Willoughby Wallace Hooper
Willoughby Wallace Hooper (* 1837 in London , † April 21, 1912 in Kilmington near Axminster , England ) was an English military photographer. He became known for his photographs of Burmese and Indians during the British occupation. Hooper contributed essential visual material for the ethnically - racist eight-volume work The People of India (published 1868–1875). He took portraits of starving people, arranged in the style of bourgeois family photos. His photo plates of Indian tiger hunts adorned street lamps in England. In 1886, Hooper came under public criticism after recording and publicizing the execution of insurgents in Mandalay .
Life
Willoughby Wallace Hooper was the son of Thomas and Maria Hooper from Brixton . He was baptized on May 19, 1837 in St. Mark's Church in Kennington. After finishing school in Ramsgate , he took up a position as secretary at East India House in 1853 . In 1858 he was called up to the light cavalry in India, rose to lieutenant in 1859, and finally to lieutenant colonel in 1884. He retired in 1896 and died unmarried in 1912 in Devon, south-west England.
As an amateur photographer, Hooper had his camera with him when he started work. The management of the 7th Madras Cavalry, to which he belonged, became aware of his talent early on and released him from military service. The Governor General and Vice-King of British India , Lord Canning , also appreciated Hooper's photographs. From then on, Hooper traveled with the troops and became their military photographer. Approx. In 1870 he and his colleague George Western founded the Hooper and Western company to market his photos. The twelve-part series "Tiger Shooting" of a tiger hunt from around 1872 was a great sales success. Nevertheless, Hooper stayed with the military. More and more often he took on social issues, such as the famine of 1878. His perspective was always that of the colonial rulers who look down on exotic, inferior people. The English satirical magazine Punch showed a caricature of Hooper with the starving people, with the comment that he had shown no attention to the wretched when creating the “beautiful” personal arrangements.
The Mandalay execution photo
With the technology of more sensitive photo plates, "WW Hooper" wanted to record processes with short exposure times. He took part in the 3rd Burmese War 1885–86 as a police officer (Provost Marshall) and experienced fierce resistance from local fighters. There were numerous executions. Hooper saw the photos of the shooting of prisoners as suitable to exhaust his short exposure times and to deliver a previously unseen document of the times. According to his own description, he wanted to show the facial features of the men the second before the bullets hit them.
His photo of the execution of insurgent Burmese in Mandalay at the beginning of 1886 caused a stir in the troops, but also in political circles in Great Britain. Among other things, there was a request in the House of Commons on February 23 and a military hearing on site on March 19, where Hooper argued, among other things, that he had been in civilian clothes at the execution. The viceroy of the Indian colony, Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood , made serious charges against him.
He was charged with two separate offenses. First, he tried to persuade a prisoner to confess by threatening him with execution. Second - and much more effective - Hooper agreed with the shooters from the execution squad: They should put a little delay before the command "Fire!" move in so he could take the cover off his lens. The exposure time was controlled by removing and replacing the lens cap. At the hearing, Hooper denied everything and shared this point of view with the Times :
- “The camera was brought into position before the prisoners were placed against the wall. They were blindfolded so they couldn't know about the camera. The words of the command were by no means timed in such a way that they sufficed for the exposure of the plate, because this happened without delay. The words of the command 'Ready! Present! Fire! ' were given by the chief officer in accordance with the rules for firing squads, and there was no delay between the words 'Present!' and 'fire' on. "
To emphasize the importance of the photo for posterity, Hooper concluded with the words:
- "There was no previous attempt to photograph an execution."
The correspondent for the Rangoon Gazette and the London Gazette had told the Times a month earlier that he had been an eyewitness to the execution and had noticed a pause of several seconds before the actual "fire!" Command in which the "enthusiastic amateur photographer" was covering the cover took off the lens.
At the military hearing, Hooper's guilt was recognized. The consequence would have been a suspension from duty; But because of his “great merits” as an officer in the colonial war, it was left with an official reprimand and a temporary cut in salary.
With the fall, "Colonel Hoopers" career ended.
Books by and with Willoughby Wallace Hooper
- The People of India: A Series of Photographic Illustrations, with Descriptive Letterpress, of the Races and Tribes of Hindustan . 8 volumes with numerous photographs by Hooper. London 1868-1875
- Burmah: a series of one hundred photographs . London 1887
- Lantern Readings illustrative of the Burmah Expeditionary Force and manners and customs of the Burmese . London; Derby 1887
- Lantern reading: Tiger shooting in India , London 1887
literature
- John Hannavy (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography , p. 713 f. Taylor & Francis 2005. ISBN 978-0-415-97235-2
Web links
- A typical photo of Hooper - among many others - in the British Library : Mindhla after its capture
- Entry in the RCS Photographers Index
- Reference from Oxford University Press
Individual evidence
- ↑ Grattan Geary: Burma, after the conquest: viewed in its political, social, and commercial aspects, from Mandalay . Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, London 1886. pp. 241-243
- ↑ Hooper to the Times March 2, 1886, reprinted in the March 4 issue, p. 5
- ↑ The Times, March 4, 1886, p. 5. The article on incidents in the Asian colonies closes with the criticism of a French merchant that the police on January 16, 1886 six unclothed dead through the market in Mandalay on their way to the cemetery would have worn.
- ^ The Times: The Charges Against Colonel Hooper , Sep. 8, 1886, p. 3
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hooper, Willoughby Wallace |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English military photographer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1837 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 21, 1912 |
| Place of death | Kilmington near Axminster , England |