Harriet Christina Tytler (née Earle; 3 October 1828 – 24 November 1907) was a British artist, writer, and a pioneer photographer. With her husband Robert Christopher Tytler, she created over 300 photographs. [1] She is known for the documentation of monuments and the Siege of Delhi.
Tytler was born in Sikraura, Bahraich, India, where her father was an officer in the 3rd Bengal Native Infantry. [2]
In her autobiography An Englishwoman in India Harriet records in detail her experiences as a child in various military stations to which her father was transferred. In 1831 she was sent with two of her siblings to England, where she lived in Birmingham with her aunt and uncle. She returned to India at the age of seventeen. On 2 March 1848 she married Major Robert Christopher Tytler, whose wife had died fourteen months earlier. [3] Their son, Major-General Sir Harry Tytler, followed his father into the Indian Army.
The Tytlers were introduced to photography by Felix Beato and Dr John Murray of Agra. In May 1857 the couple were resident in the military cantonments outside Delhi, where Robert Tytler's regiment, the 38th Bengal Native Infantry was one of the first to mutiny during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Because she was heavily pregnant, Harriet was allowed to stay on and was the only British woman present at the Siege of Delhi. She later gave birth in a donkey cart while escaping to safer areas. They named this third child Stanley Delhi-Force Tytler. [4] [5]
From 1862 to 1864 she lived in the Andaman Islands where her husband was posted as a Superintendent of the Ross Island Penal Colony, a penal settlement which was established mainly to house prisoners from the 1857 mutiny. The region around a 1,100 foot high hill in the South Andamans, which was named after her as Mount Harriet (now known as Mount Manipur), [6] was cleared of forest by Tytler. The area is now protected as the Mount Harriet National Park. Tytler's tenure in the Andamans was short and they moved to Simla. In Simla, Harriet founded an Asiatic Christian Orphanage. [7]
She died in Simla on 24 November 1907. [8]
Harriet's photographic work is mixed with those of her husband. Some pictures bear the "S.C.T." which have been identified as standing for her son Stanley. Many of her photographs are included in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada [9] [10] and the Harrison D. Horblit Collection of Early Photography. [11] Although never having painted before she began work on a large canvas of 6x18 feet, to depict from memory the palace of the Emperor of Delhi as a cyclorama. She completed this work in 1872, following the death of Robert. [5] Harriet kept a diary and her memoirs were published in 1986 as An Englishwoman in India. Her son Stanley grew up in Australia and became an artist of repute. He moved to British Columbia where he was a founding member of the B.C. Society of Fine Arts in 1909.
Samuel Bourne was a British photographer known for his prolific seven years' work in India, from 1863 to 1870. Together with Charles Shepherd, he set up Bourne & Shepherd first in Shimla in 1863 and later in Kolkata (Calcutta); the company closed in June 2016.
Mount Harriet National Park, officially renamed as Mount Manipur National Park, is a national park located in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands union territory of India. The park, established in 1969, covers about 4.62 km2 (18.00 mi2). Mount Manipur, which is a part of the park, is the third-highest peak in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago next to Saddle Peak in North Andaman and Mount Thullier in Great Nicobar.
Malcolm Arbuthnot was a pictorialist photographer and artist. In his teenage years he was a keen cyclist, who participated in renowned endurance events like the Bath Road Cycling Club's 100 miles race.
Felice Beato, also known as Felix Beato, was an Italian–British photographer. He was one of the first people to take photographs in East Asia and one of the first war photographers. He is noted for his genre works, portraits, and views and panoramas of the architecture and landscapes of Asia and the Mediterranean region. Beato's travels gave him the opportunity to create images of countries, people, and events that were unfamiliar and remote to most people in Europe and North America. His work provides images of such events as the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the Second Opium War, and represents the first substantial body of photojournalism. He influenced other photographers, and his influence in Japan, where he taught and worked with numerous other photographers and artists, was particularly deep and lasting.
