CAREY, William. Paulerspury, Northamptonshire 17.8.1761 — Serampur 9.6.1834. British Missionary and Pioneer of Indology, in India 1794–1834. Son of Edmund Carey, a village schoolmaster, and Elizabeth Wells, became in the age of 14 apprentice to a shoemaker in Hackleton. He was interested in religion and joined the Baptists in 1783, 1786 ordained Baptist minister. In 1781 he married Dorothy Plackett and 1789 became the minister of Moulton’s Baptist congregation in Leicester. During his leisure hours he studied Latin, Greek and Hebrew in order to better understand the Bible. In 1789 he joined the movement, which developed into Baptist Missionary Society, and in 1794 he was sent to India. Arrived at Calcutta (3rd November) he lost all his property and had difficulties with the E.I.C., and was thus impended from the missionary work. Instead he settled down in June 1794 as a superintendent of an indigo factory in Mudnabatty (Manaban) near Malda. Started now learning Bengali and Sanskrit, and built a church for the villagers in 1795.
In 1800 Carey got the permission for permanent residence in India and moved to Serampur (the E.I.C. still forbade all missionary activity in its territory, but S. was then a Danish settlement), where he founded a Baptist mission station and a printing press, together with Marshman and Ward. Together they started Bible translations (first into Bengali) and other philological work. In April 1801 Carey was appointed the teacher of Sanskrit and Bengali, from 904 also of Marathi, from 1807 Professor of Sanskrit and Bengali at College of Fort William (Calcutta), taught there until 1830. In 1804 he published the first Sanskrit grammar written in an European language. It was founded on Vopadeva. He also published several text editions, grammars of modern Indian languages and translations of (parts of) the Bible, and headed the growing Baptist mission. His great linguistic collections were destroyed in the fire of the Serampore press in 1812. In 1818-32 Principal of the new Serampore College. He suffered long time of malaria, and in July 1833 he was paralyzed. He was three times married (1781 Dorothy Plackett d. 1807, 1808 Charlotte Emilia Rumohr d. 1821, and 1823 Grace Hughes d. 1835) and had four sons, among them —> Felix Carey (1785/86–1822), and at least two daughters. In 1807 he was made D.D. by the Brown University in the U.S.A.
In his Indological work he regularly co-operated with Pandits (in Sanskrit and Bengali especially with Mṛtyuñjaya Vidyālaṅkar). A fire in the Serampore printing press in 1812 destroyed the completed 4th vol. of the Rāmāyaṇa and some other works. He was also keenly interested in natural science and corresponded with Roxburgh and edited his Hortus Bengalensis in 1814 and his Flora Indica together with Wallich in 1820-24. He also worked actively for the abolition of satī.
Publications: Kathopakatham, or Dialogues intended to facilitate the acquiring of the Bengalee language. 8+217 p. Serampore 1801, 2nd ed. S. 1806, 3rd 1818; A grammar of the Bengalee language. Serampore 1801, 2nd rev. ed. 191 p. ib. 1803, 4th ed. 1818, 5th ed. 1845.
– Edited: Hitópadéśa, or salutary Instruction, in the original Sanscrit; Dasa Cumara Charita, abridged by Apayya; Three Satacas, of Centuries of Verses, by Bhartri Hari. 15+160+22+111 p. Serampore 1803.
– A Grammar of the Mahratta Language. 8+152+49 p. Serampore 1805, 3rd ed. 1825.
– A Grammar of the Sungskrit Language. 568 p. Serampore 1804, 2nd ed. 908+108+24 p. Serampore 1806.
– Edited with J. Marshman: The Ramayuna of Valmeeki, in the original Sungscrit with a prose translation and explanatory notes. 1-3. 653+522+492 p. Serampore 1806-10 (kāṇḍas 1–2, the major part of vol. 2. was destroyed in a shipwreck and is extremely rare).
– A Dictionary of the Mahratta Language. 7+652 p. Serampore 1810.
– A Grammar of the Punjaubee Language. 4+99 p. Serampore 1812.
– A Grammar of the Telinga Language. 4+186 p. Serampore 1814.
– A Dictionary of the Bengali Language in which the words are traced to their origin and their various meanings given. Vol. 1. Serampore 1818, 2nd ed. 1-3. 1825, 3rd ed. 606+1544 p. Serampore 1827-30 (c. 80 000 words).
– Bible translations in various Indian languages; a few articles in As.Res..
– Edited Schröter’s A Grammar of the Bhotanta Language. Publ. as a preface to Schröter’s Tibetan Dictionary (ed. by Marshman) 35+6+475 p. Serampore 1826.
Sources: *v. Biernatzki, GGA 1859, 1361-1380 (review of Marshman 1859); Buckland, Dictionary; S.L[ane]-P[oole] in D.N.B. 9, 1887, 77; M[ohl], JA 2:15, 1835, 206; *D.C. Sen, History of Bengali Lang. and Literature; Windisch 53f.; Wikipedia with portrait and further references, portrait also e.g. in Chatterjee & Burn 1943, the complete (including his Pandit) in Arberry, British Orientalists. L. 1943, 45 (engraving by Worthington after Howe).
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