Mountstuart Elphinstone
Mountstuart Elphinstone ( born October 6, 1779 Dumbarton, West Dunbartonshire, Scotland, † November 20, 1859 in Hookward Park, Surrey ) was a historian.
Mountstuart Elphinstone was the fourth son of the eleventh Lord Elphinstone, joined with 18 years in the Bengal Civil Service, Attaché of the British Resident at the court of Peshwa Baji Rao II was ( 1796-1818 ), the adoptive father of Nana Sahib, and made adjutant of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, the battle of Assaye with.
After he had been for some time resident in Nagpur and 1808 envoy in Kabul, he was in 1816 resident at the court of the Peshwa of the Marathas, and in a few weeks succeeded his sagacity to discover the spun from that betrayal and at the outbreak of the Third Marathenkrieges timely preparations to start for the Battle of Khadki.
In 1820 he became Governor of Bombay and here made primarily by its " Elphinstone code" which was elevated its exquisite brevity and clarity to the Code, famous. After a long, especially in the field of education and training of locals, beneficial effectiveness in 1827 he returned back to the UK in order to devote himself entirely to literary activity.
The peerage and the offices of the Governor-General of India and Canada, (the first two ) were offered to him, he refused. He died on November 20, 1859 at his country estate Hookward Park 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, consistently the best oriental, especially Persian, sources supportive history of India: A history of India: the Hindoo and Muhammedan periods (1841, 5th edition, with notes by Cowell, 1866), their initiation was even translated into the Marathische ( Puna 1855).
Biographies
- GW Forrest: Selection from the minutes and other official writings of Mountstuart Elphinstone the. London 1884.
- Henry Thomas Colebrooke: Life of the Honourable Mountstuart Elphinstone. London 1884, 2 vols
- J. S. Cotton: Mountstuart Elphinstone ( " Rulers of India" series). London 1892.