Major-general Sir William Henry Sleeman (8 August 1788 – 10 February 1856) was a British soldier and administrator in

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 ...

. He is best known for his work from the 1830s in suppressing the organized criminal gangs known as

Thuggee Thuggee (, ) was a network of organized crime in British Raj India in the 19th century of gangs that traversed the Indian subcontinent murdering and robbing people.sauropod Sauropoda (), whose members are known as sauropods (; from '' sauro-'' + '' -pod'', 'lizard-footed'), is a clade of saurischian ('lizard-hipped') dinosaurs. Sauropods had very long necks, long tails, small heads (relative to the rest of their b ...

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutio ...

'' Titanosaurus indicus'' in

Jabalpur Jabalpur, formerly Jubbulpore, is a city situated on the banks of Narmada River in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. It is the 3rd-largest urban agglomeration of the state and the 38th-largest of the country. Jabalpur is the administrative h ...

in 1828. The first outbreak of

lathyrism Lathyrism is a condition caused by eating certain legumes of the genus ''Lathyrus''. There are three types of lathyrism: ''neurolathyrism'', ''osteolathyrism'', and ''angiolathyrism'', all of which are incurable, differing in their symptoms and ...

in India in 1844 was reported by him.

Early life and career

Sleeman was born in

Stratton, Cornwall Stratton () is a market town and former civil parish, now in the parish of Bude-Stratton, in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated near the coastal town of Bude and the market town of Holsworthy. It was also the name of one of ten a ...

, the fifth of eight children of Philip Sleeman, a yeoman and supervisor of

excise file:Lincoln Beer Stamp 1871.JPG, upright=1.2, 1871 U.S. Revenue stamp for 1/6 barrel of beer. Brewers would receive the stamp sheets, cut them into individual stamps, cancel them, and paste them over the Bunghole, bung of the beer barrel so when ...

St Tudy St Tudy () is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in north Cornwall, England. The village is situated in the River Camel valley approximately five miles northeast of Wadebridge. History The village is mentioned as having a cat ...

. In 1809 Sleeman joined the

Bengal Army The Bengal Army was the army of the Bengal Presidency, one of the three presidencies of British India within the British Empire. The presidency armies, like the presidencies themselves, belonged to the East India Company (EIC) until the Gover ...

and later served in the Nepal War between 1814 and 1816. He contracted

malaria Malaria is a Mosquito-borne disease, mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects vertebrates and ''Anopheles'' mosquitoes. Human malaria causes Signs and symptoms, symptoms that typically include fever, Fatigue (medical), fatigue, vomitin ...

in 1813, symptoms of which occasionally reappeared for the remainder of his life (with sometimes debilitating intensity). In 1820 he was selected for civil employ, and became junior assistant to the

Governor-General Governor-general (plural governors-general), or governor general (plural governors general), is the title of an official, most prominently associated with the British Empire. In the context of the governors-general and former British colonies, ...

's agent in the

Saugor Sagar, formerly Saugor, is a city, municipal corporation and administrative headquarter in Sagar district of the state of Madhya Pradesh in central India. It's Madhya Pradesh's 6th largest city of by Population. The city is situated on a ...

and Nerbudda territories. In 1822 he was placed in charge of

Narsinghpur District Narsinghpur district (; also referred to Narsimhapur district) is a district of Madhya Pradesh state in central India. Vindhya Range, Vindhyachal is on its northern border and the Satpura range extends along its entire length on the southern borde ...

