Frederic Salmon Growse (1836 – 19 May 1893) was a British civil servant of the

Indian Civil Service The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British Raj, British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 3 ...

(ICS), Hindi scholar, archaeologist and collector, who served in Mainpur,

Mathura Mathura () is a city and the administrative headquarters of Mathura district in the states and union territories of India, Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is located south-east of Delhi; and about from the town of Vrindavan. In ancient ti ...

Bulandshahr Bulandshahr, formerly Baran, is a city and a municipal board in Bulandshahr district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. It is the administrative headquarters of Bulandshahr district and part of Delhi NCR region. According to the Governme ...

and Fatehpur during

British rule in India The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani language, Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent, * * lasting from 1858 to 1947. * * It is also called Crown rule ...

. Growse studied Indian literature and languages, and founded the Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart and the Government Museum, both at Mathura. Between 1876 and 1883, he published in series, the first English translation of the ''

Ramayana The ''Ramayana'' (; ), also known as ''Valmiki Ramayana'', as traditionally attributed to Valmiki, is a smriti text (also described as a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic) from ancient India, one of the two important epics ...

'' of

Tulsidas Rambola Dubey (; 11 August 1511 – 30 July 1623pp. 23–34.), popularly known as Goswami Tulsidas (), was a Vaishnavism, Vaishnava (Ramanandi Sampradaya, Ramanandi) Hinduism, Hindu saint and poet, renowned for his devotion to the deity Rama. H ...

. He also wrote ''Mathurá: A district memoir'' (1880) and a description of the district of Bulandshahr (1884) and of its new architecture (1886). Described as "never a '' persona grata'' to his superiors", he was nonetheless gazetted CIE in 1879. At Bulandshahr between 1878 and 1884 he caused a number of buildings to be constructed using local designs and craftsmen. In 1882, he donated a collection of Indian pottery to the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

Early life and education

Frederic Growse (also spelled Frederick)Surrey, England, Electoral Registers, 1832-1962. England and Wales Register (1939) was born in 1836 in

Bildeston Bildeston is a village and civil parish in the Babergh district of Suffolk, England. Located around north of Hadleigh. In 2005 it had a population of 960, increasing to 1,054 at the 2011 Census. History According to Eilert Ekwall the mean ...

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

, England, the third and youngest son of Robert and Mary Growse. He

matriculated Matriculation is the formal process of entering a university, or of becoming eligible to enter by fulfilling certain academic requirements such as a matriculation examination. Australia In Australia, the term ''matriculation'' is seldom used now ...

from

Oriel College Oriel College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. Located in Oriel Square, the college has the distinction of being the oldest royal foundation in Oxford (a title formerly claimed by University College, ...

in 1855 and then gained a scholarship at Queen's College, Oxford, from where he received a master's degree after being in the first class of

moderations Honour Moderations (or ''Mods'') are a set of examinations at the University of Oxford at the end of the first part of some degree courses (e.g., Greats or '' Literae Humaniores''). Honour Moderations candidates have a class awarded (hence the ...

and second class of

classics Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...

. He was a contemporary of

Charles Crosthwaite Sir Charles Haukes Todd Crosthwaite (5 December 1835, Dublin – 28 May 1915) served as Chief Commissioner of the British Crown Colony of Burma from March 1887 to December 1890. Early life He was born in Dublin, educated at Merchant Taylors ...

."Notes of the Quarter (April, May, June, 1893) III Obituary Notices"
''

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to: *Bullet journal, a method of personal organization *Diary, a record of personal secretive thoughts and as open book to personal therapy or used to feel connected to onesel ...

'', Vol. 25, Issue 3, July 1893, pp. 650–652. In 1859, he passed the ICS examination. At an unknown date he converted to

Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

and was described as a "zealous observer of its precepts" but "without any bigotry"."Obituary"
'' The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review and Oriental and Colonial Record'', New Series, Vol. VI, Nos. 11 & 12 (1893). pp. 223–225.

Career

Having joined the Indian Civil Service on 10 August 1860, Growse arrived in India on 17 November 1860. The following year he was posted to the

North-Western Provinces The North-Western Provinces was an Presidencies and provinces of British India, administrative region in British Raj, British India. The North-Western Provinces were established in 1836, through merging the administrative divisions of the Cede ...

, one of the regions of British India. There, he studied Indian literature and languages. In 1868, he was a district assistant in

Mainpuri Mainpuri (; ) is a city in Mainpuri district in the States and territories of India, Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is the administrative headquarters of Mainpuri district and is 55 km from Etawah and 294 km from New Delhi. Mainp ...

(western UP) and in the 1870s he was appointed district collector at

,Government Museum
Mathura - Vrindavan. Retrieved 15 April 2021. the birth place of

Krishna Krishna (; Sanskrit language, Sanskrit: कृष्ण, ) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is worshipped as the eighth avatar of Vishnu and also as the Supreme God (Hinduism), Supreme God in his own right. He is the god of protection, c ...

