Major Forester, Adjutant-General's Office in India, 1850 (c)

Photograph by John McCosh (1805-1885), India, 1850 (c).

Major Emelius John Weld Forester (1815-1899) of the 13th (1st Somersetshire) Regiment of Foot (Prince Albert's Light Infantry), was a veteran of the 1st Afghan War (1838-1842), serving as an aide-de-camp to Sir Willoughby Cotton.

In this portrait Forester wears the full dress uniform of a staff officer attached to the Adjutant-General's Office in India and three medals that reflect his service in Afghanistan. They are (from left to right), the Candahar, Ghuznee, Cabul Medal 1841-42, awarded by the British East India Company to personnel who took part in the campaign in the spring and summer of 1842; the Jellalabad Medal 1842, issued by the Company for the defence of Jellalabad from 12 November 1841 to 7 April 1842; the Ghuznee Medal 1839, awarded for participation in the storming of the fortress of Ghazni in Afghanistan, on 21 to 23 July 1839. The latter was struck in 1839 on the orders of Shuja Shah Durrani of Afghanistan, to show his appreciation to the British forces who had helped restore him to his throne.

McCosh, who joined the Bengal Army as an assistant surgeon in 1831, was one of the first war photographers. He employed the calotype process, the first practicable negative and positive process on paper, patented by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1841. McCosh saw active service on the North East Frontier of India (1832-1833), in Gwalior (1843-1844), the 2nd Sikh War (1848-1849) and the 2nd Burma War (1852-1853).

From an album of 310 photographs, 1848-1853.