Raymond Head was born in London in 1948. He studied piano with Alice Goossens before attending Dartington College of Arts and Rolle College, Exmouth, Devon, from 1967 to 1970. He studied composition privately with Roger Smalley and Edwin Roxburgh and visited Darmstadt, Germany, for the Ferienkurse für Musik in 1968. After teaching at Bottisham Village College, Cambridge, and subsequently in Devon he went to Rome in 1976 and taught at St George's School, Rome, and was a repetiteur for Hans Werner Henze's first Cantiere at Montepulciano, Tuscany.
Raymond Head began an investigation into Indian influences on Western culture, a long time interest. This led to post-graduate work at the Royal College of Art, London, travel in the USA on a British Academy scholarship and a short-stay Yale Fellowship. In 1986 he published a book The Indian Style (Allen & Unwin, London, University of Chicago Press, 1986) which was followed in 1991 by A Catalogue of the Paintings and Drawings in the Royal Asiatic Society, London. He was invited to give the Sir George Birdwood Memorial Lecture at the Royal Society of Arts, London, in 1987. He also gave concerts and broadcasts for the BBC in London (during the 1982 Indian Festival, London), Turin, and for the National Trust on the theme of Indian influences on western music.
Head is a Gustav Holst scholar and a musical adviser to the Holst Birthplace Museum in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. He received a Holst Foundation Award 1984 to pursue original work on Holst and was a Trustee of the Holst Birthplace Museum from 2003 to 2006. On 4th April 2008 Raymond's Fanfare for Gustav Holst was played at the unveiling of Holst's Statue in Cheltenham.
For a full biography see Raymond Head's website.
Thomas Hardwicke joined the British East India Company army with the Bengal Artillery in November 1778. He was posted in southern India from 1781 to 1785. He was wounded at Satyamangalam on 13 September 1790 and was posted as a Company Orderly at Bangalore, before moving to Bengal in 1793 to become Adjutant and Quartermaster of Artillery. Hardwicke rose to become Major-General in 1819. He resigned from the command of the Bengal Artillery in 1823 to return to England and died at The Lodge, Lambeth, on 3 March 1835.
During his military career in India, Hardwicke travelled extensively over the subcontinent. He collected zoological specimens and amassed a large collection of paintings of animals which he employed local artists to make. The Indian artists employed by Hardwicke are unknown, except for one, Goordial, but they were trained and their style was adapted to the demands of technical illustration using watercolours. The collection was bequeathed to the British Museum in 1835 which was later partly moved to the Natural History Museum. The collection consists of 4500 illustrations.
Hardwicke was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1813 and Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1804. He also held positions of Vice-President to the Asiatic Society of Bengal and was an honorary member of the Royal Dublin Society. Hardwicke was not married but had three illegitimate daughters and two sons apart from two daughters born to an Indian mistress (named as Fyzbuhsh in his Will).
Johann Ernst Hanxleden, also known as Arnos Pathiri, was a German Jesuit priest and missionary, best known for his contributions as a Malayalam and Sanskrit poet, grammarian, lexicographer, and philologist. He was born in Lower Saxony, and whilst studying philosophy met a Jesuit priest. This led to Hanxleden volunteering to become a Jesuit missionary in the Malabar region of India. He travelled overland to India, a journey of 14 months, reaching Gujarat in December 1700. He completed his novitiate in Goa and then went to a Seminary at Sampaloor, Thrissur District, Kerala. He learnt Malayalam and the liturgical Syriac and was ordained as a priest in 1706.
After moving to Palayoor, Hanxleden studied Sanskrit and improved his Malayalam, learning under the tutelage of Namboodiri scholars such as Kunjan and Krishnan from Angamaly and Thekkemadom from Thrissur. From 1707 to 1711, he served as secretary to John Ribeiro, the then Archbishop of Cranganore. It is recorded that he also served as the vicar of the main church in Malabar. Later, he moved to Velur, Thrissur, in 1712 and built the Velur Forane Church. From 1729 onward, he spent his time between Velur, Sampaloor, Palayoor and Pazhuvil and it was at Pazhuvil he suffered a snake bite which resulted in his death on 20 March 1732, at the age of 51. He was buried there but, later, when a memorial was built outside the church, his mortal remains were transferred to it; the memorial also houses a historical museum.
