Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The important Indian campaign pair awarded to Colonel Willoughby Wallace Hooper, 7th (later 4th) Madras Light Cavalry, one of India’s most important early amateur photographers who left a legacy of images of international importance; his harrowing images of the Madras famines are considered some of his finest works, whilst as Provost Marshal, during the Third Burma Campaign, this gallant officer carried his camera under fire at the battle of Minhla, making him one of the first ever recorded war photo-journalists

Indian Mutiny 1857-59, no clasp (Cornet W. W. Hooper, 7th Madras Cavalry.) officially impressed naming; India General Service 1854-95, 1 clasp, Burma 1885-7 (Ltt. Coll. W. W. Hooper 4th Madras Cavy.) officially re-engraved naming, nearly extremely fine (2) £900-£1,200

Willoughby Wallace Hooper was born on 4 February 1837, at St John's Grove, North Brixton, London, son of William Thomas Hooper, Secretary to the East India Company College, Haileybury. Educated at Ramsgate under Thomas Whitehead, he was accepted for employment as a Writer in the Secretary's Department of East India House in November 1853, a position he held until being commissioned Cornet into the 7th Regiment Madras Light Cavalry, arriving in India via the overland route on 20 April 1858; Lieutenant, 21 December 1859; Captain, 27 December 1872; Major, 1 January 1883; Lieutenant-Colonel, 20 April 1884; Colonel, 20 Aprilo 1896.

During the Mutiny Hooper served with the 2nd squadron, 7th Light Cavalry from November 1858 to April 1859, at Kamptee in the Deccan under Colonels Roberts and Orr. On 28 February 1859, they marched miles without a halt in pursuit of the enemy and defeated them the same day, taking several prisoners.

From 1 October 1861, he was doing duty with the 4th Regiment Madras Light Cavalry, at the disposal of the Commissioner of Nagpore, for the purpose of taking “Photographic Likenesses” illustrative of the different races in that Province. A letter written by Hooper to the Chief Commissioner's Office, Central Provinces, dated 3 November 1863, states that he has submitted 20 plates of a series of photographs of the tribes of the Nagpore Province but explained that he had the greatest difficulty in procuring the photographs as the inhabitants had never seen a European before. He travelled through the jungles of the province getting images of the Bringewars, Dunwhars, Bhoomias and Gonds. Each photograph annotated as to location, diet, culture, religion and disposition. From Hooper's efforts and the collaboration of 12 other photographers from around India came the publication of ‘The People of India’ in 8 volumes, containing 470 albumen photo prints compiled and assembled by John Forbes Watson and John William Kaye, a record of national importance to India.

The article ‘A Craze about Photography’, by John Falconer, Curator of Photographs, India Office Collection at the British Library, is unsure how Hooper became interested in photography but, by 1860, while serving with the 4th Madras Light Cavalry at Secunderabad, he was active. Later, Hooper took an interest in the life of the British in India so, between his military duties, he turned his camera to Anglo-Indian domestic and cantonment life before collaborating with Veterinary Surgeon George Western of the Madras Army to the pursuit of big game hunting and the Shikar. In 1872 Hooper and Western produced the successful series of a twelve 9 x 7 inch photomontages entitled ‘Tiger Shooting’.

However, alongside his tranquil domestic, life Hooper's photography began to express an increasingly more morbid strain in which there became a desire to capture humanity at moments of extreme suffering. His harrowing and haunting series of photographs of the Madras famines of 1876-78 are among Hooper's best known images. All were ‘posed’ and the emaciated subjects and macabre postures can still shock today.

It was said of Hooper that he was a steadfast Christian of undisputed courage who had the reputation of being a good officer although perhaps inflexible and over-zealous for the moral welfare of the troops in his attempts to stamp out vice. In 1886 his desire to photograph the Burmese at the moment of death is attributed not to any inhumanity but a passion to secure for posterity that indelible record of human expression at the supreme moment. When back in Madras it is related that on one occasion a sepoy went on the rampage running amok and shooting at his fellow officers and comrades. Hooper gathered up his photographic apparatus and brought it to bear on the sepoy, who was in the act of taking aim at Hooper, when the homicidal sepoy was shot dead by another sepoy. Hooper seemed unconcerned as he had obtained his negative.

Hooper departed Madras aboard the Tenasserim on 1 November 1885 for Rangoon, to take up the position of Provost Marshal of the Burma Expeditionary Force, arriving Rangoon on 8 November. On the 15th November he joined the main body of the force and sailed on the Thambyadine towards Mandalay. Grattan Geary describes at the battle of Minhla how ‘this gallant officer carried his camera under fire so that it might be available for the record of any exceptional incident’. Once the military objective was achieved Hooper set about curbing the looting and drunkenness that broke out both by the local inhabitants and soldiery. Dacoits proliferated the countryside and Hooper joined a force of the Hampshire Regiment led by Colonel Baker to apprehend a renegade pretender. In his stockade they found the body of a European who had been brutally murdered and decapitated. During their march back they were fired upon from the dense jungle resulting in 2 Hampshire's killed and eight or ten wounded including Lieutenant Lloyd.


