APPENDIX A

Pioneer Biographies
of the British Period to 1947 

Oscar Jean-Baptiste Mallitte (ca. 1829-1905)

Little is known of Mallitte's life prior to his arrival at Calcutta on the French vessel Victor from Bordeaux on 23rd July 1857. He was French and previously seems to have worked as a surgeon - we do not know what made him leave France and to abandon his profession. In view of his intimate friendship with F.J. Mouat, perhaps the two men knew each other from Mouat's time as a medical student in Paris. In any case, it was not as a surgeon that Mallitte made a splash in Calcutta society but as a photographer - at that time a rare and much admired profession.

Mallitte stayed at 4 Church Lane, Calcutta - Dr. Mouat's address. Introduced by his friend, the new arrival soon took to Calcutta society. Less than half a year after his arrival, his photographs were shown and discussed by the Photographic Society of Bengal and in December 1857 he accompanied Dr. Mouat's official expedition to the Andaman islands as a photographer . He threw himself into his work with such abandon that he was wounded during a skirmish with Andamanese and, as Mouat himself put it, he

Lost... no opportunity of labouring diligently in his own special department; and through his unwearied application we were enabled to carry back an invaluable collection of photographic pictures of the country and people - the rich and varied scenes of nature, and striking groups illustrative of the life and customs of the natives of the Andaman Islands.

His photographs make Mallitte a pioneer of Andamanese studies. It is most unfortunate that the whereabouts of these earliest and most valuable of all Andamanese photographs is not known. Their discovery would be akin to finding the Holy Grail of Andamanese photography.

After his return to Calcutta, Mallitte secured a position as teacher of photography at the School of Industrial Arts at Calcutta from 1858 to 1859. He photographed at New Delhi in 1858 and 1859 saw him taking pictures at Agra . In September of the same year he advertised portrait and stereoscopic views in the Lahore Chronicle. His skills were obviously recognized for in autumn 1859 he could accompany the Viceroy, Lord Canning, as a photographer on the vice-regal tour of the North-West provinces.

Mallitte's success held. In 1862 he won an extra prize for his "very beautiful collection of 97 photographs" at the Bengal Photographic Society Exhibition. As the Friend of India wrote at the time

We think the judges have done very well. We see that they draw attention to Mr. Malletti's [sic] photographs which are in an album, and arrived too late to be included in the Exhibition catalogue. We regret not to have discovered these drawings [sic] which appear to be landscapes of so great merit that the judges have recommended that an additional prize should be given for the second best series of 10 landscapes and awarded to Mr. Malletti.

In the mid-1870s, Mallitte had a studio at 10 Chowringhee (now Jawaharlal Nehru Road), Calcutta, not far from where the Museum of India is today. A series of views of indigo planting and manufacturing made during this time was sold at Sotheby's in June 1980.

Mallitte married Grace Thomas at Landour in October 1860 and the couple had eight children over the following 22 years. From the 1860s to the 1880s, Mallitte travelled widely all over India on his photographic business but never seems to have returned to the Andaman islands.

"Senile atrophy" is said to have carried him away at the age of 76 on 13th June 1905 and he was buried at the Lower Circular Road Cemetery at Calcutta. 

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