APPENDIX A

Pioneer Biographies
of the British Period to 1947 

Robert Christopher Tytler (1818-1872)

Tytler was the third Superintendent of the convict settlement at Port Blair. Although a widely-interested and highly talented man, his short tenure at the head of the Andamanese administration was not a happy one, neither for the Andamanese nor for Tytler.

His father, Robert Tytler was born in India 1787 and served in the Bengal medical service for thirty years until his death in 1838. His mother was the daughter of the German count Schneeberg. How Tytler's parents came to marry each other in such an unlikely combination would probably make an interesting story. Alas, the records have nothing to say about it.

The youngster joined the Bengal army in 1834 as a cadet while still in England. He arrived in India in 1835, accompanied by his father who returned to duty from home leave in England. He joined his father's 34th Native Bengal Infantry at Midnapur and was soon appointed ensign. Many years of active military service all over India followed. He saw action as lieutenant in what was to become known as the first Anglo-Afghan war (1839-42). In 1842 he was promoted to baggage-master and later interpreter and quartermaster in Major-General Nott's force, moving north towards Kabul. He was present at many dramatic actions at Goaine, Ghazni, Beni-Badam, Maidan and in the re-occupation and later withdrawal from Kabul and Afghanistan. In 1843 he accompanied his corps in the Gwalior campaign and was present at the Battle of Maharajpur. In the first Sikh War (1845-46) which followed almost immediately, Tytler was put in charge of the Commissariat depots which meant he was in the charge of the campaign treasure chest. Tytler's health seems to have suffered for as soon as the first Sikh war had drawn to a conclusion he went on sick leave until late 1847. For the next nine years until the fateful year 1857 he moved all over northern India with his regiment, taking several local leaves and one two-year furlough in England from 1852 to 1854.

In May 1857, at the beginning of the "Great Mutiny," Tytler was present when the sepoys of his own unit mutinied against their British officers at Delhi. He escaped to Karnal and later to Ambala where he was placed in charge of the military chest in the force that was sent to re-take Delhi. He played a conspicuous part in the bloody siege of Delhi. His second wife, Harriet, was one of the very few women present there and in the midst of all this and at the hottest time of the year, she gave birth to a baby boy. In May 1858 Tytler - newly promoted to major - and his family went on 6 months' leave, proceeding to Calcutta to close the treasure chest accounts. From May 1860 until November 1861 he and his wife went on furlough to England. On return to India he did general duty until he was promoted to Colonel and appointed officiating Superintendent of the Convict Settlement at Port Blair in the Andaman Islands which post he held from April 1862 to February 1864 but for which he was not suited.

In 1843 Tytler had married at Meerut in India his first wife, Isabella Neilson, eldest daughter of a Scottish medical doctor. She died childless aged 21 in 1847. In the following year Tytler married again, at Lucknow: Harriet Christina Earle, born in India in 1827, second daughter of an officer in the 3rd Bengal Native Infantry. She was to survive her husband by 35 years, dying at Simla, India, in 1907. Tytler's second wife had an active, independent personality who shared her husband's interests, especially an interest in photography. In 1869 she founded the Asiatic Christian Orphanage at Simla (later known as the Mayo Industrial School) in a building erected with her own funds and opened the following year. After the death of her husband in 1872, the school was purchased by a committee and funded from various sources. In 1986 Oxford University Press published Harriet Tytler's memoirs, edited by Anthony Sattin under the title "An Englishwoman in India: The Memoirs of Harriet Tytler 1828-1858." These memoirs, however, were written in Harriet's old age and not contemporaneously with the events they describe.

Today Tytler and his wife are remembered mostly for their photographic work. The two shared an intense interest in the new technology. After receiving tuition from Felice Beato and Dr. John Murray, the Tytlers took some 500 large-format calotype negatives of scenes associated with the "Great Indian Mutiny" of 1857. These photographs were taken within six months by two inexperienced amateurs with many other duties besides: considering the circumstances, the quality of the couple's photographs is astounding. Harriet Tytler says in her memoirs that when they were on home leave in England, the photographs were taken to Buckingham Palace to be shown to Queen-Empress Victoria although her mother's illness prevented the appointment from being kept. In 1859 the Photographic Society of Bengal exhibited the Tytler's work to great popular acclaim. A portfolio of their photographs was also exhibited in Calcutta at their residence and an advertisement appeared in "The Englishman" of 20th June 1859 and subsequent issues:

Major Tytler's photographs of the scenes of the Mutiny, &c., &c., &c. These beautiful photographs are to be seen daily, at No. 15 Tank Square, at the office of the Honorary Secretary of the Photographic Society, who will receive orders for single copies or the whole collection.

The photographs are a valuable record of Imperial India shortly after the traumatic year of 1857. Unfortunately, the Tytlers do not seem to have taken any photographs while in the Andamans, at least we know of none that have survived.

We have mentioned before that Tytler's time in the Andamans was not a happy one. He was primarily a military man, perhaps a bit of a martinet, who saw himself as chief administrator of a convict colony and nothing else. With the Andamanese Negrito Tytler was completely out of his depth, regarding them as an uncalled-for complication, a source of trouble and a general nuisance.

Right at the beginning of his administration the new superintendent made the mistake of sending groups of armed European sailors - despite their previous record of trouble-making - to Andamanese encampments in the hope of strengthening the friendly relations that had been built up by his predecessor Houghton. On 23rd January 1863 a contact party of sailors claimed to have been attacked by about 30 Andamanese, men and women. They said that the attackers had pretended to be friendly but that when crowding around the visitors, they had suddenly seized one man (sailor Pratt), held him down and shot him to death with arrows. The sailors also reported that they had shot into the milling crowd in self-defence before rushing back to their boat and returning to the Settlement. The two Andamanese murderers were alleged to be "Jumbo" (Tura) and "Snowball" (Lokala), both men well-known to the sailors.