The Times, January 21st 1886 – Special correspondent in Burma Edward Kyran Moylan:
‘The Rev'd Mr Colbeck, the representative in Mandalay of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, has addressed a public protest to the Chief Commissioner against a recent attempt by the Provost Marshal to procure testimony against other persons from a Burmese while he was covered by the presented rifles of a firing party. Mr Colbeck who has been a long resident in Burma, declares that such proceedings cannot fail to bring shame and discredit upon our name, nation and religion. The ghastly scenes which constantly recur in executions carried out by the Provost Marshal constitute grave public scandals. The Provost Marshal, who is an ardent amateur photographer is desirous of securing views of the persons being executed at the precise moment when they are struck by the bullet. To secure this result, after the orders “ready, “present” have been given to the firing party, the Provost Marshal fixed his camera on the prisoners, who at times are kept waiting several minutes in that position. The officer commanding the firing party is then directed by the Provost Marshal to give the order to fire at the moment when he exposes his plates. So far no satisfactory negative has been obtained and the experiments are likely to continue. These proceedings take place before a crowd of mixed nationalities and cannot fail to have a demoralising effect on both soldiers and spectators.’

The article produced instant outrage. Prime Minister Gladstone and the Houses of Parliament were incensed and Lord Randolph Churchill was instructed to telegraph Lord Dufferin to have Hooper, together with Lieutenant G. V. Burrows, 25th Madras Infantry, the officer in charge of the firing party, removed from Burma.

However, in Burma and India opinions differed. It was known that Moylan had a grudge against the army and was only too keen to to use the views of the Rev'd Colbeck to exacerbate the army's discomfort. Of Moylan it is stated that, while he had no personal animus against Hooper, he did wish to press home against the military authorities every charge he could on account of the way he was dismissed and sent back to Rangoon, under General Prendergast's orders, for writing exaggerated reports without prior vetting by the military authorities. His piece in The Times was described as full of distortion, exaggerations and downright lies. While it was understood that Hooper's use of the threat of execution to procure confessions from prisoners was improper and indecorous, others pointed out that Hooper, throughout the executions was in civilian clothes, that none of the rifles were loaded, a point that was mentioned by witnesses in the later inquiry and that Hooper was not present in any official capacity. Others felt that Moylan, who was not present at any executions, together with his reliance on the clergy and other unqualified witnesses, made the chances of conviction at any court-martial highly improbable and it was therefore decided to hold instead a Court of Enquiry into the events which convened at Mandalay on 19 March 1886, under the Presidency of Colonel T. Lowndes, of the Madras Staff Corps.

The transcripts of the enquiry run into twenty two pages. At summation Lieutenant Burrows was immediately exonerated as he had just been following orders.

On the assertion that there were several minutes between the “present” and “fire”, no witness, civilian or military, confirmed this fact. All stated the pause was no more than 4 to 5 seconds at most. The Rev'd Colbeck did not attend the enquiry nor did he present any submission of his account so it was concluded that the commands were given in “slow time” as laid down in the regulations.

On the charge concerning the photographing of the executions, Hooper advised in his written summation that he was asked by a military doctor to get an image at the time of death, while General White stated that Hooper did nothing more than what a special war artist did. Instead of using a pencil and block he used a rapid mechanical process. It was also confirmed that Hooper only took two images of the executions. The death sentences came from a civilian authority and Hooper was meticulous in checking that the execution documents were in order. On several occasions he returned prisoners back to the civilian authority as the prisoner had either the wrong name or was not on the list.

The enquiry however found that Hooper had been culpable of using the threat of death to gain a confession, which Hooper himself admitted to the enquiry that he was wrong to do. He stood by his statement that the prisoner in question was a known rebel and was desperate to find evidence that armed dacoits had planned to fire Mandalay and kill the Europeans. In mitigation it was stated that Hooper ‘acted undoubtedly under a mistaken view of duty and in the most open manner.’

All the evidence was sent to Simla where, on June 11 1886, the Judge Advocate General censured Hooper but made allowance for the unusual circumstances in which he operated in Burma. The appointment of Provost-Marshal in Burma was abolished and Hooper's name was removed from all mentions in despatches. He was to return to India to carry out regimental duties. All executions in Burma were ceased.

Upon his return to England in 1887, he published his ‘Burma’, a series of one hundred photograph, illustrating incidents connected with the British Expeditionary Force to that country, from embarkation at Madras,1 November 1885 to the capture of the King Theebaw, with many views of Mandalay and surrounding country.

He returned to India and took up regimental duties with the 4th Light Cavalry, but in late 1889 he returned permanently to England until his retirement on 20 April 1896, when he was advanced to Colonel. On one of the surviving execution negatives in the British Library is a note stating that Hooper had had an interview with the Viceroy and that his promotion to Colonel was agreed and was therefore eligible for off-reckonings and entitled to a pension of £1,100 per annum. For the latter part of his life he live in Kilmington, near Axminster, Devon, where he died unmarried on 21 April 1912, and is buried in Kilmington Parish Church.

Sold with 2 folders of research, including copied personal photographs and images of his work, and photographs of his uniform from the collection of the National Army Museum.