Mountstuart Elphinstone
Mountstuart Elphinstone (born October 6, 1779 in Dumbarton , West Dunbartonshire , Scotland, † November 20, 1859 in Hookward Park, Surrey ) was a British colonial administrator in India and historian.
Life
Mountstuart Elphinstone was the fourth son of the eleventh Lord Elphinstone, entered the civil service in Bengal at the age of 18, was attaché of the British resident at the court of Peshwa Baji Rao II (1796-1818), the adoptive father of Nana Sahib , and made as Adjutant to Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington having the Battle of Assaye .
After being a resident in Nagpur for a while and an envoy in Kabul in 1808 , he became resident at the court of the Marathas Peshwa in 1816 , and in a few weeks his astuteness succeeded in uncovering the betrayal he had spun and, when the Third Marath War broke out, preparations were made in good time for the battle of Khadki to begin.
In 1820 he became governor of Bombay and made himself famous here primarily for his "Elphinstone Code", which was made a code of law for its excellent brevity and clarity. After a long and beneficial activity, especially in the field of education and training of the locals, he returned to Great Britain in 1827 to devote himself entirely to literary activity.
He declined the peership and governor-general offices of India and Canada offered to him (the first twice). In 1830 he was elected a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh . He died on November 20, 1859 at his Hookward Park country estate in Surrey.
His first literary achievement was the Account of the Kingdom of Cabul (London 1819; 2nd ed. 1842, 2 vols.). Then he published:
Opinions upon some of the leading questions, co nected with the government of British India (1831) and, as the main work of his life, the first comprehensive history of India based entirely on the best oriental, especially Persian, sources: A history of India: the Hindoo and Muhammedan periods (1841; 5th ed., With notes by Cowell, 1866), the introduction of which has even been translated into Marathic (Puna 1855).
Dedication names
The Nilgirite dove bears the specific epithet elphanstonii in his honor .
Biographies
- GW Forrest: Selection from the minutes and other official writings of the Mountstuart Elphinstone. London 1884.
- Henry Thomas Colebrooke : Life of the Honorable Mountstuart Elphinstone . London 1884, 2 vol.
- JS Cotton: Mountstuart Elphinstone (" Rulers of India " series). London 1892.
Web links
- Montstuart Elphinstone (GFDL site)
- Literature by and about Mountstuart Elphinstone in the catalog of the German National Library
Single receipts
- ^ Fellows Directory. Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed December 3, 2019 .
- ↑ Bo Beolens, Michael Watkins: Whose Bird? Men and Women Commemorated in the Common Names of Birds . Christopher Helm, London 2003, p. 205.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Elphinstone, Mountstuart |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Scottish chronicler |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 6, 1779 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Dumbarton , West Dunbartonshire |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 20, 1859 |
| Place of death | Surrey |