Alfred Duggan-Cronin � Photographer

Sandy Grant | Wednesday March 2, 2016 15:10

 

The Willoughby collection is now held by the National Archives, courtesy of Neil Parsons who engineered the bequest from the descendant family in England; the Duggan–Cronin collection is held by the McGregor Museum in Kimberley and Isaac Schapera’s archival photos are in the possession of the Royal Anthropological Institute in London. 

The collections are very different. Willoughby, an LMS missionary, took photos of places such as Old Palapye as well as studies of personalities such as Khama and his daughters, and of his son, Sekgoma.

Schapera, as an anthropologist, had a wide range of interests including agriculture for instance, which was obviously not one of Willoughby’s major interests.  Schapera also took photographs, mostly of Mochudi, of building styles, landscapes, traditional doctors and local personalities, both male and female. Most of Duggan Cronin’s life was spent at Kimberley, where he worked for De Beers.

 This brought him into contact with migrant workers from all over southern Africa who he began photographing.  He made his first field trip – which happened to be to this country – in 1909. 

Its success was such that he was to make many more to different parts and to different peoples.  Duggan-Cronin, originally from Ireland, was fascinated by the varied people he sought out, their physical appearance and not least their dress and their occupations.

He knew that life for everyone was fast changing and that what he was recording was about to be gone forever. 

His head and shoulders photograph of Kgosi Gaborone, then thought to be aged around 103, showed him, traditionally, unclothed from the waist up. It is impossible to imagine that the three Dikgosi, even 30 years earlier, would ever have been so un-attired.  Many of Duggan Cronin’s photos have a rare quality about them.

He makes you want to reach out and touch them. They are clearly set in the context of their time yet they also have a closeness to us today.

Willoughby gives us a post visit Khama with whom it is difficult to relate. He is wooden, never smiles and certainly never appears to be enjoying himself.

He also gives us faces which are unlike those of today. They belong to the past. In contrast Duggan-Cronin gives us many photos of people from the 1930s who belong to today rather than to a long ago yesterday.

This stunning lady from Mochudi is almost someone we might meet today. Yes, she is different but she is beautiful, she has style and she has carriage.

It’s hard to see Willoughby taking this photo but then Duggan-Cronin, like Schapera, was a life long bachelor. If only we had a gallery, the stunning photos  taken by these three remarkable people could be seen by everyone.