Stephen Hislop (8 September 1817, Duns, Scotland – 4 September 1863, Takalghat) was a Scottish missionary who worked with the Free Church in India, an educationist and a keen geologist.

Hislop College Hislop is an English, Scottish and Irish name in origin. The name belongs to the class of topographic surnames, which were given to people who resided near physical features such as hills, streams, churches or types of trees. It derives from O ...

Nagpur Nagpur (pronunciation: Help:IPA/Marathi, aːɡpuːɾ is the third largest city and the winter capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the 13th largest city in India by population and according to an Oxford's Economics report, Nag ...

is named after him, as is the green mineral Hislopite. Among his geological discoveries is the fossil reptile, '' Brachyops laticeps'' which he found in his geological explorations of the Nagpur region.

Early life

Hislop was born in

Duns, Berwickshire Duns is a town in the Scottish Borders, Scotland. It was the county town of the historic county of Berwickshire. History Early history Duns Law, the original site of the town of Duns, has the remains of an Iron Age hillfort at its summit. ...

on 8 September 1817, the youngest son of Stephen Hislop, a local builder, and his wife, Margaret Thomson. As a boy, he, like his older brother Robert, collected insects in the country around Duns, and rocks such as

copper ore Following is a list of minerals that serve as copper ores in the copper mining Copper extraction refers to the methods used to obtain copper from its ores. The conversion of copper consists of a series of physical and electrochemical proces ...

from old mine workings. Hislop was educated at Thomas Sherriff's school in Duns. He matriculated from the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

in 1838 and completed his MA degree at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

. He then studied divinity at

New College, Edinburgh New College is a historic building at the University of Edinburgh which houses the university's School of Divinity. It is one of the largest and most renowned centres for studies in Theology and Religious Studies in the United Kingdom. Students ...

1843/44 studying to be a minister of the Free Church of Scotland but this was delayed by the

Disruption of 1843 The Disruption of 1843, also known as the Great Disruption, was a schism in 1843 in which 450 evangelical ministers broke away from the Church of Scotland to form the Free Church of Scotland. The main conflict was over whether the Church of S ...

Later life

In 1843, Hislop was made Secretary of the Ladies' Society for Female Education in India. He volunteered the next year to the Foreign Missions Committee and married Erasma daughter of William Hull of Olney. In September 1844 an unusual ceremony (people were usually ordained in the church they were to represent), overseen by Rev Dr

John Wilson John Wilson may refer to: Academics * John Wilson (mathematician) (1741–1793), English mathematician and judge * John Wilson (historian) (1799–1870), author of ''Our Israelitish Origin'' (1840), a founding text of British Israelism * John Wil ...

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the '' de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the sec ...

at St George's Free Church in Edinburgh, Hislop was ordained as a

Free Church of Scotland Free Church of Scotland may refer to: * Free Church of Scotland (1843–1900), seceded in 1843 from the Church of Scotland. The majority merged in 1900 into the United Free Church of Scotland; historical * Free Church of Scotland (since 1900), rema ...

minister of

in India, his primary role to be a missionary. He arrived by ship at

on 13 December 1844. He lived and worked in the

Vidarbha Vidarbha (Pronunciation: Help:IPA/Marathi, �id̪əɾbʱə is a geographical region in the east of the Indian state of Maharashtra and a Proposed states and union territories of India#Maharashtra, proposed state of central India, comprising th ...

area of Eastern Maharashtra near

for 18 years. He spent the first 15 months learning

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

. As soon as he was fluent, he began his missionary work, opening a school in Nagpur in May 1846; it later developed into

. Hislop also learnt Gondi and preached among the Gond tribes. From 1847 to 1855 he was assisted by Rev Robert Hunter who shared his love of geology, and they made many study trips together. Hislop was returning from a visit to some ruins at Taklghat during the night of 4/5 September 1863, when his horse fell into the water in darkness in the Bori river and he was drowned. He was buried at the Sitabaldi cemetery.Ewing, William ''Annals of the Free Church''

Reception

Sir Richard Temple Sir Richard Temple, 1st Baronet (8 March 1826 – 15 March 1902) was a British colonial administrator in 19th-century India, who served as Governor of Bombay from 1877 to 1880. Early life Temple was the son of Richard Temple (1800–1874) and ...

, who became chief commissioner of the central provinces in 1862, praised Hislop as "among the most gifted and accomplished missionaries whom this generation has seen in India"; as being notable "for philology and antiquarian research"; and "for physical science, especially botany and geology".

Geology and natural history

Hislop was assisted by another Free Church of Scotland missionary,

Robert Hunter Robert Hunter may refer to: Arts * Robert Hunter (painter) (died 1780), Irish portrait painter * Robert Hunter (encyclopædist) (1823–1897), British editor of the ''Encyclopædic Dictionary'' *Robert Hunter (author) (1874–1942), American sociol ...

(1823-1897), who later edited the Encyclopædic Dictionary. Both men were naturalists and keen amateur geologists, and as they walked the area around Nagpur, studied the local geology and sent papers home to be read at the

Geological Society of London The Geological Society of London, known commonly as the Geological Society, is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe with more than 12,000 Fellows. Fe ...

