William Henry Sykes

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William Henry Sykes

William Henry Sykes (born January 25, 1790 near Bradford in Yorkshire , † June 16, 1872 in Kensington , London ) was a British soldier, naturalist and politician.

Live and act

William Henry Sykes joined the British East India Company in 1803 . He participated in the siege of Bhurtpoor under the command of Lord Lake and acted as an interpreter for Hindustani and Maratha . From 1817 to 1820 Sykes commanded a regiment in the Deccan and then worked as a statistician for the government in Bombay . During this time he compiled a census of the Deccan, wrote two statistical reports and wrote a natural history of the region. On June 18, 1833, he retired with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

On February 6, 1834, the Royal Society accepted him as a member. In 1835 Sykes was one of the founding members of the Royal Statistical Society , of which he was president from 1863 to 1865.

In 1846 Sykes returned to the United Kingdom. He was elected a director of the British East India Company and was its president in 1856/57. From April 2, 1857 until his death, Sykes was a Member of Parliament for Aberdeen .

Honor taxon

George Arnott Walker Arnott named the plant genus Sykesia from the red family in his honor in 1836 . Today she is a synonym for Gaertnera . Also named after him is the Sykes nightjar (Caprimulgus mahrattensis), also known as the Sind nightjar .

Fonts (selection)

  • On a portion of Dukhun, East Indies . In: Transactions of the Geological Society of London, Second Series, vol. 4 (1836) p. 409 online
  • The Taeping Rebellion in China: its origins, progress, and present condition . Warren Hall & Co., 1863, online
  • Notes on the Religions, Moral, and Political State of Ancient India . In: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society . No. 12
  • Catalog of Mammalia observed in the Dakhan. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 1 (1832), pp. 161-7. (Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London) online
  • Catalog of birds (systematical arranged) of the Raptorial, Insessorial, Rasorial, Grallatorial, and Natatorial orders, observed in the Dakhan. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 3 (1832), pp. 418-23, 536-43, 597-9, 639-49. (Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London)
  • On the fishes of the Deccan. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1838 (6), pp. 157-165.

proof

literature

  • Frederic Boase: Modern English Biography: Containing Many Thousand Concise Memoirs of Persons who Have Died Since the Year 1850, with an Index of the most Interesting Matter . Netherton & Worth, Truro 1892-1921
  • James Britten, GS Boulger (Ed.): A Biographical Index of British and Irish Botanists . West, Newman & Co, London 1893
  • Thomas Humphry Ward (Ed.): Men of the Reign: a Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Persons of British and Colonial Birth who Have Died during the Reign of Queen Victoria . Routledge, London 1885

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Nova Acta Physico-Medica Academiae Caesareae Leopoldino-Carolinae Naturae Curiosorum Exhibentia Ephemerides sive Observationes Historias et Experimenta ... Volume 18, No. 1, p. 351, 1836

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Sykes, William Henry
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British soldier, naturalist and politician
DATE OF BIRTH January 25, 1790
PLACE OF BIRTH near Bradford , Yorkshire
DATE OF DEATH June 16, 1872
Place of death Kensington , London