Tytler accepted this report at face value and did not think any further investigation was needed. He reported to his government and recommended that great severity be shown the Andamanese which he characterized as

... a race of treacherous, cold-blooded murderers, assuming the garb of friendship for the purpose of carrying out their diabolical plans.

He went as far as to ask for permission to arm the convicts to protect themselves and to conduct a large-scale man-hunt for the murderers. Several Andamanese revenge attacks seemed to strengthen Tytler's case and he complained to Calcutta that he did not have enough policemen.

The Government of India was not amused at the way Tytler had handled the situation and made its displeasure clear to him:

... 3. You were no doubt actuated by the best of motives in your earlier policy towards the aborigines, and your praiseworthy efforts to open a friendly intercourse with them appear open to no other objection than that your men went out in too small parties, so that on the first occasion of difficulty they had not the means of acting with propriety.

If, when the unfortunate seaman was shot, two or three of the natives had been instantly seized as hostages, instead of an indiscriminate fire being begun upon a party of savages among whom women were present, the interests of humanity and civilisation would have been better consulted. The Hon'ble the President in Council is, however, prepared to make allowance for the action of men placed in sudden difficulty without anyone of superior intelligence to control them.

4. It seems clear that you expected too much from your first apparent success in establishing friendly relations with the Andamanese and you are consequently, His Honour in Council believes, unduly disappointed by the unfortunate occurrences which succeeded. The same series of events has presented itself over and over again with the Australian aborigines, the friendly intercourse, excessive confidence on the part of the European, then unexplained treachery from the natives. It is not to be supposed that the kindly disposition first shown was assumed or affected, but with races of such low organisation there is never any security against sudden outbreaks of rage or cupidity in individuals. The over-confidence first felt by the Englishman, though natural, was a mistake, but the severity you recommend would be a still greater mistake. The Hon'ble the President in Council desires you to dismiss all idea of a general hunt after the aborigines, in view to transporting them to a separate island.

5. Nor can his Honour in Council allow you to arm any more convicts; these men, as a class, are quite capable of exaggerating the fear inspired in them by the natives, expressly in order to have arms entrusted to them.

"Jumbo" and "Snowball" were apprehended in February 1863. Tytler informed his Government and wanted to remove the two captives to Calcutta or Burma. The Government did not agree. In April 1863 the two were still imprisoned at Port Blair and only occasionally allowed to see Andamanese visitors from their own camp. Among them was the important figure of Jumbo's wife "Topsy" (see the chapter "The Role of Women"). A direct result of Jumbo and Snowball's detention at Port Blair, incidentally, was the establishment of the Andamanese Home for which Tytler appointed the ill-suited and narrow-minded Rev. Corbyn.

The long delay seems to have been caused by the dawning realisation on the part of Tytler that something was horribly wrong with the yarns told by his sailors. The letter he had to send to Calcutta must have been very hard to write:

I thought it advisable in consequence of reports that have lately reached me, to take further statements which contain information which I was formerly in ignorance of. The four statements now submitted were taken from the three men who were present when Pratt was short at North Point, and from the gunner of the Brigade (for I was anxious to know the general opinion of the men in barracks, relative to the cause of this unaccountable and apparently cold-blooded murder) , and although the statements in themselves are conflicting and contradictory, and materially differ from those taken before, and submitted to you, they show beyond all doubt that "Jumbo" shot Pratt, and that the chief "Snowball" was present; but at the same time a cause for the act is now given (that Pratt tried to rape an Andamanese woman in the encampment soon after he landed) which certainly none of the other statements alluded to, and which materially alters the features of the tragedy, and places the conduct of the savages in a different light from that formerly shown.

The government's reply was devastating:

The President in Council has observed with much regret the very unfavourable light which the information now submitted throws upon the conduct of the boat's crew sent out on 7th January to establish a friendly intercourse with the aborigines. Nor can His Honour in Council consider it by any means creditable to your administration of the Settlement, that owing to the imperfect manner in which, on the occurrence of the murder, the attendant circumstances were investigated by you, the Government of India is now only beginning to obtain materials for a correct appreciation of the origin of the catastrophe. Your former communication of February last were so framed as to convey to Government the impression that no explanation of the attack could be given other than the faithlessness and impulsiveness of savage nature, and that, in your opinion, summary and exemplary vengeance ought to be taken.

3. Your misapprehension of the case has led to the imprisonment for a considerable time of a man (Snowball), who, as it now appears, had committed no crime, but on the contrary had shown a consistently friendly disposition towards the Settlement. The President in Council directs that he be at once dismissed with some small presents, the reason for this change being explained to him as well as he can be made to understand it.

After Tytler had tried to defend himself, he received yet another severe ticking off:

You at once readily adopted the account which Petty Officer Smith palmed off on you, though there were statements in that account which ought of themselves to have excited suspicion, showing as they did almost certainly that the attack upon Pratt was the result of some sudden anger, and that it was entirely unexpected by the aborigines on the shore, some thirty of whom were close to Smith at the time, and never attempted to touch him.

Six months later the Government recalled its unfortunate Superintendent from Port Blair. He never returned to active service. Instead, the army placed him at the disposal of the Home Department which kept him busy looking after a museum at Simla until his death on 10th September 1872.

While Tytler was certainly no pioneer of Andamanese studies, his short tenure as head of the Port Blair administration and his disastrous dealings with the Andamanese are of great importance in the history of Andamanese-British relations. Tytler's correspondence with the Government of India on the Pratt incident also throws a most revealing light on the nature of British rule in the Andamans. 

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