, and would later describe his two years in the role as by far the most laborious of his life. He was gazetted to the rank of captain in 1825, and in 1828 assumed charge of Jubbulpore District. In 1831 he transferred to Sagar district to cover for a colleague on leave. Upon his colleague's return, Sleeman continued with magisterial duties in Sagar until 1835. He displayed a facility for languages, becoming fluent in

Hindi-Urdu Hindustani is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in North India and Pakistan as the lingua franca of the region. It is also spoken by the Deccani-speaking community in the Deccan plateau. Hindustani is a pluricentric language with two standa ...

and developing a working knowledge of many other languages of the subcontinent. Later in his life, Sleeman was described as "probably the only British officer to address the King of

Oudh The Kingdom of Awadh (, , also Oudh State, Kingdom of Oudh, Awadh Subah, or Awadh State) was a Mughal subah, then an independent kingdom, and lastly a British protectorate in the Awadh region of North India until its annexation by the Br ...

in correct Urdu and

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

." His 800-page report on Oudh is still highly regarded as among the most accurate and comprehensive studies of the kingdom during the 1800s. Sleeman made the first recorded discovery of

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

s in

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 ...

in 1828. While serving as a captain in the

Narmada The Narmada River, previously also known as ''Narbada'' or anglicised as ''Nerbudda'', is the 5th longest river in India and overall the longest west-flowing river in the country. It is also the largest flowing river in the state of Madhya Prade ...

valley region, he noticed several

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

ic formations which he identified as having been "raised above the waters." By digging around in the Bara Simla Hills, part of the

Lameta formation The Lameta Formation, also known as the Infratrappean Beds (not to be confused with the contemporaneous Intertrappean Beds), is a sedimentary geological formation found in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh, Indi ...

near Jabalpur, he unearthed several petrified trees, as well as some fragmentary dinosaur fossil specimens. Subsequently, he sent these specimens to London and to the

Indian Museum Indian Museum (formerly called Imperial Museum of Calcutta) is a grand museum in Central Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It is the ninth oldest museum in the world and the oldest, as well as the largest museum in Asia, by size of collection. It ...

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 ...

. In 1877 the genus was named ''

Titanosaurus ''Titanosaurus'' (; ) is a dubious genus of sauropod dinosaurs, first described by Richard Lydekker in 1877.R. Lydekker. (1877). Notices of new and other Vertebrata from Indian Tertiary and Secondary rocks. ''Records of the Geological Survey of ...

Indicus'' by

Richard Lydekker Richard Lydekker (; 25 July 1849 – 16 April 1915) was a British naturalist, geologist and writer of numerous books on natural history. He was known for his contributions to zoology, paleontology, and biogeography. He worked extensively in cata ...

, but the taxonomic position is in doubt. Sleeman wrote about wild children who had been raised by wolves with his notes on six cases. This was first published in the first volume of his ''Journey through the kingdom of Oude in 1848-1850'' (1858) and reprinted in 1852 as ''An Account of Wolves Nurturing Children in Their Dens, by an Indian Official'' and in ''The Zoologist'' (1888 12 (135): 87–98). This discovery inspired

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much ...

Mowgli Mowgli () is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Mowgli stories featured among Rudyard Kipling's ''The Jungle Book'' stories. He is a feral boy from the Pench area in Seoni, Madhya Pradesh, India, who originally appeared in Kiplin ...

character in ''

The Jungle Book ''The Jungle Book'' is an 1894 collection of stories by the English author Rudyard Kipling. Most of the characters are animals such as Shere Khan the tiger and Baloo the bear, though a principal character is the boy or "man-cub" Mowgli, who ...

''.

Thuggee suppression

Sleeman is best known for his work suppressing the

Thuggee Thuggee (, ) was a network of organized crime in British Raj India in the 19th century of gangs that traversed the Indian subcontinent murdering and robbing people.Confessions of a Thug'' is based) and got him to turn

King's evidence A criminal turns state's evidence by admitting guilt and testifying as a witness for the state against their associate(s) or accomplice(s), often in exchange for leniency in sentencing or immunity from prosecution.Howard Abadinsky, ''Organized ...

. He took Sleeman to a grave with a hundred bodies, told the circumstances of the killings, and named the Thugs who had done it. After initial investigations confirmed what Feringhea had said, Sleeman started an extensive campaign, being appointed General Superintendent of the operations for the Suppression of Thuggee and in February 1839, he assumed charge of the office of '' Commissioner for the Suppression of Thuggee and Dacoity''. During these operations, more than 1400 Thugs were hanged or

transported for life Exile or banishment is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons ...

