FORBES, Duncan. Kinnaird, Pertshire 28.4.1798 — London 17.8.1868. British (Scottish) Oriental Scholar (Persian and Urdū). Born in a poor family, in 1801 remained with his grandfather, when the parents moved to the U.S.A. In the age of 12 he still knew not English (or was illiterate in it), but as…
ERSKINE, William. Edinburgh 8.11.1773 — Edinburgh 20.5.1852. British (Scottish) Civil Servant and Lawyer. 1804-23 in India. Son of David E., a lawyer, and Jean Melvin. Educated at Royal High School and Edinburgh University (dr. iuris). He “was a lawyer’s apprentice, 1792-9, went to India in 1803-4 with Sir James Mackintosh”,…
ELPHINSTONE, Mountstuart. Dumbarton, Scotland 6.10.1779 — Hookwood, Surrey 20.11.1859. British (Scottish) Civil Servant in India. Son of John, the 11th Baron E., and Anne Ruthven. Educated in Edinburgh and Kensington. From 1795 writer in E.I.C.’s service, was sent to Benares, where he soon learned Persian and Hindi and barely escaped…
ÈL’MANOVIČ, Spiridon Dmitrievič. Egor’evskij Syčevskij uezd, Smolensk gub. 1844/45 — 19??. Russian Translator (?). One of many children of Dmitrij Alekseevič È., a Russian Orthodox priest. Educated in Bel’ and at Smolensk spiritual seminary. In 1865-69 studied at St.Petersburg University Arabic and Persian, soon also Sanskrit. Worked as gymnasium teacher in…
ELLIOTT, Charles. London 10.12.1776 — London 4.5.1856. British Civil Servant in India. Son of Charles E., a cabinet-maker, and Sarah Ann Sherman. He “voluntarily passed through the college of Fort William, judge of Fatehghar at 30, judge of Bareli, Court of Appeal, Judge of the Sadr Court at Calcutta, 1821.…
ELLIOT, Walter. Edinburgh 16.1.1803 — Wolfelee, Roxburghshire 1.3.1887. Sir. British (Scottish) Civil Servant, Indologist, Epigraphist and Naturalist in India. Son of James E. and Caroline Hunter (d. 1824), educated privately and in Cumberland and Doncaster. Appointed into a writership in E.I.C. he came to Haileybury in 1818 and to India…
EILERS, Wilhelm Max J. Leipzig 27.9.1906 — Würzburg 3.7.1989. German Oriental (Semitic) and Iranian Scholar. Professor in Würzburg. Son of a Gymnasium Professor, matriculated from Zwickau. Studies of musicology, law and Assyriology at Freiburg, Munich and Leipzig (Dr.iuris 1931 Leipzig, with a diss. on ancient Babylonian laws), then Oriental languages…
DUBEUX, J. Louis. Lisbon, Portugal 2.11.1798 — Paris 4.10.1863. French Oriental Scholar. Professor in Paris. Son of a clerk of the French embassy in Lisbon, in 1808 the family returned with French troops from Portugal. From 1816 worked in Royal Library, in 1835-48 as conservateur adjoint. From 1848 Jaubert’s successor…
DRESDEN, Mark Jan. Amsterdam 26.4.1911 — Philadelphia 16.8.1986. Dutch Indologist and Iranian scholar in the U.S.A. Citizen of the U.S.A., Professor in Philadelphia. Son of the composer Sem Dr. (1881–1957) and Jacoba Dhont, educated in Amsterdam. Studies of classical and especially Indo-Iranian philology at Amsterdam, B.A. 1933, M.A. 1937 (under…
DOW, Alexander. Crieff, Perthshire 1735/36 — Bhagalpur 31.7.1779. British (Scottish) Colonial Officer, Historian and Persian Scholar in India. Son of a customs officer. He had mercantile education, but had to leave Scotland after a fatal duel. He came to Bencoolen (Sumatra) as a sailor and entered in 1760 the E.I.C.’s…