Bot at 16:22, 18 May 2022

2022-05-18T16:22:49Z

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{{Short description|Scottish army surgeon and photographer}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2018}}
{{Use British English|date=March 2018}}
'''John McCosh''' or '''John MacCosh''' or '''James McCosh''' ([[Kirkmichael, South Ayrshire|Kirkmichael]], [[Ayrshire]], 5 March 1805 – 18 January<ref name="uni-st-andrews">{{cite web|url = http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/imu/imu.php?request=browse&irn=993 | accessdate = 1 October 2015 | publisher = [[University of St Andrews]] | title = John McCosh}}</ref> / 16 March<ref name="hannavy-2007">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PJ8DHBay4_EC | title=Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-century Photography | author=John Hannavy |year=2007 | publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] | isbn = 9781135873264 | pages=1467–1471}}</ref> 1885) was a Scottish army surgeon who made [[Documentary photography|documentary photographs]] whilst serving in India and Burma.<ref name="uni-st-andrews"/><ref name="taylor-2007">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DnfBcmW-OkYC | title=Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840-1860 | author1=Roger Taylor | author2=Larry John Schaaf | year=2007 | publisher=[[Metropolitan Museum of Art]] | pages=121–124 | isbn = 978-0300124057}}</ref> His photographs during the [[Second Anglo-Sikh War]] (1848–1849) of people and places associated with the British rule in India (for which he is best known), and of the [[Second Burmese War]] (1852–1853),<ref name="marien-2006" /><ref>{{cite web|url = http://www.historytoday.com/jonathan-marwil/photography-war | first = Jonathan | last = Marwil | date = 6 June 2000 | accessdate = 1 October 2015 | publisher = [[History Today]] | title = Photography at War}}</ref> count as sufficient grounds, some historians maintain, to recognise him as the first [[War photography|war photographer]] known by name.<ref name="marien-2006">{{cite book | author = Mary Warner Marien | title = Photography: A Cultural History | page = 49 | place = London | publisher = [[Laurence King Publishing]] | year = 2006 | isbn = 978-1856694933 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=NsolmLbz8igC}}</ref><ref name="papadopoulos-2011">{{cite book | author = Kari Andén-Papadopoulos | title = Amateur Images and Global News | page = 45 | publisher = Intellect Books | year = 2011 | isbn = 9781841506005 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=jp3CLLxyngUC}}</ref> McCosh wrote a number of books on medicine and photography, as well as books of poetry.

Roddy Simpson has written of McCosh's photographs that "Given the circumstances, these images are a considerable achievement and, regardless of artistic merit, are historically very important".<ref name="simpson-2012">{{cite book | title=The Photography of Victorian Scotland | author=Roddy Simpson |year=2012 | publisher=[[Edinburgh University Press]] | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wZhvAAAAQBAJ | isbn = 9780748654642}}</ref> Taylor and Schaaf have written that "McCosh fashioned compositions that were exceptional for the period"<ref name="taylor-2007" />{{rp|123}} and that unlike his contemporaries "in his hands, photography was not merely a pastime but became the means of recording history."<ref name="taylor-2007" />{{rp|123}}

==Life and work==
[[File:Memorial to Dr John McCosh, Dean Cemetry, Edinburgh.jpg|thumb|Memorial to Dr John McCosh, [[Dean Cemetery]], Edinburgh]]
In 1831, aged 26,<ref name="hannavy-2007" /> McCosh became an assistant surgeon in the [[Indian Medical Service]] (Bengal), in the army of the [[East India Company]], and served with its [[Bengal Army]].<ref name="marien-2006" /> He saw active service on the north-east frontier of India against the [[Kol people]] in 1832 to 1833.<ref name="exhibition-nat-army-mus" />

