ALLAN (George W. and Mrs M. Allan, of Cairo).

Folio of c.40 artistic photographs circa late 1930s and 1940s, mainly Egypt, with a few of the Sudan, several signed and titled below to the mounts, some loose, subjects include typical desert scenery, Pyramids, street scenes with figures, a few native portraits, buildings etc; sizes vary, largest 41 x 38cm

• George William Allan was born in St Petersburg, Russia in 1894; his father was a textile merchant of Scottish descent while his mother was Russian.
• Allan attended a French school in Moscow and then studied Engineering at University in Munchen-Gladbach, Germany.
• From 1915 he spent two years in New York as secretary to the Russian Government Buying Mission there; he then joined the staff of the British Legation in Copenhagen.
• He returned to Russia briefly in 1918 to organise the extraction of his mother from St Petersburg, via Finland; he later escaped himself by reindeer sleigh via Murmansk and northern Sweden.
• After the war he worked with his father in Finland and later London, trading in Chemicals and Textiles.
• In 1922 Allan secured a job with Bayer, Germany; his first assignment was to Bombay, India where they needed a textile engineer.
• After this posting, in 1925 he married Marie Reterre, a French citizen also born in Russia, where her father owned a coffee business; he then took his new wife to Australia and New Zealand where he helped expand Bayer’s chemicals businesses; then another spell in India, Calcutta this time.
• Allan was on his way back to Europe in 1929, when he was instructed to disembark Cairo instead where Agfa, a major Bayer subsidiary, required a photographic expert; he grasped this challenge with pleasure, as photography was his favourite hobby.
• In 1932, when Bayer replaced all British managers by German staff, Allan joined Agfa’s local distributor, subsequently running, among other businesses, the Opera chain of photographic shops in Egypt.
• In Cairo, Allan enjoyed fishing and hunting expeditions, and also photographed the ancient temples and local life. For much of the 1930’s he was accredited by the Egyptian Tourist Board and supplied pictures for many of their publications.
• Many of his photographs of Egypt from this time were subsequently donated variously to the archives of The British Museum, St John’s College Cambridge, and University College London.
• His photographs of St Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai were particularly valued, and were published, with text by Heinz Skrobucha, in the book ‘Sinai’*.
• He remained in Cairo throughout the second world war, facilitating the purchase of radio, cinematic & other equipment for the Allied forces.
• Allan left Cairo in 1956 after the Suez Crisis and moved to London, where he passed in 1960.