BOXER REBELLION - LEICESTER, John Cyril Holdich.

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Photographs documenting the aftermath of the Battle of Tianjin. An Indian Army officer's record of the period after the Eight-Nation Alliance's victory over Boxer and Chinese imperial forces at Tianjin, including the often-overlooked contribution of Indian Army officers and soldiers who served during the war.The photographs, nearly all of which are captioned in the album and on their verso, were gathered by Lieutenant John Cyril Holdich Leicester (1872-1949), who was appointed to the Indian Medical Service in 1899 and served in China with the 6th (Prince of Wales') Bengal Cavalry. During the First World War, Leicester served in the Middle East, earning two mentions in despatches, and retired in 1927 at the rank of lieutenant-colonel, having held an appointment as Honorary Surgeon to the Viceroy.The album opens in summer 1900, the Eight-Nation forces now split between the Beijing relief expedition (which lifted the siege of the legations in mid-August) and those left in Tianjin to consolidate the victory. Leicester appears on his horse Bella with his orderly, one Syed Abud Husain of the 1st Central Indian Horse. French artillery and soldiers parade through the streets, joined by the sepoy band of the Hong Kong Regiment (seconded to China from the British Indian Army), watched by several Japanese soldiers. Street scenes show the mingling of troops from the different Allied nations, while, in one photograph, a Chinese resident wheels a barrow along a street that has taken heavy

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