Robert Christopher Tytler was a British soldier, naturalist and photographer. His second wife Harriet C. Tytler is well known for her work in photographing and documenting the monuments of Delhi and for her notes at the time of the 1857 revolt in India. Mount Harriet in the Andamans was named after her. A species of bird, Tytler's leaf warbler, is named after him.
Charles Shepherd was an English photographer and printer who worked in India in the second half of the 19th century. His photographs include scenes of soldiers and civilians, both English and indigenous.
Frederic John Mouat was a British surgeon, chemist and prison reformer. He was part of the committee that helped identify the Andaman Islands as a suitable location for a convict settlement. He examined the use of chaulmogra oil in the treatment of leprosy and published the first illustrated book on human anatomy in Urdu in 1849. He was also involved in the founding of Presidency College, Calcutta.
Frederick Hollyer was an English photographer and engraver known for his photographic reproductions of paintings and drawings, particularly those of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and for portraits of literary and artistic figures of late Victorian and Edwardian London.
Mary Olive Edis, later Edis-Galsworthy, was a British photographer and successful businesswoman who, throughout her career, owned several studios in London and Norfolk.
Luminous-Lint is a website on photography, run by Alan Griffiths, on vintage and contemporary photography. The site also serves as a collaborative knowledge base on the history of photography and as of 2023 included more than 126,000 photographs and 1,000 histories, biographies of more than 21,000 photographers, and information about techniques, galleries and dealers, photography timelines and other photography-related issues. Robert Hirsch has referred to it as a "top-notch" photographic site.
Sher Ali Afridi was an Indian soldier of Pashtun background, convicted of murder and imprisoned at the penal colony of Port Blair, Andaman Islands. He is known for assassinating Lord Mayo, the Viceroy of India, on 8 February 1872. The British sources described him as a "fearless soldier and one who would have been selected for any service of danger".
Mary Dillwyn is considered to be the earliest female photographer in Wales, who took photographs of flowers, birds, animals, family and friends in the 1840s and 1850s. She provided a raw insight to the domestic lives of women and children living in 19th century Britain, pushing the boundaries of what could be considered as worthy subjects to photograph.
Helen Messinger Murdoch was an American photographer who pioneered the use of Autochromes in travel photography.
The Crown of the Bahadur Shah II is the head dress of last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah II.
Ross Island Penal Colony was a convict settlement that was established in 1858 in the remote Andaman Islands by the British colonial government in India, primarily to jail a large number of prisoners from the Indian Rebellion of 1857, also known as the Indian Mutiny. With the establishment of the penal colony at Ross Island, the British administration made it the administrative headquarters for the entire group of Andaman and Nicobar Islands and built bungalows and other facilities on the site. This colony was meant as "manageable models of colonial governance and rehabilitation". The Chief Commissioner's residence was located at the highest point on the island. Over time, several other islands including Chatham and Viper were used for the penal colony.
This is a timeline of women in photography tracing the major contributions women have made to both the development of photography and the outstanding photographs they have created over the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.
Joan Almond was an American photographer, exhibiting since 1987.
Mount Manipur, formerly known as Mount Harriet, is the third highest peak in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. The mountain houses the Mount Manipur Memorial, which commemorates the Manipuri freedom fighters of the Anglo-Manipur War and the Mount Manipur National Park (Mount Harriet National Park), which is best known for its rich biodiversity in the archipelago. On 17 October 2021, Mount Harriet was officially renamed as Mount Manipur by the Union Government of India, as a tribute to the freedom fighters of Manipur. This was initially announced by Amit Shah, the Union Home Minister of India, in a function in Port Blair, highlighting about the sacrifices of Yuvaraj Tikendrajit Singh, General Thangal, Meitei King Kulachandra Dhwaja Singh, the Maharajah of Manipur kingdom and other 22 freedom fighters of the Anglo-Manipur war of 1891.
The Mount Manipur Memorial is a memorial site in the Mount Manipur of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India. Spanning over an area of more than 45000 sq ft, the memorial site is dedicated to the Manipuri freedom fighters and the martyrs of the Anglo-Manipur war. In the year 2022, the memorial site won the "International Muse Design Award 2022", through the designs of the "Huidrom Design Studios" from Manipur.
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