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1818 and entered the Bengal Army in 1834. During the
Indian Mutiny of 1857 he played a conspicuous part in
the re-taking of Delhi, his wife Harriet (born in Sikora on
3 October 1827) being one of the few European women
present throughout the siege. After the Mutiny, having
received tuition from both John Murray and Felice
Beato, the couple undertook an extensive photographic
documentation of sites associated with the recent events.
In the space of some six months in 1858, the couple
produced nearly 500 large-format calotype negatives
of Delhi, Cawnpore (Kanpur), Lucknow, Benares,
Agra and other locations, which, when shown to the
Bengal Photographic Society in 1859, were considered
‘perhaps the fi nest series that has ever been exhibited to
the Society.’ While many of their photographs bear the
clear compositional infl uence of both Murray and Beato,
these images remain one of the most remarkable of the
various photographic records of the mutiny, addition-
ally impressive in the light of the couple’s photographic
inexperience. The Tytlers subsequently settled in Simla,
Robert establishing a museum, with which he was in-
volved until his death on 10 September 1872. His wife
set up an orphanage in the hill station in 1869, where
she also lived for the remainder of her life, dying there
on 24 November 1907.
John Falconer