Besides composing the Puthen Pana, Hanxleden created the first Malayalam dictionary, as well as grammar books and other devotional material.
Lionel David Barnett was an English orientalist. He was educated at University College, Liverpool, and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took a first class degree in classics. In 1899, he joined the British Museum as Assistant Keeper in the Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts. In 1908 he became Keeper, remaining in the post until his retirement in 1936. He was also Professor of Sanskrit at University College, London, from 1906 to 1917; founding Lecturer in Sanskrit at the School of Oriental Studies (1917–1948); Lecturer in Ancient Indian History and Epigraphy (1922–1948); and Librarian of the School (1940–1947). In 1948, at the age of 77, he rejoined the British Museum, which was desperately short of staff, as an Assistant Keeper, remaining there until his death in 1960.
Dr Francis Buchanan, later known as Francis Hamilton or Francis Buchanan-Hamilton, was a Scottish physician who made significant contributions as a geographer, zoologist, and botanist while living in India. He was born at Bardowie, Scotland, and studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, graduating in 1783. He also studied botany. He first served on merchant ships to Asia and then joined the Bengal Medical Service in 1794. Buchanan's training was ideal as a surgeon naturalist for a political mission to the Kingdom of Ava in Burma under Captain Symes. The Ava mission set sail on the Sea Horse and passed the Andaman Islands, Pegu, and Ava before returning to Calcutta. Subsequently Buchanan-Hamilton was asked to survey South India. He conducted a survey of Mysore in 1800 and a survey of Bengal from 1807-1814.
For the survey of Bengal he was asked to report on topography, history, antiquities, the condition of the inhabitants, religion, natural productions (particularly fisheries, forests, mines, and quarries), agriculture (covering vegetables, implements, manure, floods, domestic animals, fences, farms, and landed property, fine and common arts, and commerce (exports and imports, weights and measures, and conveyance of goods). His conclusions were made into a series of reports, of which these papers are the manuscripts. He also collected and described many new plants in the region, and collected a series of watercolours of Indian and Nepalese plants and animals, probably painted by Indian artists, which are now in the library of the Linnean Society of London.
He succeeded William Roxburgh to become the superintendent of the Calcutta botanical garden in 1814, but had to return to Britain in 1815 due to his ill health and in the same year he inherited his mother's estate and in consequence took her surname of Hamilton, referring to himself as "Francis Hamilton, formerly Buchanan" or simply "Francis Hamilton". However, he is variously referred to by others as "Buchanan-Hamilton", "Francis Hamilton Buchanan", or "Francis Buchanan Hamilton". From 1815 until 1829 he was Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh replacing Dr William Roxburgh.
David Haliburton (1774-c.1833) of Muirhouselaw, Berwickshire, who in later life lived at Bushey Grove, Hertfordshire, was a distant cousin of Sir Walter Scott though his paternal grandmother. He served in the East India Company, as a member of the Board of Revenue and was responsible for exposing the corrupt practices of Edward and John Holland who both served as Governor of Madras. They used Avadhanum Paupiah to amass forged evidence against Haliburton which ended Haliburton's career in India. However, the scheme was uncovered by Lord Cornwallis, Governor-General of India, and Haliburton exonerated. Haliburton was a founder member of the Royal Asiatic Society. He never married and was the last of the line of Haliburtons written about by Walter Scott in his Memorials of The Haliburtons.
Karl Hugo Hahn was a Baltic German missionary and linguist who worked in South Africa and South-West Africa for most of his life. Together with Franz Heinrich Kleinschmidt, he set up the first Rhenish mission station to the Herero people in Gross Barmen. Hahn is known for his scientific work on the Herero language.