Photograph album documenting experiences at a hydroelectric plant on the Swat River in Malakand District, Northwest Frontier Province, India, 1937-38.

Small oblong quarto album (200 x 270 mm), original brown cloth over boards with string ties, containing 116 b/w photographs in corner mounts, 113 being in 60 x 60 mm format, with 3 in larger 115 x 160 mm format; the majority are captioned in ink below the image; very good condition throughout.

This album was compiled by English chartered mechanical engineer Richard “Dick” Bradfield Besley (b. 1912 Gloucestershire, d. 1990 Essex). In 1937 Besley sailed for Bombay, India aboard the City of Benares. He is listed on the ship’s passenger manifest for the 24 April 1937 sailing from Liverpool, where it is noted he intends to remain in India for the immediate future. On his arrival in India, Besley took up a position at a hydroelectric power project developed by the British government in Malakand District, Northwest Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan). The plant, known as Malakand 1, was located at Jabban in the Swat Valley. Work on it had commenced in 1934 and it was put into full service in the summer of 1937, around the time of Besley’s arrival. The plant would remain in operation until 2011; it was then re-opened by China in 2013.

Besley’s photographs document the voyage out to India, and his brief stay in Bombay. The bulk of them, however – 66 photos in all – record his life and work at Malakand 1. These images depict excavation work using donkey labour; the hydroelectric powerhouse; water turbines; a slit sluice; massive gears, valves and breakers; spillways and outflows; interior of the power tunnel; valve house; co-workers riding a tram to a powerhouse; and more. Other images document the rugged, starkly beautiful landscape around Malakand, a camel caravan, Indian workers, and the Dargai Nullah (a waterway used for power). One of the larger photos (laid in) shows Besley and an Indian national in a large room filled with dials and levers, probably the operating room for the power plant.