Photo 447/8(1)

Genre: Historical Events

Glass copy negative from a print showing three Burmese dacoits about to be executed by a British firing squad in front of the walls of Mandalay. A handwritten note on the brown paper wrapping in which the negative is contained reads (punctuation amended): 'Fearful outcry, Exeter Hall up in arms. Brutality of British officer, questions in Parliament. This took place in 1886/87 during 3rd Burmah War. Willoughby Hooper, my 2nd cousin, was a most humane man but a keen photographer, especially instantaneous photography. He was Provost Marshal on the staff and assistant P.M. at the execution. W. Hooper was present in mufti together with many other Burmans as a looker on. His asst. P.M. carried out the execution. W. Hooper took no part in it. A disgruntled newspaper correspondent who had fallen foul of the General & was under orders to return to Rangoon from Mandalay determined to get his knife into someone & wrote home to his paper The Times an entirely false version elleging that W. Hooper had delayed the execution to focus his camera. A court of enquiry was ordered as a result of outcry in England. W. Hooper was acquitted, but court added it would have been in better taste not to have photographed the scene. Still, howl went on in England & to appease the many, W. Hooper had to hand in his papers, this the agitators in England regarded as having disgraced W.H. As a matter of fact he had an interview with the Viceroy of India who said he had to be made a victim of, but although only a Lt. Col. he would be granted a full Colonel's pension & be eligible for 'off-reckonings'. Result was that W.H. returned as young man & a few years later got off-reckonings which gave him a pension of £1100 a year, so he did not suffer as his traducer would have wished. I think the newspaper man was named Condor or Curry, he was Irish, or Condon [in fact Edward Kyran Moylan] - I saw his grave in Rangoon Cemetery in 1904. C.W.R. Hooper, March 30th 1939.' For a more detailed account of the affair, see John Falconer, 'Willoughby Wallace Hooper: 'A craze about photography'' (The photographic collector, vol.4, No.3, Winter 1983, pp.258-86).

Subjects = crime and criminals; dacoits; executions; military (general); military campaigns; punishments

Location = Burma; Mandalay; Mandalay Division; Myanmar