. One of them,

Bahram Bahram may refer to: People * Bahram (name) Other uses * Bahram (''Shahnameh''), a heroic character in the Iranian epic poem * Bahram (horse) Bahram (1932–1956) was an Irish-bred, English-trained Thoroughbred racehorse. He was undefeated ...

, confessed to having strangled 125-931 persons with his turban. Detection was only possible by means of informers, for whose protection from the vengeance of their associates a special prison was established at

(at the time ''Jubbulpore''). Sleeman had a Government Report made in 1839. Sleeman wrote three books about the Thugs: ''Ramaseeana'', or a ''Vocabulary of the peculiar language used by Thugs''; ''Report on the Depredations Committed by the Thug Gangs of Upper and Central India''; and ''The Thugs or Phansigars of India''. The first of these books offers a detailed vocabulary of words having special meaning to the Thugs, which would be incomprehensible to their victims. These include secret exchanges of greetings that mutually identified one Thug to another. In recent decades, historians have begun to revisit the British administration's campaign against thuggee, with many arguing that thuggee was an orientalist construction formed with the intention of legitimizing increased British judicial power in India. Upon India's independence in 1947, there were 128 tribes, constituting 3,500,000 individuals, officially classified as criminal tribes. Established in Regulation XXVII of 1871, the

Criminal Tribes Act Since the 1870s, various pieces of colonialism, colonial legislation in India during British Raj, British rule were collectively called the Criminal Tribes Act (CTA). This criminalised entire communities by designating them as habitual criminals ...

(CTA) sought to identify, surveil, and 'rehabilitate' groups of Indians who, due to their itinerancy, presented a challenge to British authority. As such, tribes deemed 'criminal' typically included travelling craftsmen, traders, entertainers, and displaced peasants, and measures to combat their itinerancy included forced settlement, roll calls, and travel passes. Thuggee Act of 1836, which set a legal precedent because it allowed individuals to be convicted based solely on affiliation to a criminal group, with no evidence of having committed a crime.

British Resident and later life

Sleeman served as

Resident Resident may refer to: People and functions * Resident minister, a representative of a government in a foreign country * Resident (medicine), a stage of postgraduate medical training * Resident (pharmacy), a stage of postgraduate pharmaceut ...

Gwalior Gwalior (Hindi: , ) is a major city in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh; It is known as the Music City of India having oldest Gwalior gharana, musical gharana in existence. It is a major sports, cultural, industrial, and political c ...

from 1843 to 1849, and at

Lucknow Lucknow () is the List of state and union territory capitals in India, capital and the largest city of the List of state and union territory capitals in India, Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and it is the administrative headquarters of the epon ...

from 1849 to 1856. Whilst Resident at Lucknow he survived three assassination attempts. He was also opposed to the annexation of

Lord Dalhousie James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie (22 April 1812 – 19 December 1860), known as the Earl of Dalhousie between 1838 and 1849, was a Scottish statesman and colonial administrator in British India. He served as Governor-Ge ...

, but his advice was disregarded. Sleeman believed that British authorities should annex only regions of India that were plagued by violence, unjust leadership or poor infrastructure and thus maintained that native leadership should be left in place when their rule was even-handed.Dash, p. 115 Sleeman also took an interest in

phrenology Phrenology is a pseudoscience that involves the measurement of bumps on the skull to predict mental traits. It is based on the concept that the Human brain, brain is the organ of the mind, and that certain brain areas have localized, specific ...

and believed that the measurements of the skulls could help him identify criminal ethnic groups. He died and was buried at sea near

Ceylon Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

on a recovery trip to Britain in 1856, just six days after being awarded the

Order of the Bath The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by King George I of Great Britain, George I on 18 May 1725. Recipients of the Order are usually senior British Armed Forces, military officers or senior Civil Service ...

