Lewis Sydney Steward O’Malley, also known as L. S. S. O'Malley (1874-1941), one of the most esteemed colonial, 'official'

anthropologists An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

, served as a member 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) from 1898 to 1924.

Biography

Lewis Sydney Steward O'Malley was born on October 23, 1874, in Flitcham, Freebridge Lynn, Norfolk, England, to Bryan O'Malley, a minister. He married Ida Sewell Prichard on November 24, 1900, at the Cathedral in

Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. He passed away in 1941 in

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

, Oxfordshire,

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. O'Malley served as a British Civil Servant in India and received his education at Norwich Grammar School and Hertford College, Oxford, where he earned his B.A. In 1898, he joined the Indian Civil Service (ICS) and spent several years working as a Magistrate and Collector in

Bengal Bengal ( ) is a Historical geography, historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the Eastern South Asia, eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Benga ...

. He later served in the General and Revenue Departments in Bengal. He retired in 1924 with the honor of Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (C.I.E.). Throughout his career, O'Malley published numerous works, including the '' Bengal District Gazetteers'' for Santal Parganas and

Purnea Purnia (; also romanized and officially known as Purnea) is the fourth largest city of Bihar and is emerging as the largest economic hub in North Bihar. It serves as the administrative headquarters of both Purnia district and Purnia divisio ...

, for which he was the editor. He also authored ''Indian Caste Customs'' in 1934, ''Popular

Hinduism Hinduism () is an Hypernymy and hyponymy, umbrella term for a range of Indian religions, Indian List of religions and spiritual traditions#Indian religions, religious and spiritual traditions (Sampradaya, ''sampradaya''s) that are unified ...

'' in 1935, and ''Modern India and the West'' in 1941.

Books and Articles

*Baden-Powell, B. H. 1896. The Indian Village Community. London: Longmans. *Blunt, E. A. H. 1931. The Caste System of Northern India. London: Oxford University Press. *Crooke, W. 1896a. The Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, 4 vols. Calcutta: Government Printing. *Crooke, W. 1896b. The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, 2 vols. London: Archibald Constable. *Dumont, Louis. 1970 (1967). Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and its Implications. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. *Fuller, C. J. 2016. Colonial Anthropology and the Decline of the Raj: Caste, Religion and Political Change in India in the Early Twentieth Century. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 26, 3: 463–86. *Fuller, C. J. 2022. Ethnography and Racial Theory in the British Raj: The Anthropological Work of H. H. Risley. BEROSE International Encyclopaedia of the Histories of Anthropology, Paris. *Fuller, C. J. 2023. Colonial Ethnography and Theories of Caste in Late-Nineteenth-Century India. BEROSE International Encyclopaedia of the Histories of Anthropology, Paris. *Hunter, W. W., ed. 1875-7. A Statistical Account of Bengal, 20 vols. London: Trübner. *Mandelbaum, David G. 1970. Society in India. Berkeley: University of California Press. *O’Malley, L. S. S. 1903. Gayā Çrāddha and Gayāwāls. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 72, pt. 3: 1–11. *O’Malley, L. S. S. 1906. Gaya (Bengal District Gazetteers, vol. 3). Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Book Depot. *O’Malley, L. S. S. 1931. The Indian Civil Service, 1601-1930. London: John Murray. *O’Malley, L. S. S. 1932. Indian Caste Customs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. *O’Malley, L. S. S. 1934. India’s Social Heritage. Oxford: Clarendon Press. *O’Malley, L. S. S. 1935. Popular Hinduism: The Religion of the Masses. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. *O’Malley, L. S. S.(ed.) 1941. Modern India and the West: A Study of the Interactions of their Civilizations. London: Oxford University Press. *Parry, Jonathan P. 1994. Death in Banaras. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. *Risley, H. H. 1891. The Tribes and Castes of Bengal: Ethnographic Glossary, 2 vols. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press. *Senart, Émile. 1930 (1896). Caste in India: The Facts and the System (trans. E. Denison Ross). London: Methuen. *Spear, T. G. P. 1961. British Historical Writing in the Era of the Nationalist Movements, in C. H. Philips, ed., Historians of India, Pakistan and Ceylon, 404-15. London: Oxford University Press. *Srinivas, M. N. 1996. Social Change in Modern India. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Census Reports

*Census of India, 1911, vol. 1, India, pt. 1, Report, by E. A. Gait. Calcutta, 1913. *Census of India, 1911, vol. 5, Bengal, Bihar and Orissa and Sikhim, pt. 1, Report, by L. S. S. O’Malley. Calcutta, 1913. *Census of India, 1911, vol. 15, The United Provinces and Oudh, pt. 1, Report, by E. A. H. Blunt. Allahabad, 1912.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:O'Malley, Lewis Sydney Steward 1874 births 1941 deaths Indian Civil Service (British India) officers 19th-century anthropologists 20th-century anthropologists