On 11 October 1833, on [[sick leave]] with a tropical disease, the [[barque]] on which he was sailing from [[Madras]] to [[Hobart]] in [[Tasmania]], Australia,<ref group="n">It is referred to as "jungle fever", which is what tropical diseases, such as [[malaria]], were known as.</ref> was wrecked off the desolate and remote [[Île Amsterdam|Amsterdam Island]] in the southern [[Indian Ocean]].<ref name="exhibition-nat-army-mus">{{cite web | url = http://www.nam.ac.uk/press/first-shots-early-war-photography-1848-60 | accessdate = 1 October 2015 | publisher = [[National Army Museum]] | title = First Shots: Early War Photography 1848-60 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151005031700/http://www.nam.ac.uk/press/first-shots-early-war-photography-1848-60 | archive-date = 5 October 2015 | url-status = dead }}</ref> Of the 97 people aboard, 21 survived, with McCosh the only surviving passenger. They were rescued on 26 October by a US sealing [[schooner]], General Jackson, and taken to [[Mauritius]].<ref>{{cite book | title = Chronological List of Antarctic Expeditions and Related Historical Events| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Sg49AAAAIAAJ| year = 1989| publisher = [[Cambridge University Press]] | isbn = 978-0-521-30903-5}}</ref> He wrote a book describing his experience, ''Narrative of the Wreck of the Lady Munro, on the Desolate Island of Amsterdam, October, 1833'' (1835).

In 1840<ref name="hannavy-2007" /> / 1841 to 1842<ref name="taylor-2007" /> he returned to Edinburgh for further training as a surgeon, studying military surgery, surgery and medical jurisprudence at [[Edinburgh University]].<ref name="hannavy-2007" />

In 1843 McCosh returned to India as assistant surgeon with the 31st [[Bengal Native Infantry]], taking part in the [[Gwalior Campaign]] and its battle of Maharajpur on 29 December 1843.<ref name="uni-st-andrews" /> He was awarded the [[Gwalior Star]] for Maharajpoor.<ref name="exhibition-nat-army-mus" /> McCosh began producing photographs either in 1843<ref name="simpson-2012" /><ref name="mckenzie-1987">{{cite journal |last1=McKenzie|first1=Ray |year=1987|title=The Laboratory of Mankind – John McCosh and the Beginnings of Photography in British India | periodical=[[History of Photography (journal)|History of Photography]] |volume=11 |issue=2|pages=109–118| issn = 0308-7298 | publisher= [[Taylor & Francis]]|doi=10.1080/03087298.1987.10443778 }}</ref> or 1848.<ref name="hannavy-2007" /><ref group="n">Simpson (2012) claims McCosh began producing images in 1843, as does McKenzie (1987), describing one of McCosh's earliest photographs of Lt Stewart who was killed in 1843. However Hannavy (2007) claims his first datable photograph to be from 1848.</ref>

He was sent to [[Almora]], in the foothills of the [[Himalayas]], and to [[Jalandhar]] in the [[Punjab]].<ref name="taylor-2007" />

In 1848 in the Punjab, he took part in the [[Second Anglo-Sikh War]] (1848–1849) with the 5th Battery, [[Bengal Artillery]]<ref name="taylor-2007" /> / 2nd Bengal European regiment,<ref name="taylor-2007" /> where he was full surgeon. Mostly his photographs were portraits of fellow officers, key figures from the campaigns,<ref name="marien-2006" /> administrators and their wives and daughters, including [[Patrick Alexander Vans Agnew]],<ref name="hannavy-2007" />{{rp|911}} [[Hugh Gough, 1st Viscount Gough]]; the British commander General Sir [[Charles James Napier]]; and [[Dewan Mulraj]] / Mul Raj, the Diwan (governor) of the city of [[Multan]] (a key leader of the Sikh nation against the British).<ref name="uni-st-andrews" /><ref name="taylor-2007" /> He also photographed local people and architecture.<ref name="taylor-2007" /> His prints from this period measure no larger than 10 cm × 8 cm and were likely made from a quarter-plate sized [[Large format (photography)|camera]].<ref name="hannavy-2007" />{{rp|911–912}}

In [[British rule in Burma|British Burma]], he saw active service in [[Yangon]] (known by the British as Rangoon) and [[Pyay|Prome]]. McCosh lived in [[Burma]] (now known as Myanmar) during the [[Second Burmese War]] (1852–1853), where he made portraits of colleagues, captured guns, temple architecture in Yangon and of Burmese people, using a larger and heavier camera and producing larger prints.<ref name="marien-2006" /> According to Taylor and Schaaf, McCosh was there in a "quasi-official capacity to photograph during that conflict".<ref name="taylor-2007" />{{rp|127}} His prints from this period are up to 20 cm × 22 cm, suggesting a camera measuring a whole plate in size.<ref name="hannavy-2007" />{{rp|912}}

