Stuart N. Wolfenden was a linguist and scholar in Tibeto-Burman dialects. He joined the Royal Asiatic Society in 1928 and his book Outlines of Tibeto-Burman Linguistic Morphology was published by the Society in the Prize Publication Fund Series in 1929.
Freya Stark was born on 31 January 1893 in Paris. She taught herself Latin and read avidly before being educated at Bedford College and the School of Oriental and Asian Studies, London. She learnt Arabic and Persian. In World War One she served as a VAD. She first travelled to the Middle East in 1927 and by 1931 she had completed three dangerous treks into the wilderness of western Iran, parts of which no Westerner had ever visited, and had located the long-fabled Valleys of the Assassins. In 1935 she travelled to the Hadhramaut, the hinterland of southern Arabia.
During World War Two she joined the British Ministry of Information helping to spread propaganda to persuade Arabs to support the allies. In 1947, at the age of 54, she married Stewart Perowne, a British administrator and historian. The couple had no children, and separated in 1952 (but did not divorce). After the war she travelled in Turkey and Afghanistan. She wrote extensively about her travels.
Stark was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 1972 New Year's Honours. She died at Asolo on 9 May 1993, a few months after her hundredth birthday.
The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland was founded by the eminent Sanskrit scholar Sir Henry Thomas Colebrooke on the 15th March 1823. It received its Royal Charter from King George IV on the 11th August 1824 'for the investigation of subjects connected with and for the encouragement of science, literature and the arts in relation to Asia'. It continues as a forum for those who are interested in the languages, cultures and history of Asia to meet and exchange ideas.
The Oriental Translation Fund was established in 1828 by a committee of the Royal Asiatic Society under the Chairmanship of Sir Gore Ouseley. Its purpose was to translate and publish such "interesting and valuable works on eastern History, Science, and Belles-Lettres as are still in MS... The object proposed is, to publish, free of expense to the authors, translations of the whole or parts of such works...generally to be accompanied by the original texts printed separately." King George IV became patron of the Fund. In its early years the fund was financed by subscriptions and the list of subscribers included: Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the Prime Minister (Wellington), the Archbishop of Canterbury and one of the founders of the Royal Asiatic Society, Henry Colebrooke.
The Oriental Translation Committee who controlled the Fund was independent to the Society and an annual subsidy of 100 guineas was received from the East India Company. Various works were published throughout this period and these formed Series One of the publications (1828-1879). However, operations were suspended in 1860 due to a lack of funds and the Committee disposed of most of its stock.
The Royal Asiatic Society Council considered reviving the fund in 1888 due mainly to the efforts of the British Orientalist, Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot. He led the management of the Fund and donated finances. He was also supported by the former Viceroy of India, Lord Northbrook, and a prominent Sanskrit Scholar, E.T. Sturdy. This led to the Series Two publications. The Fund is still operational today.
John Pinches Ltd was a London-based medallic business originally founded in the 1840s by Thomas Ryan Pinches and his younger brother John Pinches. In 1940, the company was registered as John Pinches (Medallists) Ltd. The company was sold to Franklin Mint of Philadelphia, USA, in 1969.
Edward William West, the oldest of 12 children, was born in Pentonville, London, on 2 May 1824. He was the son of William West, the owner of many cotton presses in India, and Margaret Anderson. His ancestors were "builders and mechanics." He was often ill as a child and therefore home-schooled. He entered a school at Pentonville from the age of 11 to 15. He then started studying engineering at King's College London where he won High Honours in 1842.
His parents had lived in India for some years before their marriage. His father lived in Bombay, and his mother, in Calcutta. In 1844, West went east to superintend the large establishment of family owned-cotton presses in Bombay. He worked there until 1850. During this time, he had a close relationship with his Parsee butler, testament to which is in the unpublished memoir of his brother, Arthur William West, and a box of Edward West's papers, both held at the British Library.
In 1852, he became the Chief Engineer on the Great Indian Peninsular Railway Project. More on this can be found in the British Library.
From as early as 1850, he studied the Kanheri caves in Mumbai. Guide to Kanheri Caves suggests that his most important contribution to academia before he moved to translating the "Pahlavi Texts" was of one of the sealings that "depicted a seated Buddha in Bhumisparsha Mudhra with ornaments around the figure and an inscription underneath" (Wani 6). He presented his findings to the Bombay Asiatic Society on the 12 April 1860 which was then subsequently published in the January edition of the BRAS under the title, "Copies of Inscriptions from the Buddhist Cave-Temples of Kánheri, &c. in the Island of Sulsette, with a plan of the Kanheri caves" (West 1861).
West's legacy remains in his translation of Zoroastrian texts from Pahlavi to English. He was in close contact with the Parsi community in Bombay. Arthur West's autobiography and narration of Edward West's stories show the presence of Parsi butlers in his house and managers in the cotton press.
A commonly accepted speculation regarding West's inspiration to translate the Pahlavi texts was Martin Haug's essay "Essays on the Sacred Language, Writings, and Religion of the Parsis" (Bombay 1862). An edition of the same text "edited and enlarged" by West was published in 1907.