. There he built the Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart, paying for a third of its cost. Its design was based on John Ruskin's principles of architecture, and it was built using local craftsmanship, but was unfinished at the time of his transfer out of the district. He also founded the Government Museum there in 1874.

Bulandshahr

In November 1877 Growse was appointed district magistrate and deputy collector at Bulandshahr and in 1878 made Bulandshahr's Magistrate and Collector. There he lived at Collector's House until 1884. By that time he was a fellow of

Calcutta University The University of Calcutta, informally known as Calcutta University (), is a Public university, public State university (India), state university located in Kolkata, Calcutta (Kolkata), West Bengal, India. It has 151 affiliated undergraduate c ...

. In 1878 he commissioned Mainpuri craftsmen to produce

reredos A reredos ( , , ) is a large altarpiece, a screen, or decoration placed behind the altar in a Church (building), church. It often includes religious images. The term ''reredos'' may also be used for similar structures, if elaborate, in secular a ...

for a Catholic church in Suffolk. At the time, Elizabeth King, the wife of Robert Moss King, district collector of Meerut, visited Growse in Bulandshahr and noted some detail of the reredos production in her memoirs, '' The Diary of a Civilian's Wife in India 1877-1882''. At Bulandshahr between 1878 and 1884 Growse caused a number of buildings to be constructed using native designs and craftsmen which he saw as more in keeping with his " Gothic principles" than the utilitarian colonial buildings preferred by the Public Works Department (PWD).Stamp, Gavin
"British Architecture in India 1857–1947"
''

Journal of the Royal Society of Arts The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, commonly known as the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), is a learned society that champions innovation and progress across a multitude of sectors by fostering creativity, s ...

'', Vol. 129, No. 5298 (May 1981), pp. 357–379. In 1979 he received the CIE. According to

Gavin Stamp Gavin Mark Stamp (15 March 194830 December 2017) was a British writer, television presenter and architectural historian. Education Stamp was educated at Dulwich College in South London from 1959 to 1967 as part of the "Dulwich Experiment", then ...

, Growse so irritated the PWD that they had him moved to another district. In May 1884, at a meeting of the

Royal Society of Arts The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, commonly known as the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), is a learned society that champions innovation and progress across a multitude of sectors by fostering creativity, s ...

, Purdon Clarke, keeper of Indian art at the South Kensington museum, was one of the first to commend the work of Growse in Bulandshahr, crediting particularly his efforts on the Bulandshahr Chowk. He encouraged and assisted in the construction of the Bathing Ghat, Garden Gate and the

Town Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or municipal hall (in the Philippines) is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses the city o ...

. He was one of a few self-professed historians who held the view that Indian architecture was produced through patronage, and achieved by trust rather than written contracts. His work was praised by

John Lockwood Kipling John Lockwood Kipling (6 July 1837 – 26 January 1911) was an English art teacher, illustrator and museum curator who spent most of his career in India. He was the father of the author Rudyard Kipling. Life and career Lockwood Kipling was b ...

in '' The Journal of Indian Art'' (1884). File:Bathing ghat Bulandshahr 1880.png, Bathing ghat Bulandshahr 1880 File:Town Hall Bulandshahr. North Verandah. Photograph by Chunni Lál.jpg, Town Hall File:Garden Gate, Bulandshahr (1880s).jpg, Garden Gate

Later

Growse was district magistrate and collector at Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh, from 1885 to 1886 where he produced a supplement to the ''Fatehpur Gazetteer'', paying particular attention to architecture and archaeology which had been largely ignored by the author of the original gazetteer in 1884 who Growse thought had probably not visited any of the places about which he had written, relying instead on native informants who were not equipped to comment on such matters. He donated a collection of Indian pottery to the

in 1882.

Writing

In 1868 at Mainpur, Growse produced an article on the ''

Prithviraj Raso The ''Prithviraj Raso'' (IAST: Pṛthvīrāja Rāso) is a Braj language epic poem about the life of Prithviraj Chauhan (reign. c. 1177–1192 CE). It is attributed to Chand Bardai, who according to the text, was a court poet of the king. ...

'', a poem about the 12th-century Hindu Emperor,

Prithviraj Chauhan Prithviraja III (IAST: Pṛthvī-rāja; 22 May 1166 – February 1192), popularly known as Prithviraj Chauhan or Rai Pithora, was a king from the Chahamanas of Shakambhari, Chauhan (Chahamana) dynasty who ruled the territory of Sapadalaksha, w ...