McCosh took the first photographs of the Sikh people and palaces of [[Lahore]];<ref>{{cite web|url = http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/s/sikh-historical-photographs/ | accessdate = 1 October 2015 | publisher = [[Victoria and Albert Museum]] | title = Sikh historical photographs}}</ref> the earliest known photograph of [[Samadhi of Ranjit Singh]] in 1849.<ref>{{cite web|url = https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O68121/photograph-bourne-shepherd/ | accessdate = 1 October 2015 | publisher = [[Victoria and Albert Museum]] | title = Photograph}}</ref> His fifty photographs of Burma from 1852 are the earliest images of the country to have survived<ref name="gray-2014">{{cite book | title = 7 Days in Myanmar: By 30 Great Photographers | author = Denis D. Gray | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=BSZUAgAAQBAJ | year = 2014 | publisher = [[Editions Didier Millet]] | isbn = 9789814385749}}</ref> and his were the earliest photographic studies of Burmese people.<ref name="gray-2014" />

McCosh predominantly used the [[calotype]] process for his photography, the first practicable negative and positive process, using paper, patented by [[Henry Fox Talbot]] in 1841.<ref name="exhibition-nat-army-mus" /> This process produced a [[translucent]] original [[negative (photography)|negative]] image, a [[paper negative]], from which multiple [[positive-negative film|positives]] could be made by simple [[contact print]]ing. McCosh also used the later [[collodion process]],<ref name="hannavy-2007" />{{rp|911}} though he also continued with the calotype process for larger prints, because of its fidelity.

He gave up photography either in the early 1850s,<ref name="simpson-2012" /> or as late as 1856<ref name="hannavy-2007" />{{rp|912}} and retired from the army on 31 January 1856.<ref name="hannavy-2007" /><ref name="nat-army-mus">{{cite web|url = http://www.nam.ac.uk/online-collection/detail.php?acc=1962-04-3-294 | accessdate = 1 October 2015 | publisher = [[National Army Museum]] | title = Surgeon John McCosh, Bengal Medical Establishment, 1852 (c).}}</ref> In 1862, he became a fellow of the [[Royal Geographical Society]].<ref name="uni-st-andrews" />

McCosh died in London in 1885. A stone to his memory stands on the north wall of the first northern extension to [[Dean Cemetery]] in west [[Edinburgh]], where his siblings are buried.

==Critical response==

Roddy Simpson, in ''The Photography of Victorian Scotland'' (2012), wrote of McCosh that "these photographs do not have significant aesthetic quality, but show the desire to document likenesses. Given the circumstances, these images are a considerable achievement and, regardless of artistic merit, are historically very important".<ref name="simpson-2012" /> Taylor and Schaaf, in ''Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840–1860'', wrote that "McCosh fashioned compositions that were exceptional for the period"<ref name="taylor-2007" />{{rp|123}} and that unlike his contemporaries "in his hands, photography was not merely a pastime, but became the means of recording history."<ref name="taylor-2007" />{{rp|123}} Taylor and Schaaf have also written that "the kind of work done by McCosh, [John] Murray and [Linnaeus] Tripe was echoed in a wide pattern of photographic activity throughout India, and in many ways, these three can be regarded as role models to whom others looked for inspiration." ... "Few photographers in the calotype era came close to matching the sustained output of these three, and in visual sensitivity and technical bravado they remain unequalled."<ref name="taylor-2007" />{{rp|131}}

==Publications==

===Publications by McCosh===
*''Narrative of the Wreck of the Lady Munro, on the Desolate Island of Amsterdam, October, 1833.'' Glasgow: W Bennet, 1835.<ref name="google">{{cite book|title=Narrative of the wreck of the lady Munro, on the desolate island of Amsterdam, October, 1833|author=McCosh, J.|date=1835|publisher=W Bennet|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kHgBAAAAQAAJ|accessdate=13 January 2017}}</ref>
*''Topography of Assam.'' Calcutta: G. H. Huttmann, Bengal Military Orphan Press, 1837.<ref name="google2">{{cite book|title=Topography of Assam|author=M'Cosh, J.|date=1837|publisher=G. H. Huttmann, Bengal Military Orphan Pres|url=https://archive.org/details/b21983252|accessdate=13 January 2017}}</ref>
*''Medical Advice to the Indian Stranger.'' 1841.<ref name="google3">{{cite book|title=Medical advice to the Indian stranger|author=McCosh, J.|date=1841|publisher=Allen|url=https://archive.org/details/medicaladviceto00mccogoog|accessdate=13 January 2017}}</ref>
*''[[s:Advice to Officers in India|Advice to Officers in India]].'' Revised edition. London: Wm. H. Allen & Co., 1856
*''Nuova Italia, a Poem.'' Second series. 1875.
*''Grand Tours in Many Lands, a Poem in 10 Cantos.'' 1881.<ref name="google4">{{cite book|title=Grand Tours in Many Lands: A Poem in Ten Cantos - Primary Source Edition|author=McCosh, J.|date=2013|publisher=BiblioBazaar|isbn=9781293130582|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aE5LnwEACAAJ|accessdate=13 January 2017}}</ref>
*''Sketches in Verse at Home and Abroad: And from The War of the Nile in Ten Cantos.'' London: J. Blackwood, 1883.

