Photo album of Bishop Jervois Newnham and family

ca. 1890-1962. Hardcover. Very good. Half leather and cloth album is 19 x 25 cm with 26 leaves. Marbled endpapers. All edges gilt. Mainly b&w photos of places and people with one colourized church interior (St. John's Cathedral at Moose Fort) and one colour snapshot at rear dated 1962. Some photos pasted, while some inserted with photo corners. Most labeled in pencil. Captions in block capitals by Bishop Newnham himself, with later writing by his daughter May. Nine photos removed at rear. A small leaf with Indigenous (Cree?) characters inserted half way through. Accompanied by three-ring binder with extra sketches, photos, album index, and stapled descriptive catalogue of artifacts relating to the bishop and his family. The photos in the binder are mostly identified on the rear.

Born into an ecclesiastical family in 1852, Jervois Arthur Newnham came to Canada as a young man and graduated from the Montreal Diocesan College and McGill University in 1878. After being ordained as an Anglican minister, he became curate at Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal. He was Bishop of Moosonee from 1893 to 1903 and of Saskatchewan from 1904 to 1921. He travelled extensively on foot, by canoe or by snowshoe throughout his dioceses, often with the native people. Retiring as a bishop in 1921, he returned to England and became rector in Clifton, Bedfordshire before returning to Hamilton, Ontario where he died January 12, 1941.

The first leaf of Newnham's album has photos of Lettie Henderson, who married him in 1892, and Grove Corsham, his father's rectory in Bath, England. The ship Lady Head, the transportation that took the Newnhams to their remote missionary post at Moose Fort/Factory, is also pasted to the first page. The majority of the photos in the album were taken at or near Moose Factory. Interesting photos include Isaiah Squirrel (a converted "Indian" in training for catachism), the five daughters of Bishop Newnham, Rupert's House Indian School students, Indian camps, a dog team, showshoeing in the bush, and other clergymen. The photos of Indigenous people may assist in documenting their lives, cultures, and relations with the Anglican church and settlers.