Maratha-Grabs-and-Gallivats-attacking-an-English-Ship

Colonel John Biddulph (25 July 1840 – 24 December 1921) was a British soldier, author and naturalist who served in the government of

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

. Biddulph was born in 1840, and was the third son of Robert Biddulph. He was educated at

Westminster School (God Gives the Increase) , established = Earliest records date from the 14th century, refounded in 1560 , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , head_label = Hea ...

, and at the age of 18 joined the 19th Lancers and proceeded to India where he served in

Awadh Awadh (), known in British historical texts as Avadh or Oudh, is a region in the modern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, which was before independence known as the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. It is synonymous with the Kośāla region of ...

during the

Indian Rebellion of 1857 The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the fo ...

. Afterwards, he joined the political department of the government of

. Between 1873 and 1874 he accompanied

Thomas Douglas Forsyth Sir Thomas Douglas Forsyth (7 October 1827 – 17 December 1886) was an Anglo-Indian administrator and diplomat. Early life Forsyth was born in Birkenhead on 7 October 1827. He was the tenth child of Thomas Forsyth, a Liverpool merchant. His ...

, Thomas E. Gordon,

Henry Walter Bellew Henry Walter Bellew MRCP (30 August 1834 – 26 July 1892) was an Indian-born British medical officer who worked in Afghanistan. He wrote several books based on his explorations in the region during the course of his army career and also studied ...

Ferdinand Stoliczka Ferdinand Stoliczka (Czech written Stolička, 7 June 1838 – 19 June 1874) was a Moravian palaeontologist who worked in India on paleontology, geology and various aspects of zoology, including ornithology, malacology, and herpetology. He died of ...

, Henry Trotter, and R. A. Champman on the

Second Yarkand Mission The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds ...

– an expedition across the

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...

Chinese Turkestan Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...

.1917. "The Amir Yakoub Khan and Eastern Turkestan in Mid-Nineteenth Century."

Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society ''Asian Affairs'', the journal of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs, has been published continuously since 1914 (originally as the ''Journal of the Central Asian Society'', and from 1931 to 1969 as the ''Journal of the Royal Central Asian Socie ...

. Vol. 4. No. 4. pp. 95-112. During this journey, Biddulph collected numerous specimens of birds and mammals, including an unknown species of ''

Podoces The ground jays or ground choughs belong to a distinct group of the passerine order of birds in the genus ''Podoces'' of the crow family Corvidae. They inhabit high altitude semi-desert areas from central Asia to Mongolia. Ground jays show adapt ...

'' which was later named in his honour by

Allan Octavian Hume Allan Octavian Hume, CB ICS (4 June 1829 – 31 July 1912) was a British civil servant, political reformer, ornithologist and botanist who worked in British India. He was the founder of the Indian National Congress. A notable ornithologist, Hum ...

as '' Podoces biddulphi''. In 1877 Biddulph was posted at

Gilgit Gilgit (; Shina: ; ur, ) is the capital city of Gilgit–Baltistan, Pakistan. The city is located in a broad valley near the confluence of the Gilgit River and the Hunza River. It is a major tourist destination in Pakistan, serving as a h ...

, in the extreme north-western corner of

Kashmir Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompas ...

, and remained there until 1881. During this period he corresponded on ornithology with Hume and his observations and research in this region were published in two papers in the ''

Ibis The ibises () (collective plural ibis; classical plurals ibides and ibes) are a group of long-legged wading birds in the family Threskiornithidae, that inhabit wetlands, forests and plains. "Ibis" derives from the Latin and Ancient Greek word f ...

''. After holding many posts as

British Resident A resident minister, or resident for short, is a government official required to take up permanent residence in another country. A representative of his government, he officially has diplomatic functions which are often seen as a form of indi ...

at various

princely state A princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign entity of the British Raj, British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule, ...

s and serving for four years on the staff of the

Viceroy of India The Governor-General of India (1773–1950, from 1858 to 1947 the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, commonly shortened to Viceroy of India) was the representative of the monarch of the United Kingdom and after Indian independence in 19 ...

Lord Northbrook Baron Northbrook, of Stratton in the County of Southampton, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1866 for the Liberal politician and former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Francis Baring, 3rd Baronet. The holde ...

, Biddulph retired from the service in 1896. He died on 24 December 1921 in Grey Court, London, aged 81.

Writings

Biddulph wrote several works about India and about the history of the British presence there including biographies of

Stringer Lawrence Major-General Stringer Lawrence (February 1698–10 January 1775) was an English soldier, the first Commander-in-Chief of Fort William. Origins Lawrence was born at Hereford, England, the son of John Lawrence of Hereford by his wife Mary, about ...

and

Joseph François Dupleix Joseph Marquis Dupleix (23 January 1697 – 10 November 1763) was Governor-General of French India and rival of Robert Clive. Biography Dupleix was born in Landrecies, on January 23, 1697. His father, François Dupleix, a wealthy ''fermier gé ...

.New General Catalog of Old Books & Authors
/ref> These books and his ''Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh'' are listed as references for several articles in the

Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Eleventh Edition (1910–1911) is a 29-volume reference work, an edition of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. It was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. So ...

. *'' Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh'', 1880 *''The Nineteenth And Their Times'', 1899 *''Stringer Lawrence, The Father Of The Indian Army'', 1901 *''The Pirates Of Malabar, and An Englishwoman In India...'',1907 *''Dupleix'', 1910

References

External links

* *
Duplieix
by Colonel John Biddulph, 1910 {{DEFAULTSORT:Biddulph, John British biographers British ornithologists British writers Historians of India British diplomats British people in colonial India Central Asian studies scholars 1848 births 1921 deaths People educated at Westminster School, London