Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c27: Biographical Notes on Authors
Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c27
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Biographical Notes on Authors
c27.1
BARKER, Sir Robert (d. 1789), for some time commander in chief in Bengal, author of Chapters I and X, probably first came to India about 1749. He was promoted brigadier-general in 1770 and commander in chief thereafter. After a lively quarrel with Warren Hastings he left India and on reaching England was elected member of parliament. He seems never to have spoken in parliament, but in March 1781, was rewarded with a baronetcy for his consistent vote with the government.
c27.2
BURROW, Reuben (1747-92), mathematician, author of Chapters III and V, was born 30th December 1747, near Leeds. He showed a taste for mathematics, and after various jobs, was appointed around 1770, assistant to Maskelyne, then astronomer-royal, at Greenwich. In 1782 he accepted an appointment in India, procured by his patron, Col. Henry Watson, for many years chief engineer in Bengal. In Bengal he was appointed mathematical teacher of the engineers’ corps and was connected with the proposed Trignometrical Survey of Bengal. He was one of the first members of the Asiatic Society. He died at Buxor on 7th June 1792.
c27.3
COLEBROOKE, Henry Thomas (1765-1837), author of Chapter VI, was the son of Sir George Colebrooke, the head of an old and wealthy firm of bankers, and chairman of the East India Company in 1769. He came to India in 1782, was appointed assistant collector in Tirhut in 1786; during 1799-1801 he was Resident to the court of Nagpur; and in 1807 attained a seat on the Governor General’s Council from which he retired after a total service of thirty-two years. The (British) *Dictionary of National Biography* calls him the ‘first great Sanscrit scholar of Europe’.
c27.4
HEYNE, Dr Benjamin, author of Chapter XIV, was acting Company’s botanist employed in the Madras administration. In 1814 he published his ‘Tracts, Historical and Statistical on India’.
c27.5
HOLWELL, John Zephaniah (1711-1798), Governor of Bengal, author of Chapter VIII, was born in Dublin on 17th September 1711. He came to Calcutta, as Surgeon’s mate to an Indiaman in February 1732 and practised his profession in Calcutta from 1736 onwards. He was temporarily Governor of Bengal from February to July 1760. His contribution to Eastern knowledge called forth the warm acknowledgement of Voltaire. Holwell died on 5th November 1798.
c27.6
PEARSE, Thomas Deane (d. 1789), colonel, author of Chapter IV and supplementary note to Chapter I, was born about 1738, was appointed second lieutenant Royal Artillery on 24th October 1761 and was transferred to the East India Company’s service in February 1768. In India he was high in the favour of Warren Hastings, and acted as Hasting’s second in his duel with Sir Philip Francis on 17th August 1779. Pearse died on the Ganges on 15th June 1789.
c27.7
PLAYFAIR, John (1748-1819), mathematician and geologist, author of Chapter II, was born near Dundee (Scotland), on 10th March 1748. He then completed his theological course, and was licenced by the presbytery as a minister in 1770. He was elected moderator of Synod, at Liff in 1774. In 1785 he became joint professor of mathematics in the university of Edinburgh, and in 1805 exchanged his mathematical chair for the professorship of natural philosophy in the same university. Playfair was one of the original members of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, of which he subsequently became general secretary and held this post till his death. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1807.
c27.8
SCOTT, Helenus (1760-1821), writer of the letters given in Chapter XVII, entered the medical service of the East India Company, and served chiefly in the Bombay presidency. After thirty years in India he returned to England, and began practice at Bath. In 1815 he was admitted a licentiate of the college of physicians, in London, and in 1817 began to practice as a physician in Russell Square, London. In the same year he contributed an interesting paper to the ‘Transactions’ of the Medico-Chirurgical Society on the use of nitromuriatic acid in medicine. He used it on a wider range of disease than is now customary; but its frequent employment in the treatment of enteric fever and other maladies at the present day (circa 1900) originates in his advocacy of its merits. He attained to considerable practice, and died on 16th November 1821.
c27.9
WALKER, Alexander (1764-1831), brigadier-general, author of Chapter XII, was born on 12th May 1764. He was appointed a cadet in the service of the East India Company in 1780. He took part in the last war against Tippoo, and was present at the battle of Seedaseer in 1799 and at the siege of Seringapatam. In June 1802, Walker was appointed as Political Resident at Baroda. He returned to England in 1810 and in 1822 was called to the Government of St Helena. He died at Edinburgh on 5th March 1831, soon after retiring from the governorship of St Helena. While in India Walker formed a valuable collection of Arabic, Persian, and Sanscrit manuscripts, which was presented by his son, Sir William in 1845 to the Bodleian, Oxford, where it forms a distinct collection. His voluminous papers in English are in the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh.