Benjamin Bailey (

Dewsbury Dewsbury is a minster and market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Calder and on an arm of the Calder and Hebble Navigation waterway. It is to the west of Wakefield, east of Hudder ...

, November 1791 - 3 April 1871 in

Sheinton Sheinton is a small rural village and civil parish just outside Telford, and within Shropshire. It is situated on the south bank of the River Severn opposite the Wrekin, a notable Shropshire landmark. In October 2008 its historic bridge coll ...

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

) was a British Church Mission Society missionary in Kerala, India for 34 years. He was ordained 1815 and moved to Kerala in 1816 where he found a mission station in

Kottayam Kottayam () is a municipal town in the Indian state of Kerala. Flanked by the Western Ghats on the east and the Vembanad Lake and paddy fields of Kuttanad on the west. It is the district headquarters of Kottayam district, located in south ...

, and in 1821 he established a Malayalam printing press. He translated the Bible into

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...

, in 1846 published the first English-Malayalam dictionary, and in 1849 published the first Malayalam-English dictionary.

Life

Benjamin Bailey was born in November 1791, as the son of Joseph Bailey and his wife Martha. 1812, two years under Rev. T. Scott for missionary training; one year under J. Buckworth, Vicar of Dewsbury. He was ordained as Deacon on 6 August and as Priest on 17 December 1815, by the Archbishop of York (to the Curacy of Harewood, Yorkshire). In 1816, he married Elizabeth Ella and, on 4 May that year, went to Kottayam, Kerala, India. Benjamin Bailey was the progenitor of printing and book publishing in Malayalam, the native language of Kerala. It was he who established the first printing press (the Kottayam CMS press) and started printing Malayalam in Kerala. He was the first lexicographer in the language. Besides this, he was a well versed author and translator. He compiled a dictionary of the Malayalam language. Benjamin Bailey was also an architect in Gothic style. In 1839–42, he built the Anglican church in Kottayam-the Christ Church- which Bishop Wilson called "the glory of Travancore". The church is now the Cathedral church of the CSI Madhya Kerala Diocese. On 14 May 1831 Benjamin Bailey went to England on furlough and returned to India on 15 July 1834. On 13 March 1850 he departed to England and retired owing to failure of health. From 1856 until his death he was Rector of Sheinton, Shropshire and in 1857 appointed Honorary Life Governor of the CMS. He was Rural Dean of Condover, Salop (in which Rural Deanery area his parish lay) from 1862 to his death. He died suddenly at Sheinton on 3 April 1871, aged 79.

Malayalam language printing

Benjamin Bailey was the founder of both Malayalam printing and book publishing. The CMS press he established in 1821 at Kottayam was not only the first Malayalam printing office but also the first book publishing house. CMS Press undertook printing works in the languages of Malayalam, English, Tamil,

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominalization, nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cul ...

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

and Syriac-simply, CMS Press was the first polyglot printing office in Kerala. Printing led to the publishing of books and periodicals. He translated the New Testament from Greek into Malaysian.

References

External links

some photos of the CMS Press he startedBenjamin Bailey Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bailey, Benjamin Translators of the Bible into Malayalam Anglican missionaries in India 1871 deaths 1791 births 19th-century translators English Anglican missionaries Church Mission Society missionaries Missionary linguists