Henry Miers Elliot

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Sir

Henry Miers Elliot

KCB
Born(1808-03-01)1 March 1808
Westminster, England
Died20 December 1853(1853-12-20) (aged 45)
NationalityEnglish
OccupationEast India Company civil servant

Sir Henry Miers Elliot

KCB (1 March 1808 – 20 December 1853) was an English civil servant and historian who worked with the East India Company in India for 26 years. He is most known for The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians based on his works, published posthumously in eight volumes, between 1867–1877 in London.[1]

Early life and background

Elliot was born on 1 March 1808.

oriental languages as well as his classics and mathematics proved so good that he was even placed by himself in an honorary class (1826).[citation needed
]

Career and family

Elliot was assistant successively to the

KCB
for his services (1849). Throughout his official career he had devoted his leisure to study.

Early on, he conducted a magazine at

Calcutta
and London, 1849).

Elliot was married to the daughter of William Cowell a judge at the Provincial Court of Appeal, at Bareilly, Bengal, India. Failing health compelled him to seek a change of climate, and he died on 20 December 1853[2] on his way home at Simon's Town, Cape of Good Hope, aged 45.

Children of Sir Henry Miers Elliot KCB & Eliza Rebecca Cowell

  1. Eliza Amelia Elliot b. 19 Jan 1830
  2. Henry Lettsom Elliott b. 4 Jul 1831
  3. Fredrick Elrington Elliot b. 12 Apr 1836
  4. Richard James Elliot b. 17 Dec 1840

Legacy

His memorial exists at St. Paul's Cathedral, Kolkata.[2] There is a still-functioning Elliot club, now owned by the Government of Haryana at Hisar, founded by him for then East India Company officials, and O.P. Jindal Gyan Kendra knowledge currently stands on its land.[citation needed]

Elliot left behind him manuscript collections which were placed in the hands of competent scholars for publication. His historical researches bore fruit in

The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians. The Muhammadan Period, edited by John Dowson, 8 vols. 1866–1877, with a 'Sequel,' edited by Sir Edward Clive Bayley, 1886. His Memoirs of the History, Folklore, and Distribution of the Races of the North-West Provinces also found an editor in John Beames
, 2 vols. 1869.

Works

The Sudder Board of Revenue of North-Western Provinces encouraged him to publish a glossary on terms in use throughout the region. The work included terms little covered and was heavily based on Siraj-ud-Din Ali Khan Arzu's work Nawādir al-Alfāz. He completed the first volume of the work titled Supplement to the Glossary of Indian Terms, covering the alphabet from A to J. However, Elliot died before completing the second volume. A second edition was published in 1869 after being significantly enlarged and revised by John Beames. The edition was titled Memoirs on the History, Folk-lore, and Distribution of the Races of the North Western Provinces of India: Being an Amplified Edition of the Original Supplemental Glossary of Indian Terms.[3]

Elliot's life-work, the Mohammedan historians of India, came out mostly in two well-known works. The first one was titled Bibliographical Index to the Historians of Muhammedan India and its first and only volume was published at Calcutta in 1849. His manuscripts were edited posthumously by

The History of India as Told by Its Own Historians. A much lesser-known work titled, Appendix to the Arabs in Sind, Vol.III, Part 1, of the Historians of India was written when he was on his deathbed and wrote it to apparently test the powers of his mind which he had doubted.[4]

References

  1. ^ Huart, Cl., "Waṣṣāf", in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, First Edition (1913-1936), Edited by M. Th. Houtsma, T.W. Arnold, R. Basset, R. Hartmann.
  2. ^ a b c d Wilson, Charles Robert (1896). List of Inscriptions on Tombs or Monuments in Bengal. Calcutta. p. 3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. ^ Walter Hakala. Negotiating Languages: Urdu, Hindi, and the Definition of Modern South Asia. Columbia University Press.
  4. JSTOR 593704
    .
  5. .
  6. .

Sources

Further reading

External links