13 volumes of photograph albums, known to Offaly Historical and Archaeological Society as the Magan-Biddulph Collection. complied by Lt. Col. Middleton Westenra Biddulph, landowner of the Rathrobin estate, near Mountbolus, County Offaly. Biddulph was born in Rathrobin in 1849, the eldest surviving son of Francis Marsh Biddulph and Lucy Bickerstaff. The Biddulph family's landholding was principally in the townlands of Rathrobin and those adjoining of Clonseer, Cormeen, Kilmore and Mullaghcrohy, all near Mountbolus, in the civil parish of Killoughy and the barony of Ballyboy. Middleton Biddulph enlisted with the Northumberland Fusiliers (Fifth Regiment) in 1867, rising to the ranks of Lieutenant Colonel before his retirement in 1896. Following his retirement, Biddulph and his wife, Vera Josephine Flower, returned to Rathrobin and rebuilt the old house over the period 1898 to 1900. Biddulph served as High Sheriff for King's County in 1901, and was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of the county in 1910.
As a keen amateur photographer, Biddulph used a quarter plate camera to document his various areas of interest including; his military career with the Northumberland Fusiliers; visits to country houses across Ireland, England and Scotland; members of the Biddulph and Magan family; visits around Ireland as part of the Royal Society of Antiquarians; interior and exterior photographs of Rathrobin House; agricultural work on the estate. There is also an extent of photographs of tenant families and employees of the Rathrobin estate, featured across the photograph albums.
Biddulph and his wife left for England in June 1921 as the military campaign of the IRA in the locality intensified, and Rathrobin House was destroyed by Republican IRA forces in April 1923. While he seemed to have planned to return to Ireland after this, an attack on his land agent and niece, Violet Magan, and his own declining health delayed plans to do so, and he died in Chelsea in May 1926. The albums were presented to Offaly Historical and Archaeological Society in 1997 by Brigadier William Magan, a nephew of the photographer.
Biddulph, Middleton Westenra, Lt Col
