talk

The New Arrivals were: Coypu rats, each of which is as big as a full-grown cat. A very rare Malayan monitor and "Lincoln Murphy" a new baby kangeroo. There are pictures of all three too.

Sharon Corbet Well done Sharon, what a name for the Kangaroo!! Don't like the sound of Coypu Rats!

Sharon Corbet I would say that Mason had great fun showing that photo to friends and family with its well centered if confusing headline!

Some interesting background to Thomas Holmes Mason (1877-1958) -

"... Thomas Mason's son, Thomas Holmes, was born in 1877. The grandfather of today's company chairman, Thomas H was a remarkable man. He worked alongside his father in the company until the latter's death in 1913, at which point the company was called Thomas H Mason. Stan explains how the company, under his grandfather's direction, made a "dramatic move with the technology of the time". "In the late 1890s he introduced photography to the business in the form of picture postcards. We went on to become the biggest producer of picture postcards in Ireland, right up until the 1940s, when the price of silver, a major component in developing solutions, rocketed because of the war." He takes a book from a glass case - Thomas H Mason's book The Islands of Ireland, published 1936. "My grandfather was interested in archaeology, ornithology, historical sites on the islands off Ireland, interests which brought him all over the country with his full-plate camera. He built up a huge and very fine collection of pictures which, unfortunately, were destroyed by fire in 1963. There's a vast collection of his picture postcards in the Civic Museum, however." ... ... "

From - www.irishtimes.com/business/commercial-property/saga-of-a... (2003)

From the Irish Press on Tuesday, 4 July 1933...

TURF PLAN'S VALUE TO ARCHAEOLOGISTS ROTARY LECTURE That the Government's turf scheme should result in the discovery of articles of archaeological value, was claimed by Mr. T. H. Mason, M.R.I.A., in the course of a lecture on "Archaeology in Ireland", at the weekly meeting of the Dublin Rotary Club, in the Metropole Restaurant, yesterday [Monday, 3 July 1933]. Those engaged in the work of drainage of the bogs and of cutting turf should at once report to the National Museum, Dublin, or to the local Gardaí Síochána any structure or objects, however small, of artificial nature, which they discovered in the course of their work... He believed that the number of bronze age finds during the next ten years would far exceed the discoveries of the past 30 or 40 years...

And given current news, it's not just bogs hiding bronze age finds.

The poor old skeleton looks a bit bored!

攝影人天堂(Post 1 Award 5)
Photographer Paradise

Definately agree with Karel, well done TWAM and thank you.

says in the corner "produced for H.M. Stationary Office by Stafford & Co., Ltd., Netherfeild, Nottingham, ??-477"