===Publications with material about McCosh===
*''The Oxford Companion to the Photograph.'' Oxford: [[University of Oxford|Oxford University]], 2005. Edited by Robin Lenman. Includes a short biography on McCosh.
*''Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840–1860.'' New York: [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]], 2007. By Roger Taylor with Larry John Schaaf. {{ISBN|978-0300124057}}. Includes a profile of McCosh.<ref name="taylor-2007" />
*''Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography.'' Edited by John Hannavy. Abingdon, Oxford: [[Taylor & Francis]], 2007; London: [[Routledge]], 2013. {{ISBN|9781135873264}}.

==Exhibitions with contributions by McCosh==
*''Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840–1860,'' [[Musée d'Orsay]], 1 January 2005 – 7 September 2008. [[National Gallery of Art]], Washington DC, 1 March 2002 – 4 May 2008. [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]], New York 31 December 2007 – 31 December 2009.<ref name="vam-manuthiha" />
*''First Shots: Early War Photography 1848–60,'' White Space Gallery, [[National Army Museum]], London, 2009. Photographs by McCosh, [[Roger Fenton]], [[James Robertson (photographer)|James Robertson]] and [[Felice Beato]].<ref name="exhibition-nat-army-mus" /><ref>{{cite news | url = https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/photography/5960918/First-shots-of-combat-photography-in-new-exhibition-of-Crimean-War.html | first = Richard | last = Edwards | date = 3 August 2009 | accessdate = 1 October 2015 | newspaper = [[The Daily Telegraph]] | location = London | title = First shots of combat photography in new exhibition of Crimean War}}</ref>

==Collections==
*[[National Army Museum]], London.<ref name="exhibition-nat-army-mus" />
*[[University of St Andrews]], St Andrews, Fife, Scotland.<ref name="uni-st-andrews" />
*[[Victoria and Albert Museum]], London.<ref name="vam-manuthiha">{{cite web|url = https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O130026/manuthiha-guardian-at-the-shwe-photograph-mccosh-john-dr/ | accessdate = 1 October 2015 | publisher = [[Victoria and Albert Museum]] | title = Manuthiha, Guardian at the Shwe-Dagon Pagoda; Corner of great pagoda}}</ref>

==Further reading==
*''John MacCosh's Photographs.'' By Peter Russell-Jones, [[Photographic Journal]], Vol. 108, Jan 1968, pages 25–27.

==See also==
* [[History of photography]]
* [[Linnaeus Tripe]]
*[[Willoughby Wallace Hooper]]
* [[Felice Beato]]
* [[Philip Adolphe Klier]]
* [[Max Henry Ferrars]]

==Notes==
<references group="n" />

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:McCosh,_John_-_Advice_to_Officers_in_India_%281856%29.djvu ''Advice to Officers in India'' (1856)] by McCosh at Wikimedia Commons.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20151016234830/http://www.nam.ac.uk/collection/collection-highlights/general-sir-charles-napier Discussing General Sir Charles Napier portrait in a photo album by McCosh at the National Army Museum].

{{ACArt}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:McCosh, John}}
[[Category:1805 births]]
[[Category:1885 deaths]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Edinburgh]]
[[Category:Photography in Myanmar]]
[[Category:Photography in India]]
[[Category:People from South Ayrshire]]
[[Category:19th-century Scottish photographers]]
[[Category:War photographers]]
[[Category:Architectural photographers]]
[[Category:Shipwreck survivors]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society]]
[[Category:Bengal Artillery soldiers]]
[[Category:Scottish surgeons]]

John McCosh - Revision history

Bot at 16:22, 18 May 2022