Thomas Fraser

One of Ceylon’s great spectacles was the kraal, the driving of wild elephants into a timber stockade, and it reached print through the exact eye of a military engineer. Thomas Fraser, son of a Morpeth portrait painter, served with the Madras Engineers from 1796 to 1819, rising from Lieutenant to Captain and, by 1803, to Superintending Engineer of Public Works for the Madras Presidency; he was present at the siege of Seringapatam. From his sketches made on the spot, James Robert Thompson drew the aquatint shown here, Method of Catching Wild Elephants by the Kraal in the Island of Ceylon (1817), printed in colours.