Accession Number

2023.003.009

Description

One sepia-toned studio photograph of Patrick Somerset Holme-Sumner in a British Army uniform. He is facing the camera and holding a swagger stick in both hands. The background is white and in the lower right corner is the indistinct signature of the photographer, “Alice Drus Southam”.

Narrative

A great grandson of Robert and Joan Olive Dunsmuir of Craigdarroch, Patrick Somerset Holme-Sumner received a commission in the 42nd Royal Highlands (Black Watch) Regiment of the British Army in 1915.¹ According to his family, he was given a medical discharge in 1917. He posed for this photograph sometime before his medical discharge from the army in 1917.

Patrick Somerset Holme-Sumner moved to Hollywood, California after the Great War, and changed his name to “Pat Somerset”. He became a screen actor and Secretary of the Screen Actors Guild. Numerous surviving photographs depict him with various actors, including Katharine Hepburn, Ronald Reagan, Charleton Heston, John Wayne, Myrna Loy, Edward G. Robinson, etc.

1. The London Gazette, 14 September, 1915.
 

History of Use

This photograph was created in Britain and used there by Captain Berkeley Holme-Sumner and Margaret Joan Harvey (Mrs. Holme-Sumner) until the 1950s when it became the property of their daughter, Georgiana Holme-Sumner, and then by Georgiana Holme-Sumner’s son, who donated the photograph to Craigdarroch Castle in 2023. He had been using it at his home in Scotland.

Date

circa 1915

Dimensions

17.6 x 11.8 cm

Subject/Image

Patrick Somerset Holme-Sumner

Support

Cardstock

Country of Origin

England