Philip Meadows Taylor

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Philip Meadows Taylor
Menton, France
Notable workConfessions of a Thug

man of letters
.

Life and writings

Taylor was born in Liverpool, England, where his father, Philip Meadows Taylor, was a merchant. His mother was Jane Honoria Alicia, daughter of Bertram Mitford of Mitford Castle, Northumberland.[1]

At the age of 15, Taylor was sent out to India to become a clerk to a

Hyderabad, with which he remained dutifully attached throughout his long career. He was speedily transferred from military duty to a civil appointment, and in this capacity acquired a proficient knowledge of the languages and the people of southern India.[2]

Meanwhile, Taylor studied the laws, geology and the antiquities of the country and became an early expert on megaliths.[3] See more at South Asian Stone Age. He was alternately judge, engineer, artist, and a man of letters.

Bhoga Nandeeshwara Temple
by Taylor, c. 1834

While on furlough in England in 1840, he published the first of his Indian novels,

Hyderabad, who had married "one of the Princesses of the Royal House of Delhi".[4] Returning to India he acted, from 1840 to 1853 as correspondent for The Times and wrote a Student's Manual of the History of India (1870).[2]

About 1850, Meadows Taylor was appointed by the Nizam's government to administer, during a long minority, the principality of the young Raja Venkatappa Nayaka. He succeeded without European assistance in raising this small territory to a high degree of prosperity. Such was his influence with the natives that during the Indian Mutiny in 1857, he held his ground without military support.

Colonel Taylor, whose merits were recognized and acknowledged by then by the British government of India – although he had never been in the service of the

Company – was subsequently appointed Deputy Commissioner of the western "Ceded Districts". He succeeded in establishing a new assessment of revenues that was more equitable to cultivators and more productive to the government. By perseverance he had risen from the condition of a half-educated youth without patronage, and without even the support of the Company, to successful government of some of the most important provinces of India, 36,000 square miles (93,000 km2) in extent with a population of over five million.[2]

He received an Order of the Star of India on his retirement from service in 1860 and given a pension.[1] In 1875 his sight failed, and on medical advice he decided to spend the winter in India, but contracted jungle fever. He died at Menton, France, on his way home, on 13 May 1876.[1]

Contributions to Gulburga

Taylor made several contributions to the

Gulburga region in India by initiating a number of reforms. He encouraged improvement of agriculture, opened up job opportunities, started schools and improved infrastructure. He was known to spend his own money on providing drought relief. The local people began calling him "Mahadev Baba". Taylor undertook notable archaeological excavations in Gulburga, publishing his findings in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy and the Journal of The Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.[5]

Tributes

Richard Garnett commented, "His Confessions of a Thug is a classic adventure novel, which inspired the young of several imperial generations and was much imitated by other colonial fiction writers for over a century."[1]

Rich tributes were paid to Taylor, by the Archaeological Survey of India in its History of Indian Archaeology 1784–1947 by Sourindranath Roy. Taylor's archaeological work is acknowledged there as highly significant.[5]

Bibliography

Novels

  • Confessions of a Thug (1839 2nd ed., London, 1873)
  • Tippoo Sultaun: The Tale of the Mysore War (1840)
  • Tara: A
    Maratha
    Tale     (Edinburgh/London: 1863)
  • Ralph Darnell (1865)
  • Seeta (London: 1872)
  • A Noble Queen: A Romance of Indian History (London: 1878)

Non-fiction

  • The Megalithic Tombs and other Ancient Remains in the
    Deccan
     (reprint, Hyderabad, 1941)
  • The Student's Manual of the History of India (London, 1871)

Posthumous publications

  • The Story of My Life (London, 1877)
  • Tobacco – a Farmer's Crop (1886)
  • The Letters to Henry Reeve (1947)[6]

Arms

Coat of arms of Philip Meadows Taylor
Notes
Confirmed 24 January 1870 by
Ulster King of Arms.[7]
Crest
A leopard passant Proper charged on the shoulder with a trefoil slipped Vert.
Escutcheon
Sable a lion passant Argent in chief a trefoil slipped Or.
Motto
Incorrupta Fides

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Richard Garnett (rev. David Washbrook): "Taylor, Philip Meadows (1808–1876)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, UK: OUP) [1] Retrieved 13 May 2018.]
  2. ^ a b c Chisholm 1911.
  3. ISBN 9780472110131
    . Retrieved 5 October 2013.
  4. ^ Philip Meadows Taylor The Story of My Life (Edinburgh: William Blackwood & Sons) 1877 pp. 62–63.
  5. ^ a b Sirnoorkar, Srinivas (19 November 2013). "It's a Taylor-made task". Deccan Herald. No. Bangalore. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
  6. ^ Details from British Library catalogue Retrieved 13 May 2018.
  7. ^ "Grants and Confirmations of Arms, Vol. G". National Archives of Ireland. p. 226. Retrieved 31 January 2023.

External links

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