West began his work on a copy of the Avesta, or the scriptures of Zoroaster, accompanied by a Gujurati translation of the Avesta and Dhanjibhai Framji's, 'Pahlavi Grammar' (1855). He then continued his study of Pahlavi with Haug. Haug and West returned to Europe in 1866, when Haug was appointed Professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology at the University of Munich. West went to Munich for six years (1867-73) when he spent his time translating the Pahlavi texts of Zoroastrianism. On 17 June 1871, the University of Munich bestowed an honorary doctorate of Philosophy upon him. After a year in England (1873-4) West revisited India (1874-6) in order to procure manuscripts of the important Pahlavi books, 'Dēnkart' and 'Dātistan-i Dēnīk'; he paid a last visit to the Kanheri caves on 6 February 1875.
He meticulously drawn plans of the cotton presses and new developments can be seen in the British Library. The traces of this meticulousness are also observed in his Personal Papers held by the Royal Asiatic Society.
From 1876 to 1897, West worked on translating the Pahlavi Texts Vol. 1-5 for Prof. Max Müller's Sacred Books of the East Series. His work was widely recognised by Zoroastrian and Orientalist scholars from the West and the East. His meticulous notes in these papersshow his commitment to the collation of several manuscripts, many of them kept in poor condition by the archives and libraries. Through his footnotes, he marked the differences and similarities he found in the manuscripts, while paying attention to the interweaving of different languages in a single MS. (i.e. presence of Sanskrit, Persian, and Gujarati).
His service to the profession was widely recognised: The Bavarian Academy of Sciences in 1887 made him a corresponding member; he was a member of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, and on 6 July 1901 he was presented with the Society's Triennial Gold Medal. The American Oriental Society awarded him an honorary membership. West was also in correspondence with contemporary scholars including Peshotan Bharamji Sanjana. Sanjana was interested in the inconsistencies that West found between his father's manuscript and other copies of the same manuscript.
He died in his eighty-first year at Watford, on 4 February 1905. He was survived by his wife Sarah Margaret Barclay, and by an only son, Max, an artist.
Brian Houghton Hodgson was born in 1801 (possibly 1800, there is some uncertainty to the date), the second of seven children. He entered Haileybury in February 1816, finishing top in his year in Bengali, Persian, Hindi, Political Economy, and Classics. As head of his year at Haileybury, Hodgson was entitled to choose the Presidency to which he would be sent. Hodgson chose Bengal and arrived in Calcutta (Kolkata) in 1818 to continue his studies at Fort William. However Hodgson became ill with a 'liver condition' and he was advised to seek an appointment at a hill station. He was posted as Assistant Commissioner to Kumaon. He was in Kumaon for only a year before being appointed as Assistant Resident in Nepal, working under Edward Gardner. It was during this residency that Hodgson began his research into Buddhism and collected Sanskrit manuscripts.
Hodgson was recalled to Calcutta in 1822 as acting Deputy Secretary in the Persian Department of the Foreign Office – a key role but one that he could not maintain due to further illness. He returned to Kathmandu, in 1824, as the Postmaster and became Resident in 1829 until 1843. Hodgson developed interests, not only in Buddhism, but in the languages of the people, in zoology, and in ethnography. He continued to collect manuscripts which he deposited with institutions in Europe and India.
Hodgson's interest in zoology meant that he employed local trappers and hunters, alongside draughtsmen and painters, to collect and record indigenous species. He published 97 papers on the birds and mammals of Nepal and his interest was keenest during the 1930s when Dr Archibald Campbell was his Assistant Resident. He also introduced tea cultivation into the Himalayas.
As Resident, Hodgson would be expected to report on the political situation of the area. He wrote papers on the possibility of trade with China along a trans-Himalayan route, on the legal system, the police and the army of Nepal. He was also interested in the neighbouring countries.
Whilst in Nepal Hodgson was in a relationship with Meharrunisha Begum. His son, Henry, was born in 1835, and his daughter, Sarah, in 1836. He left Nepal in 1844 having resigned due to disagreement with the political policy of Lord Ellenborough. He did not settle in England – he left his children with his sister, Fanny, in Arnhem and sailed for Calcutta in July 1845. He decided to go to Darjeeling with the Campbells, where he bought a bungalow and named it Brianstone, and continued his zoological and ethnographical studies.
Hodgson's daughter died from TB in 1851, and his son returned to India in 1853 to become a Zamindar, but he died in 1856 in Darjeeling. Hodgson returned to Europe in 1853 for a brief period, during which time he married Anne Scott, who returned to Darjeeling with Hodgson later that year. After 1853 Hodgson concentrated more on ethnology and linguistics, than zoology. Anne returned to England in 1857 and Hodgson followed her in 1858.
Hodgson lived in England for a further 36 years before his death in 1894. He remained active in his interest of India and Nepal. Anne died in 1868 but Hodgson remarried the following year to Susan Townshend. She was only 26 years old at the time of their marriage but they seemed happy. Hodgson was awarded an honorary doctorate at Oxford in 1889. He died in London on 23 May 1894 and was buried in the church yard at Alderley.