Basil Cochrane
Basil Cochrane (22 April 1753 – 12 or 14 August 1826 in Paris, France[1][2]) was a Scottish civil servant, businessman, inventor, and wealthy nabob of early-19th-century England.
Early life
The sixth son of Scottish nobleman and politician Thomas Cochrane, 8th Earl of Dundonald, by his second wife Jane Stuart, Cochrane was probably named for his father's brother Basil Cochrane (died 1788), at the time Governor of the Isle of Man and later a member of the Scottish Board of Customs. At the age of sixteen Basil was given a place in the East India Company in Madras. From 1783–5 he served as a revenue administrator in Nagapattinam, which had been seized from the Dutch in 1781. During his time there he was accused of having two locals, including one named Vaidyanada, beaten to death.[3] After a trial in Madras in 1787, he was acquitted by a British jury.
Nabob
In 1792 Basil Cochrane took over supply contracts for the British navy in India from his brother John, who had held them since 1790.[4] The demand for provisions was so great that Basil had flour mills and bakeries built at Calcutta and Madras to fulfill his contracts. He also financed "Cochrane's Canal" (now the Buckingham Canal) which improved navigation to Madras. The contract was rebid in 1803 and Cochrane again won the bid.
In 1806 Cochrane handed over the contracts to the partnership of James Baker and James Balfour.[5]
He returned to England, having accumulated an enormous fortune (he had held contracts over the years totalling £1,418,236)
Family and children
While in India, Cochrane had six children with a woman named Lucy Sutton: Jane (1799-1875), George (1800-1875), Maria (1801-1830), Alexander (1803-1884), Thomas (1805-1873), and Charles (1807-1855). Thomas moved to Brazil and became a successful homeopathic physician and businessman. Charles became an author and social reformer in London.
With Elizabeth Caunter (1786-1843) Cochrane had William Stuart Cochrane (born 1808). With Ann Julian he had Archibald Richard Basil Cochrane (1810-1893).
Basil Cochrane married Caroline Gostling (d. 1837), widow of Rev. Samuel Lawry, in 1812; they had no children.[7] Cochrane died in Paris in 1826 and is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery there.[8] A portrait miniature of Cochrane exists, painted in 1789 in India by John Smart.[9]
Vapour baths
Cochrane published several works promoting the use of "vapour baths" or
The Cochranes
The
James Boswell, the famous diarist and biographer of Samuel Johnson, was a grandson of Euphemia Cochrane, sister of Basil's father Thomas and his namesake Commissioner Basil Cochrane. Boswell visited his Cochrane relatives and exchanged letters, but did not mention the younger Basil Cochrane, perhaps because he was 13 years younger and left for India in 1769 at the age of 16.[12]
The Stuarts
Basil Cochrane had two notable uncles on his mother's side,
Works
- An Improvement on the Mode of Administering the Vapour Bath... (1809)
- Addenda to 'An Improvement on the Mode of Administering the Vapour Bath' (1810)
- A Narrative of the Transactions of the Hon. Basil Cochrane... (1818)
- A Statement on the Conduct of the Victualing Board... (1820)
- An Historical Digest of the Reports of Commissioners Appointed to Inquire into Abuses in the Public Department of Government... (1824)
- The Vapour Bath in Miniature: Recommended by More Than Seventy Eminent Medical Gentlemen... (1825)
References
- ^ The Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 96, part 2 (Sept. 1826), p. 270 Gentleman's says 12 August, Blackwood's 14 August
- ^ Blackwood's Magazine, October 1826, p. 655
- ISBN 8125028005.
- ^ "Basil Cochrane and the Victualling of the Fleet in the East Indies, 1792–1806" in Sustaining the Fleet, 1793–1815: War, the British Navy and the Contractor State, Roger Knight and Martin Wilcox, 2010, Boydell Press, Woodbridge, p. 164
- ISBN 978-1843835646. Retrieved 21 June 2014.
- ^ Mahomet, Dean. The Travels of Dean Mahomet: An Eighteenth-Century Journey through India. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997, Chapter 3, section "Dean Mahomet Works for a Nabob", http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft4h4nb20n/
- ^ Basil Cochrane's family
- ^ Gravestonephotos.com page for Basil Cochrane
- ^ Sotheby's catalog listing for the miniature
- ^ New Medical and Physical Journal; or Annals of Medicine, Natural History, and Chemistry, vol. 9 (Jan. – June 1815), London, p. 62-5
- ^ History of Parliament Online bio of Cochrane-Johnstone
- ^ Basil Cochrane the elder's page at jamesboswell.info