Fred Bremner a British photographer, one of hundreds who set up studios in Indian cities and cantonments over the last century, has rendered a service to historians of photography. In 1940, at the age of 77, he privately issued a little book setting out his 'reverie' of his forty years (1883-1923) in India. It is a minor goldmine, complete with twenty-one autotype reproductions of his works. The value of My Forty Years in India lies in the fact that it shows under what conditions provincial British photographers worked in India.

Bremner was born in 1863 in the village of Aberchinder, also known as 'Foggylone'. He was one of several children of a poor photographer in Banff, Scotland, and left school at the age of thirteen to join his father’s studio. He worked there for six years. In 1882 his brother-in-law G.W. Lawrie, a photographer of some repute with a studio in Lucknow in north India offered him a job, and Bremner left for India on P. & O. Sutlej, with £20 borrowed from his father, and passage provided by Lawrie. Arriving in Bombay, he traveled ‘two days and two nights’ to reach Lucknow, where he joined his sister and her husband, who were living in a house named 'The Mosque', so called because an Indian of some importance had been buried there once upon a time and the mosque erected to his memory.

On arrival in Lucknow, Bremner found 'studio accessories were very limited. Just a carpet to cover part of the ground, a plain cloth background, stretched on a frame, and a chair or two, not forgetting the all important camera and lens adjusted on a folding tripod. In a corner was a small square tent sufficiently large to do the changing and developing of plates. Mr. Lawrie was somewhat behind the times, due, no doubt, to being in India. He had not got away from the practice of coating with collodion a plate in the dark room and immersing in a bath of nitrate of silver to produce the sensitive element. A long exposure was required, and to prevent the movement of the sitter a headrest had to be adjusted. I persuaded Mr. Lawrie to give it up and obtain from home a supply of dry plates. He did so and, of course, was delighted with the change, which enabled him to obtain more natural results instead of having the sitter’s head placed against a piece of metal to percent movement, the exposure being thus reduced to a minimum'.

To start with, Lawrie sent Bremner to Cawnpore (now Kanpur), not far from Lucknow. The next move was to Allahabad, again not very far. Then came the transfer to Ferozepur in the Punjab. Ferozepur was the site of a large cantonment. Recalled Bremner: 'The bulk of the business was done with a British regiment, which was known as the 60th Rifles. I was accommodated in the barracks and one of the Company cooks supplied me with meals, not all to appetizing... I found myself quite busy, all the work having to be done on the spot, from operating to finishing the mounted photograph.'

With the onset of summer Bremner was shifted to Naini Tal, in the Himalayas, a 'a charming spot — a lake in the center surrounded by lofty mountains... After a short residence I was shifted with my usual paraphernalia to military stations some 30 miles beyond, and the journey through the heart of the mountains was done on a hill pony and the luggage carried by a party of coolies, the roadways being too narrow for vehicular traffic.'

The first stop was Ranikhet, and after a few weeks there he moved to Almora, which had 'two native Infantry Regiments'. After six months of work, in October, he was back in Lucknow, and for the winter was deputed to visit Agra, Benares ('with its multitude of temples, presided over by high priests versed in the various religions of the people') and several other places of no special interest — nothing of historical nature, nothing beyond business with the military'. With the return of summer he was moved off to Karachi, 1500 miles from Lucknow, via Lahore.

On his return to Karachi, Bremner's three-year contract with Lawrie had ended, but he had it renewed up to April 1888 for 2 1/2 more years. In the summer of 1886 Lawrie sent him to Kasauli and Subathu, military stations in the Himalayas, near Simla, but since the business there was sluggish, he soon moved on to Mussoorie, a large summer resort. In Mussoorie, Bremner managed to secure premises recently vacated by a photographer who had been resident there for a number of years. The change of operating in a studio with glass on the roof, was far more desirable than working in a tent.

While in Quetta, Bremner occasionally visited smaller military towns in the vicinity, but after two years he moved once again, this time to Lahore, which had a large civilian population, railway headquarters, a number of military barracks in close proximity, and noblemen and Maharajahs in the province. In Lahore, Bremner’s house and’ studio were ‘almost opposite the Roman Catholic Cathedral’. He also got married. It was 1902. The Viceory, Lord Curzon, had organized a Darbar in Delhi, 'the most remarkable show ever seen in India, so full of Oriental splendour'. Of course, Bremner photographed it all. He also made the acquaintance of the Maharajah of Jind, a ruling prince of Punjab, at the Durbar. Later he was to deal with two other Punjab chiefs — the Nawab of Maler Kotla, and the Maharajah of Kapurthala. Though resident in Lahore, Bremner retained his quarters in Quetta as a summer resort, but in 1910 he sold his house and business there and for the following twelve years his summers were spent in Simla. 'The opening was favorable from a business point of view. Bourne & Shepherd, the pioneer photograpers in India, had given up their premises in Simla and confined their work to Calcutta. I placed myself in communication with the new proprietor and fortunately obtained permission to take the house and studio over for some few years'.

One of his first sitters at the Simla studio was Lady Eileen Elliot, daughter of the Viceroy, Lord Minto. Before retiring from India Bremner had the pleasure of photographing the then Viceory, Lord Reading, at the Viceregal Lodge.
Bremner had strong views about his craft. In the closing chapter of his book he writes:

"...I found my job through life to be most interesting. Artists - painters, I mean — tell us that photography is not a fine art. Cut out the word 'fine' and art remains. Certainly mechanical means have to be used up to a point, and many amateurs believe that when equipped with a nice camera and lens nothing else is necessary. The 'button' does the rest. Believe me it is the man or the woman behind the instrument that matters. What about composition and lights and shades, especially in the production of the beauties of nature? Search for the right point of view. The movement of a few yards to the right or left may add greatly to the value of the result."

Some of the prominent and distinguished sitters Bremner 'shot' during his years in India were the viceroys Lord Minto, Lord Hardinge, Lord Chelmsford, and Lord Reading; Lord Roberts of Kandahar, Lord Kitchener, and Sir Michael O'Dwyer, Governor of Punjab. He also photographed the Price of Wales (later King Edward VIII) during his tour of India in 1922. Among the Indian nobility, he worked for the Nawab of Dholepore and later for the Maharajah of Jind, the Nawab of Maler Kotla, and the Maharajah of Kapurthala.

NOTEBOOK: Fred Bremner married around 1902, and his wife — he does not disclose her name — 'gifted with good taste, was greatly interested in the art of photography and gave every attention to reception room duties as well as applying her hand to use of the camera on the occasion of photographing a Purdah [i.e. 'behind-the-veil' lady whose face... men are not allowed to look upon’. She even assisted Bremner in photographing noblewomen. 'The Begum of Bhopal was visiting Simla and Her Highness expressed a wish to Mrs. Bremner that she would like some photographs of herself to be taken at Bhopal. All arrangements were made and during the summer... we found our way to Bhopal, which was a long and somewhat weary journey from Simla. However, all went well, resulting in my wife securing some photographs of Her Highness in State dress which gave her every satisfaction'. Bremner also noted that 'on several other occasions Mrs. Bremner had the pleasure of photographing Indian ladies of the Harem'.

The photographs reproduced here cannot be precisely dated; all were taken between 1889 and 1923.