John Burke, photo-artist of the Raj

Abstract

The first clear evidence of John Burke in India comes from an entry at St Mary's Church in Peshawar.1 It records his marriage to Margaret Russell on 16 January, 1861. He was barely 17, born in County Wicklow, Ireland and employed as an assistant apothecary with the Royal Artillery. The main witness was William Baker, an Irish Sergeant. He had probably arrived in the city with the 87th Regiment in the winter of 1855. It is possible that Baker's wife, Fanny Russell, was the sister of Burke's wife Margaret. In the month of Burke's marriage, 32-year-old William Baker left the Army, and, as an advertisement from The Lahore Chronicle on 20 January 1861 reads, established himself as a 'House and Commission Agent, and Photographist' in Peshawar. By October that year, when John Burke and Margaret Russell's first son William Henry was born, Burke had joined Baker's firm as a photographer.