William Tippet
William Henry Tippet (1782-1824) was the Judge and Magistrate of Patna, India, from 1816 to 1824.
Biography
Tippet was born in
From an early age, Tippet pursued a career in the service of the East India Company. Aged 17 years, he served as a Cadet, then attained the ranks of Ensign (1799) and Lieutenant (1800), before leaving military service to take up a position with the Company as a Writer in Bengal in July 1803.[3]
As a youth, Tippet formed a relationship with Mussooruat Sauer Nhaunus of Tellicherry, daughter of Chovvakkaran Moosa, who was a pepper merchant from the Keyi family and, at that time, the richest man in Malabar.[4] Eventually, Tippet married Mussooruat under English law and their three ‘natural-born’ children were baptized and recognized as legitimate heirs.
In the civil service wing of the British East India Company, Tippet served in a variety of junior judicial and administrative positions; first at
As a Magistrate, Tippet was sympathetic to the protection and development of local economies and supported the legal interests of senior merchants of both European and Indian heritage.[6]
Tippet died at sea, aged 41, aboard the Berwickshire, during a voyage to St Helena.[7]
References
- ^ A. Chaplin, A St Helena Who’s Who: A Complete Guide to the People on St Helena During Napoleon’s Captivity, (revised ed. by A. Sutton, 2014), London, 1919, pp. 23, 32, 86; T.W. Hearl, St Helena Britannica: Studies in South Atlantic Island History, (ed. by A.H. Schulenburg), London, 2013, pp. 134, 146.
- ^ The Endeavour Journal of James Cook, May 1775; K. Denholm, South Atlantic Haven: A Maritime History for the Island of St Helena, St Helena, 1994, p. 9.
- ^ India Office records in the British Library.
- ^ Will of W.H. Tippet in the UK National Archives. J. McDonald, 'Migration as an Opportunity for Reinvention: Alfred and Margaret Rich of Gundaroo', Obituaries Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://oa.anu.edu.au/essay/18/text32361, originally published 19 November 2015, accessed 3 December 2015. Cf. A.P. Ummer Kutty, Keyi Charitram, Tellicherry, 1916, passim; A. Bulley, The Bombay Country Ships, 1790-1833, Abingdon, 2000, pp. 42; M.P. Mujeebu Rehiman, ‘Merchants and Colonialism: the Case of Chovvakaran Moosa and the English East India Company’, History Farook working paper series (August 2006), pp. 4-7.
- ^ India Office records in the British Library; 1817 Bengal Obituary, p. 394 (Thomas Gentil); The India Office and Burma Office List, London, 1829, p. 17.
- ^ B. Ram, Land and Society in India: Agrarian Relations in Colonial North Bihar, Chennai, 1997, p. 211.
- ^ Departures from Bangal Alamanac, 1824; Accounts and Papers on East India Affairs, vol. 25, London, 1826, p. 6.