Classroom Photographic Journeys: Alfred Hugh Fisher and the British Empire's Development of Colonial-era Visual Education

This thesis explores the Colonial Office Visual Instruction Committee’s (COVIC) conceptualization and use of photography in order to demonstrate the role played by the medium in structuring a visual framework for the imperial indoctrination of children in early twentieth-century Britain. It focuses on photographs made by Alfred Hugh Fisher, an artist photographer who was employed by COVIC between 1907 and 1910 to document the peoples and lands ruled by the British Empire. Fisher was the first and only photographer to have ever been employed by COVIC and many of his photographic images were used in this context for the production of lantern-slide lectures, dedicated for use in children’s geography lessons. In attending to Fisher’s production of visual materials for COVIC, the thesis, therefore, simultaneously reveals how COVIC modified its approach to the importance of photography in imperial education and how personal sensibilities inflected the educational narrative populated by the British Empire during the time period in question. Drawing on material from COVIC archive, the Fisher Photograph Collection, and the Herbert F. West Collection of Alfred Hugh Fisher, the study analyses the relationship between Fisher and COVIC to establish what particular circumstances and imperial desires have led to his employment by the Committee. Similarly, it investigates the impact COVIC aspired to exert on audiences of Fisher’s images through an investigation of the instructions Fisher received from his supervisor, renowned geographer Halford John Mackinder. Particular attention is given to COVIC’s use of lantern slides in its pedagogical approach to the dissemination of visual information, demonstrating how the Committee aimed to involve young learners in emotionally-charged, multi-sensory teaching and learning activities. A discussion of the legacy of Fisher’s work in light of new political debates after World War I brings the study to conclusion. By addressing the context in which Fisher produced his photographs and through consideration of their contents and deployment, the study stresses the complicated institutional and inter-personal structures that materialised the structure of COVIC’s imperial vision

Name dc:type.qualificationname

PhD

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

De Montfort University

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Meneghini, Sabrina

Licence

• https://dora.dmu.ac.uk/bitstreams/28b09ba2-5f29-4e6b-96e6-e02906bceacd/download