{{Short description|Scottish photographer (1805–1867)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=February 2018}} {{Use British English|date=February 2018}} {{Infobox person | name = Jessie Mann | image = Women thought to be Jessie Mann.jpg | image_size = | alt = black and white photograph of a woman wearing a bonnet who is thought to be Jessie Mann | caption = An 1844 photograph by David Octavius Hill, thought to be Jessie Mann | birth_name = Janet Mann | birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1805|01|20}} | birth_place = Perth, Scotland | death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1867|04|21|1805|01|20}} | death_place = Edinburgh, Scotland | employer = David Octavius Hill & Robert Adamson | occupation = Photographer and assistant | known_for = Pioneer in photography }} '''Janet Mann''' '''(Jessie)''' (20 January 1805 – 21 April 1867) was the studio assistant of the pioneering Scottish photographers David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson.<ref name="hannavy-2007">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PJ8DHBay4_EC | title=Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-century Photography | author=John Hannavy |year=2007 | publisher=Taylor & Francis | isbn = 9781135873264 | pages=888}}</ref><ref name="crompton-guardian">{{cite news | url = https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/may/06/underexposed-the-forgotten-female-pioneers-of-photography | date = 6 May 2015 | access-date = 12 May 2016 | first = Sarah | last = Crompton | work = The Guardian | location = London | title = She takes a good picture: six forgotten female pioneers of photography}}</ref> She is "a strong candidate as the first Scottish woman photographer"<ref name="simpson-2012">{{cite book | title=The Photography of Victorian Scotland | author=Roddy Simpson |year=2012 | publisher=Edinburgh University Press | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wZhvAAAAQBAJ | isbn = 9780748654642 | pages=27–28}}</ref><ref name="miller-herald-scotland-2011">{{cite news | url = http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13028501.Scottish_woman_who_was_a_camera_pioneer/ | date = 13 April 2011 | access-date = 12 May 2016 | first = Phil | last = Miller | publisher = The Herald (Glasgow) | location = Glasgow | title = Scottish woman who was a camera pioneer}}</ref> and one of the first women anywhere to be involved in photography.<ref name="miller-herald-scotland-2016">{{cite news | url = http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14431735.An_image_of_Ms_Jessie_Mann__Is_this_the_mysterious_Scottish_woman_who_helped_pioneer_photography_/?ref=rl&lp=5 | date = 16 April 2016 | access-date = 12 May 2016 | first = Phil | last = Miller | publisher = The Herald (Glasgow) | location = Glasgow | title = Is this the mysterious Scottish woman who helped pioneer photography?}}</ref>
==Early life== Mann was born on 20 January 1805, in Perth, Scotland, the daughter of Alexander Mann, a house painter.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=The new biographical dictionary of Scottish women|date=2018|editor-first=Elizabeth |editor-last=Ewan|isbn=978-1-4744-3629-8|location=Edinburgh |publisher=Edinburgh University Press|pages=297|oclc=1057237368}}</ref> She grew up there with her four sisters and one brother, opposite the house of David Octavius Hill.<ref name=":1" /> When her father died in 1839 she moved to Edinburgh with her two unmarried sisters, Elizabeth and Margaret, to live with their brother Alexander, a solicitor, who eventually became Hill's solicitor.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=https://www.scotsman.com/200voices/cultural-icons/jessie-mann-first-ever-female-photographer/|title=Jessie Mann: The first ever female photographer?|last=Munro|first=Alastair|date=24 March 2017|work=The Scotsman|access-date = 17 July 2019}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web|title=Jessie Mann (1805-1867) – Rose Teanby|url=https://roseteanbyphotography.co.uk/early-women-photographers/scottish-women-photographers/jessie-mann-1805-1867/|access-date=2021-04-30|language=en-US|archive-date=30 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210430160121/https://roseteanbyphotography.co.uk/early-women-photographers/scottish-women-photographers/jessie-mann-1805-1867/|url-status=dead}}</ref>
== Career == Mann moved to Leopold Place, when Alexander married.<ref name="miller-herald-scotland-2011" /><ref name=":2" /> This was near where the Hill & Adamson studio, "Rock House" Scotland's first photographic studio on Calton Hill, Edinburgh. She became an assistant to David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, probably working on photographic processing and printing.<ref name=":1" /> Hill was an established painter who collaborated with Adamson, who was an expert photographer using early photographic techniques. Miss Mann was employed to help them photograph the 450 ministers of the Church of Scotland who broke away from the church to establish the Free Church of Scotland. This was known as the Great Disruption.<ref name="miller-herald-scotland-2011" /> She worked with Hill and Adamson for at least three years, until it closed after Adamson's death in 1848. She went on to become a school housekeeper in Musselburgh.<ref name="hannavy-2007" /><ref name="crompton-guardian" />
She returned to Edinburgh and died there of a stroke on 21 April 1867. She is buried at Rosebank Cemetery.<ref name=":0" />
== Legacy == It is reasoned that a print in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, of the King Frederick II of Saxony in 1844, taken at the studio while Hill and Adamson were unavailable, was taken by Mann. The portrait was known to have been taken by an assistant to Hill and Adamson.<ref name="hannavy-2007" /> Tate curator Carol Jacobi says this demonstrates that "she must have been part of their skilful understanding of how you set up a photograph, so she is a real pioneer."<ref name="crompton-guardian" /> A letter from the painter James Naysmith to Hill, written in 1845, praises Mann as "that most skillful and zealous of assistants".<ref name="miller-herald-scotland-2011" />
Mann was included in the 2016 exhibition at Tate Britain, ''Painting with Light: Art and Photography from the Pre-Raphaelites to the Modern Age.''<ref name="crompton-guardian" /><ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.tate.org.uk/about/press-office/press-releases/painting-light-art-and-photography-pre-raphaelites-modern-age | date = 12 January 2016 | access-date = 12 May 2016 | publisher = Tate | title = Painting with Light: Art and Photography from the Pre-Raphaelites to the Modern Age | archive-date = 11 May 2016 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160511185849/http://www.tate.org.uk/about/press-office/press-releases/painting-light-art-and-photography-pre-raphaelites-modern-age | url-status = dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/painting-light | access-date = 12 May 2016 | publisher = Tate | title = Painting with Light}}</ref>
Mann was featured as a character in The Secrets of Bythswood Square (2024) by Scottish author Sara Sheridan. The main character in this historical fiction about pioneer female photographers is Ellory Mann, an imagined cousin of Jessie's who works with her as an assistant to Hill and Adamson and who then travels to Glasgow to set up her own studio.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sheridan |first=Sara |title=The Secrets of Blythswood Square |publisher=Hachette |year=2024 |isbn=9781399701594}}</ref> Sheridan talked about the photograph that inspired her iteration of Mann's character in an interview with [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdslCogOZ58&ab_channel=nationalgalleries National Galleries of Scotland] curator, Grainne Rice.
== References == {{Commons category}} {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mann, Jesse}} Category:Scottish women photographers Category:19th-century Scottish photographers Category:1805 births Category:1867 deaths Category:People from Perth, Scotland Category:Pioneers of photography Category:Scottish photographers Category:19th-century British women photographers