Linnaeus Tripe

Linnaeus Tripe (14 April 1822 – 2 March 1902) was a British pioneer of photography, best known for his photographs of India and Burma taken in the 1850s.

Linnaeus Tripe was born in Plymouth Dock (now Devonport), Devon, to Mary (1786–1842) and Cornelius (1785–1860).

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.

A further comment in the jury report noted the artistic qualities in Tripe's works: "...it would be supposed from the nature of Photography that all pictures executed by its means must possess a similarity of style; it is however a curious fact, that this is not the case, the works by one operator being perfectly distinct in character from those by another, even when the same description of apparatus and the same process has been used; this may be observed, when two pictures have been taken by different exhibitors from the same view — the best Indian Photographs in the Exhibition, those by Capt.

[3] Tripe - already known as a photographer from his time in India, was chosen by Lord Dalhousie to accompany an official expedition to Ava, Burma, to obtain representations of scenes and buildings.

The Indian government requested that 50 sets of prints be produced and 20 were requisitioned by the Court of Directors of the East India Company.

[3] Tripe returned to India and spent nearly two years printing the photographs, including painstaking retouching of clouds and skies, introducing an aesthetic quality into the documentary purpose.

Following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, control of India went to the British Crown, and in June 1859 Tripe was ordered not to undertake any new work.