1923-1939

[1923-1939].. Archive comprising:
Large scrapbook album, 200 thick green card leaves, mounting numerous newspaper clippings 1928-38 (most from the Bangkok Daily Mail and the Siam Observer), fifty black and white photographs, a few full page, autographed correspondence, numerous postcards, golf score cards (from the Royal Hua Hin, Royal Bangkok Sports Club and Royal Dusit Golf Club), a few leaves of typescript, 36.5 x 24.6cm embossed silk boards with the bookplate of A G Ellis, the album printed and bound at the Daily Mail press, Bangkok (with their ticket), in very good order;
Photograph album, 60 black card leaves (the first 23 loose from another album) mounting 135 photographs (most in monotone), 25 full page (27.5 x 21.5 cm) most commercially produced of historic Bangkok and rural scenes, a few of the royal family and the Cremation procession of the "Queen Mother" (captioned in white pen), Queen Consort Saovabha Phongsri, with an official black and white studio portrait of her also included, two large studio portraits of Ellis loosely enclosed--as a young man at his desk from the studio of Takeuchi, Treepetch, Bangkok and a later portrait with his wife (likely upon retirement), dozens of postcards some photographic, over two dozen of Thailand and Bangkok (many from the Talat Noi Studio), 14 of Hong Kong and Canton (including a tinted folding panorama of Hong Kong "from the sea" 58 x 14 cm), 13 of the Philippines, 41 of Japan (Nagasaki, Kobe, Kamakura, Tokyo and Yokohama), a souvenir photographic booklet of the Toyo Kisen Kaisha Steamship Company (16 pp, plus decorative wrappers string-tied), and three tinted bamboo bird postcards, seven single column newspaper cuttings publishing a travel log by Ellis, the album 30.5 x 26 cm, textured black card covers, front cover loose and very worn, most of the leaves lifted from the original cord ties, many of the photographs and postcards loose in their corners with manuscript captions fading, but a fascinating assemblage;
Three ring loose leaf binder enclosing two single-sided carbon typescript travel journals: one 56 leaves + 8 thick card leaves mounting 23 black and white photographs and 4 coloured post cards of Peking; and the other 19 leaves (loose) + 7 leaves mounting 13 black and white photographs; and loosely enclosed two further single-sided typescripts each 2 leaves stapled (one carbon copy); the binder 29.2 x 22.9 cm black pebbled cloth covered boards, hand-lettered in gilt "My Journey to Siam Aug. 11 to Oct. 10 1923 A.G. Ellis" on the cover and spine, cover rubbed at the edges and faded, one bottom corner bumped, the internal metal ring strip rusted, some leaves toned and chipped (one with loss the top corner) but the whole in good order. Remarkable archive relating to the life and career of Aller Gustin Ellis (1868-1953), and his time as pathologist, doctor and Professor in Bangkok, 1919-1939. He was the first American pathologist to work extensively in Thailand, travelling there under the auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation in 1919. He was Director of Pathology at the Royal Medical College in Thailand until his resignation in 1921 to return to America. He returned in 1923 for a five-year appointment as a Visiting Professor of Pathology and Director of Studies at Chulalongkorn University. He almost didn't make it--his travel log records narrowly missing the catastrophic Yokohama earthquake of 1923 by hours, and the scrapbook includes a newspaper cutting recording this near miss.
In 1924 he became the acting Dean of the University, and in 1926 he was appointed the Dean and Director of the Siriraj Hospital. He stayed in Siam until 1939 and was founder of the Ellis Pathological Museum.
Dr. Ellis forged a friendship and strong association with Prince Mahidol Adulyadej and published an essay about the Prince's life and contribution to medicine after his premature death in 1929. Letters of gratitude from the Palace are included in this archive. His detailed typescript journals document his journey from Seattle to Bangkok between August and October 1923, illustrated with approximately twenty-five photographs, including some of the Great Wall of China and Peking, and nineteen typed pages initialled by him, describing a twelve-day trip to the old Khmer city of Angkor in Cambodia taken in April, 1924 by Ellis and his friends Dr. F. B. Sayre the American Advisor in Foreign Affairs to the Siamese Government and Mr W. R. Moore, American teacher at the Presbyterian College, illustrated with eleven black and white photographs. The numerous photographs (many full page) and postcards range through rural Thailand and Bangkok, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Canton and Japan.
Dr Ellis mixed with the great and the lowly--the archive includes photographs of the Royal family, official engagements and from dinners at the Rotary Club of Bangkok. But there is also a poignant handwritten note from Ellis' “faithful servant” Ben requesting a note of introduction to the hospital in Siriraj so that his pregnant wife may be attended there. Ellis contributed a newspaper column to the Bangkok Daily Mail "To Your Good Health" 1929-30, all of which are excerpted in the scrapbook. Ellis includes a transcript of the “Constitution of Siam, Dec 10 1932” and black and white aerial photographs of Chulalongkorn University.
This is both a stirring personal archive of a remarkable career and a social history of Thailand in the 1920s and 30s. .