Photo 797(37)

Three-quarter length portrait of Bahadur Shah II (1775-1862), Emperor of Delhi 1837-57. He is shown lying on a charpoy with a hookah in front of him. The photograph was taken in May 1858, while the ex-king was being held in Delhi awaiting his trial by the British for his part in the rebellion. It was, apparently, common practice for Europeans to visit the ex-King in captivity: 'While waiting for these charges to be considered the King continued to be displayed to European visitors as one of the curiosities of Delhi. One of those who inspected him was William Hodson's wife who found him, as most other spectators did, lying on the grass ropes of his bamboo charpoy smoking a hookah...' (Christopher Hibbert, 'The Great Mutiny', London, 1978, p. 387 in Penguin edition, 1980). In January 1859, Bahadur Shah was brought before a British military court and after a trial lasting two months, was found guilty on 29 March 1859 of abetting the mutineers; he was later sentenced to exile in Rangoon, where he died in 1862.

Lieutenant Edward Ommanney, the officer in charge of the king during his imprisonment before the trial, records in his diary (National Army Museum 6301/143) that Robert Tytler made an unsuccessful attempt to photograph Bahadur Shah on 29 March 1858, but that owing to the poor light the session was a failure. On 12 May, however, he records that 'Captn. Tytler and Mr Shepherd the latter a professional photographer [presumably Charles Shepherd, later of Bourne & Shepherd] came & took some very successful likenesses of the Ex King.'