Signed “C. L. R. Glasfurd”, this cabinet photograph appears to depict Charles Lamont Robertson Glasfurd, the third son of Major-General Charles Lamont Robertson Glasfurd, Bombay Staff Corps, and Jane Cunninghame. He was born in India on 10 April 1875.
The younger Glasfurd (often encountered as Glasford) is I believe pictured here as a member of the Behar Light Horse (BLH) which was a volunteer cavalry reserve corps in the Indian Army. The unit was made up of Europeans, primarily involved in the indigo trade in and around Behar (Bihar) Bengal. The BLH was headquartered at Mozufferpore (Muzaffarpur) where this photo was taken.
Glasfurd did not follow his two older brothers into the army but instead became an indigo planter then later a representative of Turner, Morrison & Co. of Chittagong, Bengal. Apparently, he took to part-time soldiering in the volunteers. His brothers were Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Inglis Robertson Glasfurd, CMG, DSO, Indian Army, and Brigadier Duncan John Glasfurd, Australian Imperial Force, who died of wounds in France in 1916.
As of this writing, I have not found any documentation confirming Glasfurd’s membership in the BLH, though the circumstantial evidence currently on hand seems to. His uniform and equipment are precisely the same as members that of the BLH members depicted in the 12 July 1902 edition of The Army and Navy Illustrated.
Glasfurd married Dorothy Maud Chester Heinig on 10 November 1906 in Bengal. The marriage was tragically short with the groom dying from cholera less than a year later on 11 November 1907 at Chittagong, Bengal.
Cabinet Photograph
H. Bailey - Photographer
Mozufferpore (Muzaffarpur), India
c 1900