Augustus Clevland (1754–1784) [2] was an East India Company administrator in the Province of Bengal, a Collector of the Revenues and a Judge of the Dewanny Adawlut of the Districts of Bhagalpur and various others. He was very hostile towards the native Indians, after the 1777 famine the natives revolted against the company and he was killed by the rebellion leader Tilka Manjhi. He died in mid-career at the early age of 30.
He was the 6th son of John Clevland (1706-1763) of Tapeley, in the parish of Westleigh, near Bideford, in North Devon, England, his 2nd son by his third wife Sarah Shuckburgh (d.1764), whom he married in 1747, a daughter of Charles Shuckburgh of Longborough, Gloucestershire and a sister of Sir Charles Shuckburgh, 5th Baronet (1722–1773). [3] Clevland is said to have been a cousin of John Shore, 1st Baron Teignmouth, Governor-General of India.
Clevland was an Indian administrator. He was collector and magistrate of Bhagalpur, Bengal, and died in his twenty-ninth year. Two monuments were erected by East India Company; First by Warren Hastings at Calcutta, and the second in the district of Bhagalpur by the company; John Shore wrote a remarkable monody on his early death; and Lord Hastings re-established the school which Cleveland had founded and revived his corps of mountaineers.
He was killed by Tilka Majhi on 12 January 1784, when he was hit by an arrow. [4] At that time Clevland was riding a horse.
He was buried in South Park Street Cemetery, Kolkata. [5]
Two monuments were erected in his memory: one depicted above built by East India Company and acquaintances, the other in Calcutta (South Park Street Cemetery, plot: 1484), sent by the Court of Directors of the East India Company from England. The latter comprises a small stone chapel topped by an obelisk, with the following inscription: [6]
"Here lie the Remains of AUGUSTUS CLEVLAND ESQUIRE, Late Collector of the Revenues; Judge of the Dewanny Adawlut of the Districts of BHAUGULPOOR, MOONGYR, RAJEMEHAL, &c&c. He departed this Life 12th of Jany 1784 - at Sea - on Board the Atlas Indiaman, Captain [Allan] Cooper, proceeding to the Cape for the recovery of his Health, aged 29 Years. His Remains, preserved in spirits, were brought up to Town in the Pilot Sloop which attended the Atlas and interred herein, the 30th of the same month. The public and private Virtues of this excellent Young Man, were Singularly eminent. IN HIS PUBLIC CAPACITY, He accomplished, by a System of Conciliation, what could never be effected by Military Coercion. He civilized a Savage Race of Mountaineers who for Ages had existed in a state of Barbarism And eluded every Exertion that had been practised against them To Suppress their Depredations, and reduce them to obedience. To his wise and beneficent Conduct the English East India Company were indebted for the Subjecting to their Government the numerous Inhabitants of that wild & extensive Country - The Jungleterry. IN HIS PRIVATE STATION, By the amiableness of his Deportment, the Gentleness of his manners, And the goodness & generosity of his heart, He was universally admired, beloved & respected by all who had the happiness of knowing him".
Several accounts of Clevland's career exist. One by Bishop Reginald Heber (1783-1826), Bishop of Calcutta (1823-1826), forms part of his A Journey through the Upper Provinces of India from Calcutta to Bombay 1824-1825 in which he recounts how Clevland had learned the language of the Sonthals, a primitive hill people in Bihar, persuaded them to sell `wax and honey' to the people of the plains, to accept his authority, and submit to his judgment instead of fighting. [7]
John Shore, 1st Baron Teignmouth (1751-1834), Governor-General of India 1793-1797 was Clevland's cousin and had been very fond of him. He composed laudatory verse of which the following is part: [8]
"... The savage band
Forsook their haunts and bowed to his Command
And where the warrior's arm in vain assail'd
His gentler skill o'er brutal force prevail'd ...
Now mended morals check the lust for spoil
And rising Hamlets prove his generous toil ..."
Rudyard Kipling's story "The Tomb of his Ancestors" (1896) is based on the life story of Clevland, represented by the fictional protagonist "John Chinn". [8]
Clevland was a friend and patron of the artist William Hodges (1744-1797), who visited India and accompanied Warren Hastings to Benares in 1781 and on his return in January 1782 stayed for four months as Clevland's guest at Bhagalpur. Together they visited several monuments in the Rajmahal district, as recorded by Hodges in his Travels in India (1793) [9] Hodges describes the journeys he undertook with Cleveland in the Rajmahal district and the various monuments they visited. In 1794, ten years after Clevland's death, his personal effects were sold, amongst which were twenty-one works by Hodges, including one entitled Tomb and distant view of Rajmahal Hills, now in the collection of the Tate Gallery. [10] A painting by Hodges titled "A camp of a thousand men formed by Augustus Clevland three miles from Bhagalpur with his mansion in the distance", was sold by his descendant Sir George Christie in 1996 at Christies for £56,500, [11] resold in 2009 for £133,250. [12]
John Shore, 1st Baron Teignmouth, 1st Baronet was a British official of the East India Company who served as Governor-General of Bengal from 1793 to 1798. In 1798 he was created Baron Teignmouth in the Peerage of Ireland. Shore was the first president of the British and Foreign Bible Society. A close friend of the orientalist Sir William Jones (1746–1794), Shore edited a memoir of Jones's life in 1804, containing many of Jones's letters.
