A unique collection of photographs taken by a Sussex soldier who met Adolf Hitler is going on show for the first time.

2nd Lt Rowland Paget, from Chichester, served in the Royal Sussex Regiment during the 1899-1902 Boer War in South Africa.

He carried a camera with him and took about 600 photographs of a soldier's life on the trail of enemy guerillas.

Now they will go on public display for the first time this century to mark the 100th anniversary of the war.

Paget visited Germany in later life and was introduced to Hitler as a veteran of the First World War.

Exhibition organiser Alan Readman, assistant county archivist at the West Sussex Record Office in Chichester, said: "Paget served in the 1st Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment in South Africa.

"He was part of a column of mounted infantry set up to counter the guerilla tactics of the Boers.

"This is one of the outstanding collections from the war. His pictures are not only of the regiment as it went about pursuing the Boers, but also of the topography and native life of South Africa.

"The photographs were mounted in albums and they were presented to the regimental museum when he died at the age of 76 in 1954. They are excellent photographs, not rough and ready snaps.

"It is a complete picture of what life was like for soldiers from Sussex."

A total of 4,000 troops from the Royal Sussex Regiment served in the war and 160 of them died, many from disease.

Paget was badly wounded during the Great War, but survived and became a great traveller.

Mr Readman said: "He went to Germany between the wars and in 1934 was introduced to Hitler. He was probably the only officer from the regiment to meet Hitler."

Paget's photographs will be exhibited at the Record Office in Orchard Street, Chichester, from December 6 to January 28.

On December 8, there will be a lecture by Frank Gray on the pioneering Sussex film-makers who recorded the conflict.

They include Brighton cameraman John Benett-Stanford, from Preston Manor, who took newsreel footage of the campaign.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.