(KCB). The village Sleemanabad in

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (; ; ) is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal and the largest city is Indore, Indore. Other major cities includes Gwalior, Jabalpur, and Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, Sagar. Madhya Pradesh is the List of states and union te ...

was named in his honour.

Family

Whilst in Jubbulpore, he married Amélie Josephine, the daughter of Count Blondin de Fontenne, a French nobleman. They had seven children. His second daughter, Henrietta, was married to William Alexander Ross, an uncle of Sir

Ronald Ross Sir Ronald Ross (13 May 1857 – 16 September 1932) was a British medical doctor who received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1902 for his work on the transmission of malaria, becoming the first British Nobel laureate, and the f ...

. A grandson of Sleeman, Colonel Sir James Lewis Sleeman, who also wrote about thuggee and shikar (

big game hunting Big-game hunting is the hunting of large game animals for Trophy hunting, trophies, taxidermy, meat, and commercially valuable animal product, animal by-products (such as horn (anatomy), horns, antlers, tusks, bones, fur, body fat, or special o ...

), became a pioneer of wildlife photography in India.

In popular culture

* The 1959 Hammer film production "The Stranglers of Bombay" recounts a story based on Sleeman suppressing criminal gangs although his part is not mentioned until the finale of the film. * Sleeman is featured as a supporting character in the book ''Terror in the Sun'' by

Barbara Cartland Dame Mary Barbara Hamilton Cartland (9 July 1901 – 21 May 2000) was an English writer who published both contemporary and historical romance novels, the latter set primarily during the Victorian or Edwardian period. Cartland is one of the ...

(1979), a romantic novel in which Thuggees are the overarching antagonists. * Sleeman is featured in the novel ''The Strangler Vine'' by Miranda Carter (2015), ''Firingi Thuggee'' (2015) by Himadri Kishore Dasgupta and ''Ebong Inquisition'' (2020) by Avik Sarkar. * Sleeman features in the novel '' The Tigress of Mysore'' (2022) by Allan Mallinson. * Sleeman is the main antagonist in the 2016 video game '' Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India''. In the game, Sleeman is depicted as the leader of a group of

Knights Templar The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, mainly known as the Knights Templar, was a Military order (religious society), military order of the Catholic Church, Catholic faith, and one of the most important military ord ...

seeking to acquire the

Koh-i-Noor The ; ), also spelled Koh-e-Noor, Kohinoor and Koh-i-Nur, is one of the largest cut diamonds in the world, weighing . It is currently set in the Crown of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. The diamond originated in the Kollur mine in present ...

diamond. * Sleemanabad is a village named after him in

Katni district Katni District (), also known as Murwara District (), is one of the 55 districts of Madhya Pradesh state in central India. The town of Katni (Murwara) is the District headquarters. The District is part of Jabalpur Division. The District occupie ...

. * Sleeman is portrayed as supporting the annexation of Awadh and having a poor opinion of Wajid Ali Shah, the last king of Awadh, in the 1977 Satyajit Ray movie 'Shatranj Ke Khiladi'

References

*''This entry incorporates public domain text originally from the

1911 Encyclopædia Britannica Events January * January 1 – A decade after federation, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory are added to the Commonwealth of Australia. * January 3 ** 1911 Kebin earthquake: An earthquake of 7.7 Mom ...

.''

External links

* * * Sir William Henry Sleeman,
Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official
', London: J. Hatchard and Son, 1844; 2nd edition, 1893; 3rd edition, London: Oxford University Press, 1915 * Sir William Henry Sleeman,
A Journey Through the Kingdom of Oude in 1849-1850...
', London: Richard Bentley, 1858 {{DEFAULTSORT:Sleeman, William Henry 1788 births 1856 deaths British East India Company Army officers Administrators in British India Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath People from Stratton, Cornwall People from St Tudy British military personnel of the Anglo-Nepalese War