Rajmahal is a subdivisional town and a notified area in Rajmahal subdivision of the Sahebganj district in the Indian state of Jharkhand. It is situated at the banks of Ganges and was former capital of Bengal Subah under Mughal governor, Man Singh I.
Thomas Daniell was an English landscape painter who also painted Orientalist themes. He spent seven years in India, accompanied by his nephew William, also an artist, and published several series of aquatints of the country.
Mirza Asaf-ud-Daula was the Nawab wazir of Oudh ratified by Shah Alam II, from 26 January 1775 to 21 September 1797, and the son of Shuja-ud-Dowlah. His mother and grandmother were the Begums of Oudh.
Sir George Augustus William Shuckburgh-Evelyn, 6th Baronet was a British politician, mathematician and astronomer.
William Wither Bramston Beach was an English Conservative politician, who served in the House of Commons for 44 years between 1857 and 1901, becoming Father of the House of Commons in 1899.
The Ṣadr Dīwānī ʿAdālat was the Supreme Court of Revenue in British India established at Calcutta by Warren Hastings in 1772. It was reformed in 1780 and again in 1793 by the British Parliament. The court's judges were the Governor General and Council Members of the East India Company, assisted by native judges and officers of revenue.
Tilka Majhi was an Indian freedom fighter the first adivasi leader from Santal community. He took up arms against the British in the 1784, around 70 years before Mangal Pandey. He organized the adivasis to form an armed group to fight against the resource grabbing and exploitation of British.
William Langham Christie of Glyndebourne, Sussex, and Tapeley, North Devon, was a British Conservative Party politician.
South Park Street Cemetery, formerly known as the 'Great Christian Burial Ground', was one of the earliest non-church cemeteries in the world. The cemetery houses numerous graves and monuments belonging to British soldiers, administrators, and their families. It is also the final resting place of several prominent personalities, including Henry Louis Vivian Derozio and Sir William Jones. It is located on Mother Teresa Sarani, Central Kolkata, India.
John Clevland,, of Tapeley in the parish of Westleigh, North Devon, was Secretary to the Admiralty and was twice a Member of Parliament for Saltash in Devon and for Sandwich in Kent.
John Davie (1640–1710) of Orleigh Court in the parish of Buckland Brewer, Devon, England, was a prominent tobacco merchant from Bideford, Devon. His Bideford town house which he built in 1688, was Colonial House, now the Royal Hotel, in which survive several 17th-century decorative plasterwork ceilings, said by Pevsner & Cherry (2004) to be amongst the best in Devon, and a grand staircase.
Tapeley is a historic estate in the parish of Westleigh in North Devon, England.
St. John's Church, originally a cathedral, was among the first public buildings erected by the East India Company after Kolkata (Calcutta) became the effective capital of British India. It is located at the North-Western corner of Raj Bhavan, and served as the Anglican Cathedral of Calcutta till 1847, when the see was transferred to St. Paul's Cathedral. Construction of the building, modelled on St Martin-in-the-Fields of London, started in 1784, with Rs 30,000 raised through a public lottery, and was completed in 1787. The land the church stands on was gifted by Maharaja Nabo Kishen Bahadur of Sobhabazar. It is the third oldest church in the city, next to the Armenian Church of the Holy Nazareth and the Old Mission Church.
Captain William Clevland (1664–1734), of Tapeley in the parish of Westleigh, North Devon, was a Scottish-born Royal Navy commander who served as Controller of Storekeepers' Accounts. In 1704, he purchased the estate of Tapeley which today is still owned and occupied by his descendants the Christie family, also of Glyndebourne House, East Sussex.
John II Clevland of Tapeley in the parish of Westleigh, Devon, was seven times Member of Parliament for Barnstaple from 1766 to 1802.
The following is based on a glossary attached to the fifth Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on Indian affairs, appointed in 1810, comprising Hindustani words commonly used in the administration of the British Raj.
Samuel Davis (1760–1819) was an English soldier turned diplomat who later became a director of the East India Company (EIC). He was the father of John Francis Davis, one time Chief Superintendent of British Trade in China and second governor of Hong Kong.
John Herbert Harington was a British orientalist, colonial administrator and judge. He published a two-volume edition of the Arabic and Persian works of Saadi Shirazi.
Clevland may refer to:
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : "Cleveland, Augustus". Dictionary of National Biography . London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
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