{"id":3600,"date":"2016-08-25T11:33:45","date_gmt":"2016-08-25T11:33:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/?page_id=3600"},"modified":"2026-03-05T09:15:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T09:15:57","slug":"henry-miers-elliot-1808-1853","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/henry-miers-elliot-1808-1853\/","title":{"rendered":"Henry Miers Elliot (1808-1853)"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row full_width=”stretch_row”][vc_column css=”.vc_custom_1605789733308{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”13855″ img_size=”full” css=”.vc_custom_1605894113099{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row”][vc_column css=”.vc_custom_1605789733308{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][vc_empty_space][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Henry Miers Elliot (1808-1853)<\/h1>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text]Henry Miers Elliot<\/strong> lived and worked in India between 1827 and 1853. His various positions within the East India Company led him to collect a vast amount of research and manuscripts concerning caste and community information, although his most well-known work is \u2018The History of India: As told by its Own Historians\u2019<\/em>, which was compiled and published posthumously by John Dowson. The Royal Asiatic Society acquired\u00a0Elliot\u2019s papers some time\u00a0after\u00a0his death in 1853.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”16120″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text]During Elliot\u2019s time in India he held a number of positions, the most notable being in the revenue department. In this role, he collected valuable research on local castes, customs and\u00a0zamindars<\/em>\u00a0(local landowners and tax collectors), which helped in the East India Company\u2019s inheritance of a Mughal system of revenue collection. There are large amounts of manuscripts relating to this work, most which are likely in either Persian or Urdu, and are characterised by official stamps in Arabic scripts and tables drawn in red ink.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”16124″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text]Elliot\u2019s research for his positions within the East India Company ultimately led him to take a more general interest in the history of India, and it was in the mid-1840s that he proposed a twelve-volume work listing Mughal histories, to be titled \u2018A Complete History of Mohammedan India\u2019<\/em>. In Elliot\u2019s possession were hundreds of Persian extracts, notes, translations and original books which would have informed this publication, but his death in 1853 meant that the project never materialised. Many of these manuscripts remain with the Royal Asiatic Society, including a substantial amount concerning his glossaries, one of which was intended for this project and an earlier one for his revenue work.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”16127″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text]Although Elliot never saw his planned publication succeed, John Dowson compiled and edited his papers posthumously, with its entirety being published in eight volumes between 1867 and 1877 as \u2018The History of India: As Told by its Own Historians\u2019<\/em>. Elliot\u2019s work, both at the time of his death and after Dowson\u2019s later publication, has received mixed reviews from both contemporaries and more modern historians, though it nonetheless remains a valuable source of research for many scholars to this day.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”16130″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]<\/p>\n

\n

The catalogue for the papers can be found here<\/a>.<\/strong>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row full_width=”stretch_row”][vc_column css=”.vc_custom_1605789733308{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”13855″ img_size=”full” css=”.vc_custom_1605894113099{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row”][vc_column css=”.vc_custom_1605789733308{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][vc_empty_space][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Henry Miers Elliot (1808-1853) [\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text]Henry Miers Elliot lived and worked in India between 1827 and 1853. His various positions within the East…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-3600","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3600"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24678,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3600\/revisions\/24678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}