. In 1874, six years after the first local text on the subject was published, the government press at Allahabad published his enlarged version in a book titled '' Mathura: A District memoir'' with illustrations by the Autotype Fine Art Company. In it he included early

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

archeology, and chapters on

Hindu sects Hindu denominations, ''sampradayas'', traditions, movements, and sects are traditions and sub-traditions within Hinduism centered on one or more gods or goddesses, such as Vishnu, Shiva, Shakti and so on. The term ''sampradaya'' is used for bra ...

and the origin of place names. In Mathura, he became intrigued by the popularity among its ordinary people of the ''

'' of

. In 1876 he published his translation into English of the original text by Tulsidas. Growse published a revised version in 1880 as a four-volume second edition and published a full version in 1883. It was the first illustrated version of the complete English translation of the ''Ramcharitmanas'', which he completed in Bulandshahr. He writes in the introduction that the epic

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

''Ramayana'' of

Valmiki Valmiki (; , ) was a legendary poet who is celebrated as the traditional author of the epic ''Ramayana'', based on the attribution in the text itself. He is revered as ''Ādi Kavi'', the first poet, author of ''Ramayana'', the first epic poe ...

had been translated into several languages including English, but the more popular

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

version, a retelling of

Rama Rama (; , , ) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is worshipped as the seventh and one of the most popular avatars of Vishnu. In Rama-centric Hindu traditions, he is considered the Supreme Being. Also considered as the ideal man (''maryāda' ...

's life, titled ''Ramcharitmanas'' by Tulsidas, previously had not been translated into English. In 1884 he published '' Bulandshahr; or, Sketches of an Indian district; social, historical and architectural''. His obituary in the journal of the ''

Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society, was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the encourag ...

'' describes this work as "chiefly interesting as showing how he was able to transfer his sympathies from a Hindu to a Musulman population, when the requirements of a bureaucratic regime compelled his removal".

Later life

Due to ill-health, Growse retired to England in 1890, where he lived at Thursley Hall,

Haslemere The town of Haslemere () and the villages of Shottermill and Grayswood are in south-west Surrey, England, around south-west of London. Together with the settlements of Hindhead and Beacon Hill (Hindhead, Surrey), Beacon Hill, they comprise ...

, and was active in the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and Natural History."List of Members, 1892"
'' Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and Natural History'', Vol. VIII (1894), Part I, pp. iii–ix (p. v.) He updated and revised their volume of materials on the history of the Suffolk parish of

in 1891 which was published in 1892.

Death and legacy

Growse died from

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

, Surrey, on 19 May 1893. Probate was granted to Lydia Catherine Growse on an estate of £5,224. Growseganj Gate, one of Bulandshahr's four gates is named for him."Census of India 2011: Bulandshahr village and town directory"
Series 10, PART XII-A. In 2014, a seminar was given at the

Nehru Memorial Museum & Library The Prime Ministers' Museum and Library Society previously known as the Nehru Museum and Library Society is a museum and library in New Delhi, India, which aims to preserve and reconstruct the history of the Indian independence movement. Housed ...

titled "Familiarity with the Familiar: Frederick Salmon Growse's Fragmentary Visions of the Architecture of Bulandshahr, 1878–1886".''49th Annual Report 2014-2015''
Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, 2015. p. 28.

Notes

Selected publications

Articles

"Bulandshahr Antiquities"
''

Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal The Asiatic Society is an organisation founded during the Company rule in India to enhance and further the cause of " Oriental research" (in this case, research into India and the surrounding regions). It was founded by the philologist Willi ...

'', Vol. 48 (1879), No. 4, pp. 270–276.
“The Art of 'Tar-Kashi' or Wire- Inlay”
Journal of Indian Art and Industry, no. 22, (1888): 51- 56.

Books

*
Mathurá: A district memoir
'. Allahabad: North-western Provinces and Oudh Government Press, 1874. * ''The Rámáyana of Tulsi Dás, Book 1. Childhood''. Allahabad: North-western Provinces and Oudh Government Press, 1876.
''The Rámáyana of Tulsi Dás, Book 1. Childhood''
Allahabad: North-western Provinces and Oudh Government Press, 1880.
''The Rámáyana of Tulsi Dás. Part III-VI''
Allahabad: North-western Provinces and Oudh Government Press, 1880.
''The Rámáyana of Tulsi Dás''
Allahabad: North-western Provinces and Oudh Government Press, 1883.
''Bulandshahr; or, Sketches of an Indian district; social, historical and architectural''
Benares: Medical Hall Press, 1884. * ''Indian Architecture of To-day as Exemplified in New Buildings in the Bulandshahr District Part I''. North-Western Provinces and Oudh Government Press, 1885. ''Part II''. Benares: Medical Hall Press, 1886. *
A Supplement to the Fatehpur Gazetteer
'. Allahabad: Government Press, 1887. * ''Materials for a History of the Parish of Bildeston, in the County of Suffolk. With pedigrees and genealogical notices ... Compiled in the year 1859, revised and brought up to date in 1891, by F. S. Growse''. London: Mitchell & Hughes, 1892.

References

External links

Frederic Salmon Growse: The Man that built Bulandshahr in the 19th Century
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Growse, Frederic Salmon 1836 births 1893 deaths 19th-century British civil servants Tuberculosis deaths in England Indian Civil Service (British India) officers Companions of the Order of the Indian Empire Indologists Alumni of the Queen's College, Oxford People from Suffolk English collectors English Roman Catholics English non-fiction writers Converts to Roman Catholicism 19th-century deaths from tuberculosis People from Bildeston