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George William Forrest

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Sir George William David Stark Forrest (1845–1926) was a British educator, journalist and historian, in India from 1872 to 1900.[1]

Life

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He was the second son of George Forrest VC, born at Nasirabad, Ajmer. He matriculated at St John's College, Cambridge in 1866, graduating B.A. in 1870.[2][3] He entered the Inner Temple in 1872, but was not called to the bar. He began to write for periodicals including the Saturday Review. As a journalist, he was known for work published in The Times, particularly a scoop in 1880 with the Battle of Maiwand.[3]

Forrest was appointed to Bombay Educational Department, late in 1872. He was Census Commissioner at Bombay in 1882. He was seconded to work on the Bombay Records, 1884-8, becoming Professor of English History, Elphinstone College, in 1887. He was Director, Bombay Records, in 1888, Assistant Secretary, Government of India, and Director, Government of India Records, 1894–1900.[2]

In bad health, Forrest returned to the United Kingdom in 1900.[1] He went in 1904 to Iffley Turn House just outside Oxford, was knighted in 1913, and died there on 28 January 1926.[3]

Works

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Forrest published books:[2]

  • Selections from the Official Writings of Mountstuart Elphinstone (1884)[1]
  • Selections from the State Papers in the Foreign Department (1890)[1]
  • The Administration of the Marquis of Lansdowne as Viceroy and Governor (1894)[4]
  • Sepoy Generals (1901)[5]
  • Cities of India Past and Present (1903)[6]
  • History of the Indian Mutiny (1904–1912, 3 vols.), a documentary history.[1] John Laband wrote in 1976 of historiography of the Indian rebellion of 1857 in terms of "the voluminous literature of British historians such as Kaye, Holmes and G. W. Forrest."[7] Rudrangshu Mukherjee, writing in 2008, stated that "Much of what we write and say today about 1857 is possible because of the work of [Surendra Nath Sen, Ramesh Chundra Majumdar and S B Chaudhuri] and of the great narratives produced in the second half of the 19th century and early 20th century by Charles Ball, John Kaye, G W Forrest and others."[8]
  • Selections from the Travels and Journals Preserved in the Bombay Secretariat (1906)[9]
  • Life of Field-Marshal Sir Neville Chamberlain, G.C.B., G.C.S.I. (1909),[10] on Neville Bowles Chamberlain.
  • Selections from the State Papers of the Governors-General of India: Warren Hastings (2 vols., 1910)[1]
  • Life of Lord Roberts (1914)[1]
  • The Life of Lord Clive (2 vols., 1918)[1]
  • Selections from the State Papers of the Governors-General of India: Lord Cornwallis (2 vols., 1926)[1]

Other works were:

Family

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In 1877 Forrest married Emma Georgina Viner, daughter of Thomas Viner of Crawley, Sussex. They had a son and a daughter.[1]

Notes

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Prior, Katherine. "Forrest, Sir George William David Stark". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/33206. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ^ a b c d Rao, C. Hayavadana (ed.). "Forrest, George William" . The Indian Biographical Dictionary . Madras: Pillar & Co.
  3. ^ a b c "Forrest, George William David Starck (FRST866GW)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  4. ^ Forrest, Sir George (1894). The Administration of the Marquis of Lansdowne as Viceroy and Governor-general of India, 1888-1894. Office of the Superintendent of Government Print.
  5. ^ Forrest, George W. (2011). Sepoy Generals: Wellington to Roberts. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-02853-0.
  6. ^ Forrest, Sir George William (1903). Cities of India Past and Present. Constable.
  7. ^ Laband, J. P. C. (1976). "The Nature of the Indian Mutiny: A Changing Concept". Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory (46): 32. ISSN 0040-5817. JSTOR 41801598.
  8. ^ Mukherjee, Rudrangshu (2008). "Two Responses to 1857 in the Centenary Year". Economic and Political Weekly. 43 (24): 51–55. ISSN 0012-9976. JSTOR 40277566.
  9. ^ Forrest, George William (1906). Selections from the Travels and Journals Preserved in the Bombay Secretariat. Printed at the Government central Press.
  10. ^ Forrest, George William (1909). Life of Field-Marshal Sir Neville Chamberlain, G. C. B., G. C. S. I. Edinburgh and London, W. Blackwood and Sons.
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