page_title: Thibaw Min
section_title: Accession
hierarchical_section_title: Thibaw Min / Accession
caption_attribution_description: Photograph of King Thibaw’s State Barge on the moat at Mandalay in Burma (Myanmar), taken by Willoughby Wallace Hooper in 1885. The photograph is from a series documenting the Third Anglo-Burmese War (1885-86) made by Hooper while serving as Provost Marshal with the British army. Thibaw was the last king of Burma and ruled from 1878 until 1885, when he was deposed and exiled to India by the British. The Burma Expeditionary Force entered Mandalay, the Burmese royal capital, on 28 November, beginning an occupation of the city, and the war culminated in the annexation of Upper Burma by the British on 1 January 1886. Burmese state barges were magnificent gilded vessels roofed by a tiered spire (pyatthat) denoting sacred royal space, and a prow in the form of a mythical beast or celestial spirit. They were used by kings, courtiers and high officials in spectacular ceremonial processions and water festivals. At Mandalay the barge was moored on the moat which surrounded the city. Hooper describes the barge and the use to which it was put during the occupation in a caption accompanying the photograph: “This is a very gorgeous affair, the whole of it is gilded over, and it has a wonderful looking prow in the form of an eagle. The usual bits of looking glass have not been omitted in its decoration. Theebaw and his Queen used to be towed round the moat in this, on some of the rare occasions when he ventured out of the palace enclosure. It is now moored alongside the berm near the N.E. corner of the city, where the 'Gymkhana' sports of the Garrison are held, and serves as a refreshment room, a very necessary adjunct to any athletic sports in the tropics.” Hooper was a dedicated amateur photographer and his photographs of the war in Burma are considered “one of the most accomplished and comprehensive records of a nineteenth century military campaign”. They were published in 1887 as ‘Burmah: a series of one hundred photographs illustrating incidents connected with the British Expeditionary Force to that country, from the embarkation at Madras, 1st Nov, 1885, to the capture of King Theebaw, with many views of Mandalay and surrounding country, native life and industries’. There were two editions, one with albumen prints, one with autotypes, and a set of lantern slides was issued. The series is also notable for the political scandal which arose following allegations by a journalist that Hooper had acted sadistically in the process of photographing the execution by firing squad of Burmese rebels. The subsequent court of inquiry concluded that he had behaved in a “callous and indecorous” way and the affair raised issues of the ethical role of the photographer in documenting human suffering and the conduct of the British military during a colonial war.
context_page_description: Thibaw Min, also Thebaw or Theebaw was the last king of the Konbaung Dynasty of Burma and also the last Burmese sovereign in the country's history. His reign ended when Burma was defeated by the forces of the British Empire in the Third Anglo-Burmese War, on 29 November 1885, prior to its official annexation on 1 January 1886.
context_section_description: In 1878, Thibaw succeeded his father in a bloody succession massacre. Hsinbyumashin, one of Mindon's queens, had grown dominant at the Mandalay court during Mindon's final days. Under the guise that Mindon wanted to bid his children (other princes and princesses) farewell, Hsinbyumashin had all royals of close age (who could potentially be heir to the throne) mercilessly slaughtered by edict, to ensure that Thibaw and her daughter Supayalat would assume the throne.
  At the time of his accession, Lower Burma, half of the kingdom's former territory, had been under British occupation for thirty years and it was no secret that the King intended to regain this territory. Relations had soured during the early 1880s when the King was perceived as having made moves to align his country with the French more closely. Relations deteriorated further in an incident later called "The Great Shoe Question", where visiting British dignitaries refused to remove their shoes before entering the royal palace and were subsequently banished.
  At the time, the kingdom's treasury reserves had diminished, forcing the government to increase taxation on the peasants. In 1878, the national lottery was also introduced on a trial basis, which became popular but soon went awry, with many families losing their livelihoods. The lottery experiment was ended in 1880.
  In October to November 1878, a meeting at Mandalay Palace's North Garden significantly expanded the size of the Hluttaw from four departments to 14:
  Agriculture
  Public works
  Land warfare
  Taxation
  Religious knowledge
  Royal estate management
  Sassamedha (Personal taxes)
  Criminal justice
  Civil justice
  Water-borne warfare
  Foreign affairs
  Partnerships
  Town and village affairs
  Mechanised industries
  During King Thibaw's reign, a new administrative unit, the district (ခရိုင်, khayaing), based on the administrative units of British India, was created, in order to centralize administration from the court. Altogether, the kingdom was divided into 10 districts and administrated by district ministers (ခရိုင်ဝန်), who had authority over smaller administrative units, the villages and towns. Thibaw also rolled back the conversion of local administrators from myothugyi (မြို့သူကြီး) to myook (မြို့အုတ်), which had been part of administrative reforms carried out by Mindon, based on the prevailing administrative system in Lower Burma.
  A proclamation issued by the court of King Thibaw in 1885 which called on his countrymen to liberate Lower Burma was used by the British as pretext that he was a tyrant who reneged on his treaties and they decided to complete the conquest they had started in 1824. The invasion force which consisted of 11,000 men, a fleet of flat-bottomed boats and elephant batteries, was led by General Harry Prendergast.
caption: King Thibaw's Royal Barge on the Mandalay Palace moat in 1885.
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