.George Smith, 1888. Joint papers with Hunter for the Geological Society included "On the Geology of the Neighbourhood of Nagpur, Central India"; "On the connection of the Umret Coal Beds with the Plant-beds of Nagpur, and of both with those of Burdwan". Papers by Hislop (after Hunter became ill and returned to Britain) for the Geological Society included "Tertiary Deposits associated with Trap-Rock in the East Indies, and Fossil-shells from those deposits"; "On the Age of the fossiliferous thin-bedded Sandstone and Coal of Nagpur"; "Supplementary Note on the Plant-bearing Sandstone of Central India"; and "Fossil Teeth and Bones of Reptiles from Central India". The finds by Hislop and Hunter included a new species of

Labyrinthodont "Labyrinthodontia" (Greek, 'maze-toothed') is an informal grouping of extinct predatory amphibians which were major components of ecosystems in the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras (about 390 to 150 million years ago). Traditionally conside ...

reptile, ''Brachyops laticeps'' that was described by

Richard Owen Sir Richard Owen (20 July 1804 – 18 December 1892) was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist. Owen is generally considered to have been an outstanding naturalist with a remarkable gift for interpreting fossils. Ow ...

in 1854. Hislop wrote three papers for the Royal Asiatic Society's Journal: "Geology of the Nagpoor State"; "On the Age of the Coal Strata in Western Bengal and Central India"; and "Remarks on the Geology of Nagpoor". The mineral Hislopite was named after Hislop by his friend the Rev. Prof. Haughton in 1858.

Activities

In 1857, Hislop's connections to local people were instrumental in saving the lives of the Europeans in Nagpur: one of his Muslim friends warned him of an impending attack during the "

Indian mutiny 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 ...

"; among the rebellion's causes was the public auction of the jewels of Nagpur's royal family. Hislop wrote several essays on different, mostly Dravidian, tribes of the Nagpur region. These essays were published posthumously by R. Temple in 1866. This work resulted in a mission for the

Gondi people The Gondi (Gōndi) or Gond or Koitur are a Dravidian ethno-linguistic group. They are one of the largest tribal groups in India. They are spread over the states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra ...

. According to the entry on Hislop in the Dictionary of National Biography, he also worked on the geology of the Nagpur region and published his findings in three papers for the British Association in 1859.Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900, Volume 27.

Family

Hislop's older brother

Alexander Hislop Alexander Hislop (1807 – 13 March 1865) was a Free Church of Scotland minister known for his criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church. He was the son of Stephen Hislop (died 1837), a mason by occupation and an elder of the Relief Church. Al ...

(1807-1865), who wrote

The Two Babylons ''The Two Babylons'', subtitled ''Romanism and its Origins,'' is a book that started out as a religious pamphlet published in 1853 by the Presbyterian Free Church of Scotland theologian Alexander Hislop (1807–65). Its central theme is the arg ...

, was also a minister of the Free Church of Scotland, representing East.

Arbroath Arbroath () or Aberbrothock ( gd, Obar Bhrothaig ) is a former royal burgh and the largest town in the council area of Angus, Scotland, with a population of 23,902. It lies on the North Sea coast some ENE of Dundee and SSW of Aberdeen. ...

. Hislop married Erasma Hull from Olney in July 1844 at

St Cuthbert's Church, Edinburgh The Parish Church of St Cuthbert is a parish church of the Church of Scotland in central Edinburgh. Probably founded in the 7th century, the church once covered an extensive parish around the burgh of Edinburgh. The church's current building was ...

. His wife returned to Edinburgh after Stephen's death, living in the Morningside district. She died at 20 Viewforth Terrace on 27 June 1903. They had several children: Margaret Erasma Hislop (d.1927); Stephen Robert Hislop (1846-1908); Elizabeth Crichton Hislop (1848-1920); and Wilhelmina Maitland Hislop (1851-1924). The daughters lived together as

spinster ''Spinster'' is a term referring to an unmarried woman who is older than what is perceived as the prime age range during which women usually marry. It can also indicate that a woman is considered unlikely to ever marry. The term originally den ...

s at 20 Viewforth Terrace.Edinburgh Post Office Directory 1911

Bibliography

* Smith, George.
Stephen Hislop: Pioneer Missionary & Naturalist in Central India
'. John Murray, Albemarle Street. London, 1888
PDF
* Kingsford, Charles Lethbridge. ''Hislop, Stephen''. Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900, Volume 27. * Geological Society. "Obituary: Hislop, Rev Stephen". 1864
The Geological Society
Quarterly Journal 20. * Free Church of Scotland (Continuing)
Stephen Hislop, a Free Church Pioneer
The Explorer, November 2010. Pages 4–5.

References

External links

Metropolitan Museum of Art: Rev. Stephen Hislop, Missionary (salted paper print, 1843-47)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hislop, Stephen Scottish geologists 1817 births 1863 deaths Presbyterian missionaries in India Scottish Presbyterian missionaries 19th-century Ministers of the Free Church of Scotland Alumni of the University of Glasgow Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Deaths by drowning in India