File talk:Malaysia; a western hunter and native Malays with a backgrou Wellcome V0037533.jpg

Photograph montage: John Edmund Taylor, after August Sachtler

John Edmund Taylor (active years 1860-1885) was in Singapore and the Malay Peninsular in the years 1879-1881. He painted, photographed, collected photographs and newspaper clippings which are compiled as an album named Sketches in the Malay Archipelago.10 On page 47 is a copy of Sachtler’s photograph of the St. Joseph’s Church in Bukit Timah. In the album, Taylor dated and captioned nearly all his drawings and the photographs he took or collected. The photo of the church however was not dated. The photo had been superimposed with a cut-out photo of himself with five other men. The caption reads, “THE ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSION CHURCH Bukit Timah– Singapore – The country behind this church is very beautiful – and there is a good sprinkle of wild deer and boar in the thick jungle – We have had many an exciting hunt close by.” (fig. 6). Dr. George Beccaloni suggested that Taylor probably did not have his camera with him when he went hunting that day and wishing to remember he had in fact been there, had a (studio-photographed?) photo of himself and his men cut out and pasted on the copy of the photograph of the church.

Taylor’s photograph was reproduced in the Wellcome Collection as, “Singapore: a western hunter and native Malays with a background view of the Roman Catholic Mission Church at Bukit Timah. Photograph by J. Taylor, 1880.” This is inaccurate as the ‘native Malays’ are in fact South Asian Indians, and the photo of the church was not taken by Taylor but August Sachtler, albeit having been doctored by Taylor. |https://quotidiandarwin.com/kb/alfred-russel-wallace-and-the-catholic-connection-in-singapore/ reference] Broichmore (talk) 13:35, 24 May 2024 (UTC)