Linnaeus Tripe

Linnaeus Tripe (1822-1902) was a British photographer, best known for his photographs of India and Burma taken in the 1850s. His works are on display at the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. [ [http://wwar.com/masters/t/tripe-linnaeus.html World Wide Art Resources] ]

He was born in Davenport, Devon on 14 April 1822.

Early Life in India

He joined the East India Company army in 1838 and became a Lieutenant in 1840 based in the south of India. He returned to England in 1850 on leave which was extended due to ill health until 1854. During this time he began to experiment with photography. He returned to Bangalore, India as a captain in June 1854. In December of that year he made his first photographs of India. In February of the following year he took part in the ‘Madras Exhibition of Raw Products, Arts, and Manufactures of Southern India’ displaying 68 photographs of previously unphotographed temples. These photographs were declared to be the ‘best series of photographic views on paper’ by the jury.

Burma

In June 1855 Tripe accompanied an official expedition to Burma to obtain representations of scenes and buildings. The result of this visit was the publication of Burma Views. This was widely distributed and very well received.

Madras

In March 1857 he became official photographer to the Madras Government taking photographs of objects shown at the Madras exhibition and portraits of Madras residents. In 1858 he took photographs of subjects with architectural or antiquarian interest, and also those which would be useful from a practical, engineering perspective. He exhibited 50 photographs from this tour in the annual exhibition of the Madras Photographic Society in 1859.

Following the 1857 uprising, control of India went to the British Crown and in June 1859 Tripe was ordered not to undertake any new work and at the end of that year he was told to close the business and sell off the equipment.

Return to the army

In 1863 Tripe returned to the army and was continually promoted, becoming colonel in August 1873. Whilst in Lower Burma in February 1869 he made his two final series of photographs. Here he took photographs of landscapes made on glass negatives.Tripe left India in 1873 and retired from the Army in April 1874. He died in Davenport on 2 March 1902. [ [http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/photography/features/photo_focus/tripe/index.html Linnaeus Tripe] ]

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