Sir Hugh Cleghorn FRSE LLD (1751-1836) was the first colonial secretary to Ceylon. He was key in the takeover of Ceylon from Dutch control to the British Empire. [1] In 1795 Cleghorn used his friendship with Comte Charles-Daniel de Meuron, who owned a regiment of Swiss mercenaries, the Regiment de Meuron, that controlled Ceylon for the Dutch, to transfer control to the British. [2] His grandson Hugh Francis Clarke Cleghorn was instrumental in the foundation of the forest department and forest conservation in India.
He was born in Fife around 1751. He attended the High School in Edinburgh 1762–3. He was Professor of Civil and Natural History at St Andrews University from 1773 to 1793. He took a long leave of absence from 1788 to 1790 and traveled with the young Alexander Home, 10th Earl of Home on an extended trip of Europe: France, Switzerland and Italy, lecturing at universities along the route. [3] He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1790. His proposers were John Playfair, Alexander Hamilton and James Hutton. [4] In 1790, Cleghorn was a named recipient of £400 in the will and testament of Adam Smith, to be paid upon the death of Smith's cousin, Janet Douglas. [5]
In 1795 Cleghorn traveled to India and Ceylon with Charles Daniel, the Comte de Meuron. The Regiment de Meuron withdrew its support of the Dutch and shortly thereafter, on 15 October 1796, the town and fortress of Columbo surrendered to the British. Cleghorn received £5000 for his role in arranging the Regiment's transfer of allegiance.
In 1798 Cleghorn was appointed Colonial Secretary of Ceylon. However, he did not get on with Governor Frederick North, the first British civilian governor of the island, who arrived on 12 October 1798. Cleghorn resigned his post and returned to Scotland.
Cleghorn had several properties, primarily Stravithie Castle, north of Dunino, a large townhouse, "St Leonards" in St Andrews and the estate of Pitreavie near Dunfermline. All are in Fife. He also had property at Wakefield in England. [3]
In 1829 he was staying at Society in Edinburgh to have a bladder stone removed by Dr Bell.
He died in February 1836.
Cleghorn married Rachel some time around 1795.
Hugh's sons Patrick Cleghorn and John Cleghorn both spent much time in India.
A third son, Peter Cleghorn, was the father of Hugh Francis Clarke Cleghorn FRSE.
His daughter Jenny ("Jessie") Douglas Cleghorn married and lived in Edinburgh.
John Playfair FRSE, FRS was a Church of Scotland minister, remembered as a scientist and mathematician, and a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He is best known for his book Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth (1802), which summarised the work of James Hutton. It was through this book that Hutton's principle of uniformitarianism, later taken up by Charles Lyell, first reached a wide audience. Playfair's textbook Elements of Geometry made a brief expression of Euclid's parallel postulate known now as Playfair's axiom.
Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 1st Earl of Minto,, known as Sir Gilbert Elliott, 4th Baronet until 1797, and the Lord Minto from 1797 to 1813, was a British diplomat and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1776 and 1795. He was viceroy of the short-lived Anglo-Corsican Kingdom from 1794 to 1796 and went on to become Governor-General of India between July 1807 and 1813.
Sir Alured Clarke was a British Army officer. He took charge of all British troops in Georgia in May 1780 and was then deployed to Philadelphia to supervise the evacuation of British prisoners of war at the closing stages of the American Revolutionary War. He went on to be Governor of Jamaica and then lieutenant-governor of Lower Canada in which role he had responsibility for implementing the Constitutional Act 1791. He was then sent to India where he became Commander-in-Chief of the Madras Army, then briefly Governor-General of India and finally Commander-in-Chief of India during the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War.
The Regiment de Meuron was a regiment of infantry originally raised in Switzerland in 1781 for service with the Dutch East India Company (VOC). At the time the French, Spanish, Dutch and other armies employed units of Swiss mercenaries. The regiment was named for its commander, Colonel Charles-Daniel de Meuron, who was born in Neuchâtel in 1738.
Dutch Ceylon was a governorate established in present-day Sri Lanka by the Dutch East India Company. Although the Dutch managed to capture most of the coastal areas in Sri Lanka, they were never able to control the Kingdom of Kandy located in the interior of the island. Dutch Ceylon existed from 1640 until 1796.
James Gregory was a Scottish physician and classicist.
The 80th Regiment of Foot (Staffordshire Volunteers) was an infantry regiment of the British Army, raised in 1793. Under the Childers Reforms it amalgamated with the 38th (1st Staffordshire) Regiment of Foot to form the South Staffordshire Regiment in 1881.
Louis Michel Thibault, was a French-born architect and engineer who designed numerous buildings in the Cape Colony. He was Cape Colony's first trained architect and brought with him a distinctive mannered neo-classicism.
Hugh Francis Clarke Cleghorn was a Madras-born Scottish physician, botanist, forester and land owner. Sometimes known as the father of scientific forestry in India, he was the first Conservator of Forests for the Madras Presidency, and twice acted as Inspector General of Forests for India. After a career spent in India Cleghorn returned to Scotland in 1868, where he was involved in the first ever International Forestry Exhibition, advised the India Office on the training of forest officers, and contributed to the establishment of lectureships in botany at the University of St Andrews and in forestry at the University of Edinburgh. The plant genus Cleghornia was named after him by Robert Wight.
The Beggar's Benison was a Scottish gentlemen's club devoted to "the convivial celebration of male sexuality". It was founded in 1732 in the town of Anstruther on the Firth of Forth and is often mentioned in descriptions of the libertine culture of 18th century Britain.
Thomas Hardy FRSE was a Scottish Minister, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1793 and Professor of Eccesiastical History at Edinburgh University. He was also Dean of the Chapel Royal and Chaplain in Ordinary to the King.
Count Charles-Daniel de Meuron was the founder of a Swiss mercenary regiment, Regiment de Meuron, which was employed in the service of the Dutch East India Company in Cape Town and Ceylon.
Pierre-Frédéric de Meuron was the fifth Military Governor of British Ceylon, from 1797 to 1798, and fourth General Officer Commanding, Ceylon. He was also the commanding officer of the Regiment de Meuron, a unit of Swiss mercenaries that had served in Ceylon under the Dutch, but whose transfer of allegiance to Great Britain facilitated the fall of Columbo to the British on 15 October 1796.
Robert Andrews was the Resident and Superintendent of British Ceylon. He was appointed on 12 February 1796 and was Resident until 12 October 1798. He was succeeded by Frederick North as Governor of British Ceylon.
Hugh Murray FRSE FRGS (1779–1846) was a Scottish geographer and author. He is often referred to as Hew Murray.
John Bruce of Grangehill and Falkland FRS FRSE (1744–1826) was a Scottish academic, politician and historiographer to the East India Company.
The Hamilton Canal is a 14.5 km (9.0 mi) canal connecting Puttalam to Colombo, passing through Negombo in Sri Lanka. The canal was constructed by the British in 1802 and completed in 1804. It was designed to drain salt water out of the Muthurajawela wetlands. The canal was named after Gavin Hamilton, the Government Agent of Revenue and Commerce.
Captain John Rodney was a British naval officer, politician, serving as the member of parliament for Launceston (1790–1796) and public servant, serving as the third Colonial Secretary of Ceylon (1806–1833).
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