Thomas Roebuck

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Thomas Roebuck
Born1781 (1781)
Calcutta
Relatives

Thomas Roebuck (1781โ€“1819) was a Scottish army officer of the East India Company, known as an orientalist and lexicographer.

Life

A grandson of inventor

Edinburgh High School. His uncle, Benjamin Roebuck (died 1809), of the Madras civil service, found him an appointment with the East India Company, and early in 1801 he left England to enter the 17th regiment of native infantry as a cadet. He became lieutenant-captain on 17 September 1812, and captain on 15 June 1815.[1][2]

Roebuck learned

Asiatic Society.[1]

Roebuck died of fever at

Calcutta on 8 December 1819.[1]

Works

During his leave, Roebuck spent time in Edinburgh assisting

John Borthwick Gilchrist with an English-Hindustani dictionary, and two volumes of the British-Indian Monitor for 1806โ€“8. On the return voyage, he compiled An English and Hindustani Naval Dictionary with a short grammar (Calcutta, 1811; 2nd edit. 1813; 4th 1848; 5th, re-edited and enlarged as a Laskari Dictionary by George Small, M.A., London, 1882).[1]

At Fort William College, Roebuck superintended the publication of a Hindustani version of Persian tales, and edited, with notes in Persian, a Hindu-Persian dictionary (Calcutta, 1818). Just before his death he completed The Annals of the College of Fort William (Calcutta, 1819) and A Collection of Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases in the Persian and Hindustani Languages (Calcutta, 1824). His notes for a Hindustani lexicon were deposited in the library of the college.[1]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e Lee, Sidney, ed. (1897). "Roebuck, Thomas" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 49. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  2. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/23946. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)

External links

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1897). "Roebuck, Thomas". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 49. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

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