BELLEW, Henry Walter. Nusserabad (Nasirabad, Ajmer dt.) 30.8.1834 — Farnham Royal, Buckinghamshire 26.7.1892. British Physician and Orientalist (Pashto Scholar) in India. Son of Captain (later Major-general) Henry Walter B. of the Bengal army (killed in Afghan war 1842), educated at St. George’s Hospital, London. Served in the Crimean war and joined the Bengal Medical Service in 1856. Participated in Lumsden’s mission to Kandahar in 1857-58, participated in the Umbeyla campaign. Civil Surgeon in Peshawar, interpreter at the Ambala darbar 1869 with Amir Shir Ali. Participated in R. Pollock’s mission to Seistan in 1871, and T. D. Forsyth’s mission to Kashgar and Yarkand in 1873-74. Chief Political officer at Kabul in the second Afghan war. Retired as Surgeon-General in 1886. C.S.I. 1873. Married Isabel MacGregor, two daughters and one son.
Bellew was the leading scholar of Pashto in his times, but had a curious theory of its close connection with Greek. As a physician, he wrote also on medical subjects.
Publications: Grammar of the Pukkhto or Pukshto Language. 156 p. L. 1867; Dictionary of the Pukkhto or Pukshto Language, in which the words are traced to their sources in the Indian and Persian Languages. With a reversed part, or English and Pukkhto. 12+355 p. L. 1867; ed. the Dîvân of Khushhâl Khân, 1869.
– Journal of a Political Mission to Afghanistan. 536 p. L. 1862; Record of the March of the Mission to Seistan. 185 p. L. 1873; From the Indus to the Tigris. 496 p. L. 1873.; Kashmir and Kashgar. Narrative of the Journey. 454 p. L. 1875.
– The History of Kashgaria. 107+18 p. Calcutta 1875.
– Afghanistan and the Afghans, being a brief Review of the History of the Country, and account of its people. 273 p. L. 1879; The Races of Afghanistan, being a brief account of the principal nations inhabiting that country. 124 p. Calcutta 1880; An inquiry into the Ethnography of Afghanistan. 212 p. Woking 1891.
– Medical writings, i.al. a large work on cholera.
Sources: T.D., JRAS 1892, 880-884; Buckland, Dictionary; Br.Biogr.Arch.; D’A.P[ower], D.N.B. Suppl. 1, 1901, 167f., the same, rev. by *J. Falkner, Oxford D.N.B.; Wikipedia.
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