Accession Number

2005.016.026.006

Description

A black and white photograph of forty-two uniformed officers and men of the British and Indian Armies, and three men not in uniform, in the second row from bottom and fourth from left sits Major Guy Audain, his hands clasped together and staring straight at the camera, the entire group posing in front of the Hotel Victoria at Milford-on-Sea (Hampshire, England), the photograph inscribed at bottom with a stamp and by hand.

Narrative

Guy Mortimer Audain (1864-1940) was married to Sarah Byrd “Byrdie” Dunsmuir (1878-1925), a granddaughter of Joan Dunsmuir of Craigdarroch and daughter of former B.C. Premier and Lieutenant-Governor Hon. James Dunsmuir (1851-1920). Major Audain came out of retirement in British Columbia in order to provide liaison between the British and Indian armies during the Great War. Through his pre-war service in India, Audain became fluent in the Hindi/Urdu and Punjabi languages.

In her book, The Dunsmuir Saga (Reksten, 1991), author Terry Reksten explains that before WWl, Guy Audain was an officer in the Hyderabad Contingent of the Indian Army.

In  2014, Chandar S. Sundaram Ph.D. (McGill), a Victoria-based historian of the colonial Indian Army, provided the following information: 

"The 19th Hyderabad Regiment originated in the Hyderabad Contingent, a force of foot raised by the Hyderabad Nizami (state) at East India Company (EIC) insistence and trained and equipped on the British pattern. The Contingent was eight battalions strong when, in 1853, it was folded into the EIC's Madras Army. Over the next fifty years, recruitment into the Contingent reflected the general reorientation northward, and the Hindu-Muslim ratio of its rank-and-file was fixed at 3:2. The Kitchener reorganization of 1903 abolished the Hyderabad Contingent, but not its constituent battalions. Nineteen years later, in 1922, these battalions were once more grouped together, forming the 19th Hyderabad Regiment. For more information, see: John Gaylor, Sons of John Company: the Indian and Pakistani Armies, 1903-91, (New Delhi: Lancer, 1993), pp. 194-198.

In May, 1915 Audain went to Ireland hoping to find the body of his nephew, Lt. James Dunsmuir among the remains of the victims of the torpedoing of the RMS Lusitania. He was unsuccessful. 

History of Use

This photograph was owned by Guy Mortimer Audain, later by his son James Guy Payne Audain, and still later by his grandson, Michael James Audain, OC OBC.

Date

1914 – 1918

Material

Paper

Artwork Title

untitled

Photograph Type

Gelatin silver process

Subject/Image

Indian Military Depot Milford-on-Sea headquarter staff (Hampshire, UK)

Inscription

stamped in blue ink: INDIAN ARMY DEPOT MILFORD-ON-SEA; hand-written in red ink: Head Quarter Staff

Country of Origin

United Kingdom