Photograph of a survey group with surveying equipment, Koorum, 1879; including Maj Woodthorpe, Royal Engineers, Lt C Manners Smith, 3rd Sikhs, Capt G Martin. 

Much of the surveying of India’s terrain was carried out by the British during their rule there. However, as this photograph shows, the British surveyors were accompanied by local soldiers and other men while they worked. This photograph was taken in Kurram, then on the border between India and Afghanistan and now a Federally Administered Tribal Area or Pakistan. 

From an album of 115 photographs by Bourne and Shepherd, 1878-1880.
Associated with Maj Gen Frederick Sleigh Roberts.
Associated with 2nd Afghan War (1878-1880).