Princess Alexandra inspecting a Bristol monoplane aircraft, Mesopotamia, 1919 (b/w photo)

Princess Alexandra inspecting a Bristol monoplane aircraft, Mesopotamia, 1919. Photograph, Mesopotamia, 1919. From an album compiled by Major William Leith-Ross, Army Staff and 13th Frontier Force Rifles, 1918-1920. In 1916 Leith-Ross, a veteran of the Western Front, was attached to the intelligence staff of the Indian Expeditionary Force’s headquarters in Mesopotamia. Throughout 1916 and 1917 he travelled by motor vehicle and aircraft to reconnoitre, photograph, survey and report on the British area of operations. From January to September 1918 he was seconded to Dunsterforce, the British Military Mission to the Caucasus. After this, Leith-Ross continued to serve in Mesopotamia until late 1919. Princess Alexandra Lieven (1879-1974) was an exile from the Russian Imperial Court following the Bolshevik revolution. The album contains notes relating to her ‘dangerous and adventurous journey ... via Baku and the Caspian’. It records she was ‘Keen on all sport, particularly riding, at which she was very expert. She remained with us for some weeks in Baghdad before being shipped home. Alexandra went on to marry Sir John Edward Kynaston Studd, becoming Lady Studd, and Lady Mayoress of London 1928. She died in Hammersmith, London in 1974.