Charles Bruce (Colonial Administrator)

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Charles Bruce, 1901.

Sir Charles Bruce GBR , GCMG , JP (* 1836 , † 13. December 1920 ) was a British colonial administrator and writer. He was the 18th governor of Mauritius from 1897 to 1903.

Life

youth

Charles Bruce was born in India in 1836 . His father was a descendant of the 9th Earl of Home . Thomas Bruce was from Arnott , Kinross-shire . He worked for the Honorable East India Company for many years . Charles received his education from Harrow School and Yale University . In his youth he went to Germany and studied oriental languages ​​and literature, mainly Sanskrit and Zend-Pahlavi . Then he assisted in a preparatory work for the large Sanskrit dictionary by Otto von Böhtlingk and Rudolf von Roth (7 vol., 1855–75), which was published by the Imperial Academy in St. Petersburg . This connection also enabled him to convince the Academy to publish his The Story of Nala (1862), an attempt to recreate the original text of an episode in the Indian epic Mahabharata . While working as a librarian at the British Museum , he was appointed professor of Sanskrit at King's College (Cambridge) in 1865 .

Colonial Administrator

Bruce went to Mauritius in 1868 to take up a post as rector of the Royal College in Port Louis . He held this post for over 10 years until he went to Ceylon in 1878 to become Director of Public Instruction . He received the Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) for this service on the occasion of the 1881 Birthday Honors . In 1882 he was back in Mauritius as Colonial Secretary , but in 1885 he went to British Guiana to take up the post of Lieutenant-Governor . He stayed there until 1893, during which time he was acting governor three times . In 1889 he received the knighthood of the Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG).

In 1893 Bruce was named Governor of the Windward Islands . At the time, the position included the Colony of the Windward Islands with Grenada , St. Vincent and the Grenadines , and St. Lucia . The seat of the governor was in Grenada.

In 1897 Bruce was appointed Governor of British Mauritius . The six years of his tenure as governor through 1903 brought great progress for the colony. With the help of Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain , he reformed every administrative facility and initiated measures to protect the island from the frequent destructive hurricanes . He was promoted to the rank of Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG) in August 1901 on the occasion of the royal visit of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York (later George V and Maria von Teck )

His work The Broad Stone of Empire (1910) describes his experience of the administrative problems of the crown colonies.

Age

When he returned to the UK in old age , Bruce developed into an advocate for Indian immigrants and settlers in other British colonies, especially South Africa . He was one of the early members of the committee in London which supported their claims and in June 1908 he headed a delegation asking Lord Crewe for Home Government intervention .

He was also a Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant for Kinross-shire.

family

Lady Bruce, née Clara Lucas († 1916), March 28, 1901.

Bruce married Clara Lucas, the daughter of John Lucas, in 1868. With her he had two sons. Charles Maurice Dundas Bruce was born in Mauritius in 1869 and died in the military in the first Somaliland Campaign in 1903.

Lady Bruce died in April 1916. Charles Bruce died in Edinburgh on December 13, 1920.

Works

  • The story of Nala. 1862
  • Poems. 1865
  • The Broad Stone of Empire. 1910
  • The True Temper of Empire. 1912
  • Milestones on my long journey. 1917
predecessor Office successor
Walter Hely-Hutchinson Governor of the Windward Islands
1893-1897 		Cornelius Alfred Moloney
Hubert Edward Henry Jerningham Governor of Mauritius
1897-1903 		Charles Cavendish Boyle

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g "BRUCE, Sir Charles", Who Was Who , A & C Black, Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920-2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2007.
  2. ^ Sitter: Sir Charles Bruce (1836–1920). . Lafayette Negative Archives.
  3. ^ A b c d e The Times: Death of Sir Charles Bruce - services to the Empire. Tuesday, December 14, 1920, eat. 42593: 14.
  4. ↑ London Gazette, eat. 27344, August 9, 1901: 5256.
  5. ↑ Fiji as a Crown Colony. In: The Quarterly Review , vol. 216 Jan 1912: 55-78.
  6. ^ Sitter: Lady Bruce, née Clara Lucas (d. 1916). . Lafayette Negative Archives.
  7. ↑ Bruce family mausoleum, Kinross (inscription)
  8. ^ The Sphere: An Illustrated Newspaper for the Home, Volume 13: 122

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Bruce, Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Colonial Administrator, Indologist, Governor of Mauritius
DATE OF BIRTH 1836
DATE OF DEATH December 13, 1920
Place of death Edinburgh , Scotland