Henry Prinsep

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G. F. Watts

Henry Thoby Prinsep (15 July 1793 – 11 February 1878) was an English official of the Indian Civil Service, and historian of India. In later life he entered politics, and was a significant figure of the cultural circles of London.[1]

Early life

Prinsep was born at Thoby Priory, Essex, the fourth son of Sophia Elizabeth Auriol (1760–1850)[2] and politician John Prinsep. Prior to his birth, his father had been active as a soldier and businessman in India returning to England in 1788 and settling at the Priory. His brothers were James Prinsep and the barrister Charles Robert Prinsep.

He was educated by a private tutor, and at the age of 13 joined

East India College, then at Hertford Castle.[3]

In India

Leaving the college in December 1808, Prinsep arrived at

Oudh and the North-Western Provinces. He was subsequently the first holder of the office of superintendent and remembrancer of legal affairs, protecting the interests of the government in the courts of the provinces; but was summoned to join the governor-general's camp during prolonged tours.[3]

In 1819 and 1820, while still holding his permanent appointment, Prinsep was employed in special inquiries. An investigation into land tenures in Bardhaman district led to Regulation 8 of 1819 for Bengal. On 16 December 1820 he was appointed Persian secretary to government. He was appointed a member of council, first during a temporary vacancy in 1835, and five years later, when he was permanently appointed to the office. He finally retired from the service and left India in 1843.[3]

He was

District Grandmaster of Bengal
.

Later life

Henry Thoby Prinsep, photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron, 1866

On his return to England in 1843 Prinsep settled in London, where he was a member of the Carlton Club and the Athenæum Club. His ambition at that time was to enter the House of Commons, and he contested four constituencies as a Conservative candidate (Kilmarnock Burghs, Dartmouth, Dover and Harwich). At Harwich in March 1851 he was returned by a majority, was unseated by petition on technical grounds connected with his qualification, which were removed by the House of Commons.[3] Harwich constituency was then much troubled with petitions against electoral corruption, barely surviving the scrutiny. Prinsep lost his seat in another 1851 election there, surrounded by further controversy.[4]

Prinsep also canvassed for a seat in the court of directors of the East India Company, to which he was elected in 1850. When the number of directors was diminished under the act of 1853, he was one of those elected by ballot to retain their seats. In 1858, when the Council of India was established, he was one of the seven EIC directors appointed to the new body.[3]

In the council of India, Prinsep recorded frequent dissents from the decisions of the secretary of state. He was opposed to some of the measures adopted after the

Godavery River. In his last year of office he recorded a protest against the adoption of the narrow gauge for Indian railways. He retired from the council in 1874.[3]

Five or six years after returning from India, the Prinseps settled at

G. F. Watts was one of his most attached friends, and lived at Little Holland House for 25 years. Another friend was Edward Burne-Jones.[3]

Prinsep died of bronchitis in 1878, at the house of G. F. Watts at Freshwater, Isle of Wight.[3][1]

Works

At the end of the Third Anglo-Maratha War, Prinsep obtained the permission of the governor-general to write A History of the Political and Military Transactions in India during the Administration of the Marquis of Hastings, i.e. from October 1813 to January 1823. Prinsep sent the completed manuscript to his elder brother, Charles Robert Prinsep. George Canning, President of the Board of Control, prohibited the publication, but Prinsep went ahead on his own responsibility, and John Murray brought out the book in 1823. The original edition was revised and republished in two volumes, when the author was in England on leave, in 1824. In 1865, he wrote a manuscript autobiographical sketch, in which he recorded his impressions of successive governors-general.[3]

Prinsep wrote also works on: the origin of

Punjáb (1834); recent discoveries in Afghanistan (1844); social and political conditions of Tibet, Tartary, and Mongolia (1852). In 1853 he published a pamphlet on the India question, when the Charter Act was under discussion. He also, when in India, brought out Ramachandra Dasa's Register of the Bengal Civil Servants 1790–1842, accompanied by Actuarial Tables (Calcutta, 1844). In his old age he printed for private circulation Specimens of Ballad Poetry applied to the Tales and Traditions of the East.[3]

Family

On 14 May 1835, he and Sara Monckton (1816–1887), daughter of James Pattle of the Bengal civil service, were married. Together they had one daughter and three sons:[3]

  • Alice Marie Prinsep,[5] who married Charles Gurney,[3] son of Daniel Gurney (1791–1880)
  • Sir Henry Thoby Prinsep, a judge of the high court at Calcutta, in March 1904, he was made a Knights Commander of India (KCIE).[6]

References

  1. ^ a b "Obituary: The Late Mr. Henry T. Prinsep". The Times. 14 February 1878. p. 6.
  2. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/22811. Retrieved 28 December 2019. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "Prinsep, Henry Thoby" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
  4. ^ Reginald Lucas, Lord Glenesk and the Morning Post (1910) p. 42; archive.org.
  5. ^ "Family of Henry Thoby PRINSEP and Sarah Monckton PATTLE". woodlloydfamilyhistory.com. Archived from the original on 28 December 2019. Retrieved 28 December 2019.
  6. ^ Great Britain. India Office The India List and India Office List for 1905, p. 145, at Google Books
Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Prinsep, Henry Thoby". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.

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