E H Man's photographs at Brighton Museum, 1869-1901

	'Andamanese dancing to the accompaniment of sounding-board on which one man is keeping time with his foot'. Photograph by E H Man. © Royal Pavilion, Libraries & Museums

After a working life spent on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Edward Horace Man retired to Brighton in 1901. In 1929 he died and was buried at All Saints Church in Patcham where a headstone bears his name.

During his career Man corresponded with curators at museums across Europe and South Asia, many of whom received donations of objects and images from him, accompanied by maps, notes and references to his various articles and publications. In retirement it seems Man held a particularly close relationship with the curator of Brighton Museum & Art Gallery as he made ten donations to the Museum between September 1904 and July 1924. Unfortunately no written records of this relationship appear to have survived.

Man's donations included 123 photographic prints of life on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Most of the photographs are of the Islands' inhabitants carefully posed to illustrate different aspects of island life, from scarification practices to hunting and fishing techniques. Often the choice of subject appears to have been influenced by the guidelines provided for amateur anthropologists working 'in the field' by the publication Notes and Queries on Anthropology, a copy of which was sent to Man. Frequently the photographs appear to be intended to form an illustration to Man's ethnographic writings.

Despite the fact that British influence was well established on the Islands by the time Man arrived in 1869, he chose not to include the evidence of this influence in his images, preferring to record pre-colonial indigenous customs. However, his very presence, and the measuring stick and photographic screen which appear in some of the images, belie the colonial encounter which would have such devastating impact on island life.

Browse photographs by E H Man in Brighton Museum's collection