James Sutherland Cotton

“ Shy and reserved in manner, with gestures that were awkward and a voice that was gruff, he won the respect and affection of many generations of undergraduates. Himself unmarried, he devoted his time and his money to fatherly relations among an ever expanding circle of those who were to him in the place of sons. He followed closely every stage of his pupils' future life, however far removed they might be from Oxford. In his early years he had been a keen fives-player and an Alpine climber. ”

“ Bernard was possessed of inexhaustible energy in both body and mind. At Rugby he was prominent in the football field, and at Calcutta he won a cup for single rackets. In India he had the reputation of being the hardest worker in a hardworking secretariat; and at the India office it was said of him that he undertook the duties of every subordinate in his department, including those of the messenger. ”

“ In 1897 he was appointed librarian at the House of Lords, where he compiled two catalogues, one of the general library and one of the law books. This appointment, while it did not interrupt his studies, nor his tenure of office at Chatsworth, introduced him to another sphere of interest, where he made himself equally at home. He became absorbed in politics and even dreamed that his ideal occupation would be to govern orientals. ”

“ In 1880 Nettleship was invited to India by the Gaekwar of Baroda, for whom he painted a cheetah hunt as well as an equestrian portrait, and was thus enabled to see something of wild animals in their native haunts. In his later years he took to the medium of pastel, and, painting his old subjects on a smaller scale, acquired a wider measure of popularity.
Nettleship was far more than a painter. ”

“ Literature and art were always among his interests.
Appointed to the North West Provinces, he divided his first years of service between the plains of Rohilkhand and the neighbouring hills of Kumaon. At the outbreak of the Mutiny he was absent on furlough in England. Hitherto he had served as an ordinary district officer, without any of the chances that are open to those at headquarters. But after his return to India he was selected for a series of special appointments. Lord Canning nominated him in 1861 president of a commission to inquire into a great epidemic of cholera ”

“ He knew Browning personally, and to him the poet gave the 'square old yellow book with crumpled vellum covers,' which formed the basis of 'The Ring and the Book,' and which Pope presented to the library of Balliol College. Keenly interested in all phases of philosophy and religion, he welcomed the development of modern Christian thought, but was always loyal to the Wesleyanism in which he had been brought up. ”

“ Educated at Wesleyan institutions at Bury and Hoxton, George resolved in his fourteenth year to become a missionary to the Tamil-speaking population of Southern India. He landed at Madras in 1839, having learned Tamil from books during the voyage. ”

“ On leaving Oxford he entered the Indian educational service in Bengal, being successively professor at Dacca and at the Presidency College, Calcutta, principal of the Bankipur College, Patna, and inspector of schools. In 1900 he was appointed officer in charge of the records of the government of India, an appointment which carries with it that of assistant secretary in the home department. Soon afterwards his health broke down, and he died unmarried at Clapham on 24 July 1904 and was buried in Streatham cemetery. ”

“ NETTLESHIP, JOHN TRIVETT (1841–1902) , animal painter and author, born at Kettering, Northamptonshire, on 11 Feb. 1841, was second son of Henry John Nettleship, solicitor there, and brother of Henry [q. v.] , of Richard Lewis [q. v.] , and of Edward, the ophthalmic surgeon. His mother was Isabella Ann, daughter of James Hogg, vicar of Geddington and master of Kettering grammar school. Music was hereditary in the family, and Nettleship was for some time a chorister at New College, Oxford. Afterwards he was sent to the cathedral school at Durham, where his brother Henry had preceded him. ”

“ By inheritance and education they belonged to the school of philosophical radicalism represented in John Stuart Mill ; and their best work, much of which came to fruition after the brothers had left India, was accomplished under two viceroys (Mayo and Lytton) who rank as conservatives at home but as active reformers in India. Strachey's valuable literary work in connection with India shows' throughout the mind of a strong man and the pen of a ready writer. ”

“ POPE, GEORGE UGLOW (1820–1908) , missionary and Tamil scholar, was born on 24 April 1820 in Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia. His father, John Pope, born at Padstow, Cornwall, emigrated to Prince Edward Island in 1818, and in 1820 removed to Nova Scotia, where giving up trade he became a missionary; returning in 1826 to Plymouth, he there resumed his business as merchant and shipowner, and took a prominent part in municipal affairs. George's mother was Catherine Uglow of Stratton, North Cornwall. ”

“ When the news of Lord Mayo's assassination first reached Calcutta in Feb. 1872, he acted for a fortnight as governor-general. With the legal member of the council. Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, he formed an enduring friendship (cf. Leslie Stephen, Life of Sir J. F. Stephen, pp. 245 seq.) . In 1874 Strachey was appointed lieutenant-governor of the North West Provinces but he vacated the post in 1876, when Lord Lytton persuaded him to enter the governor-general's council for a second time as finance member. ”

“ Aiter a long and painful illness, Nettleship died in London on 31 Aug. 1902, and was buried at Kensal Green cemetery. He married in 1876 Ada, daughter of James Hinton [q. v.] , the aural surgeon; she survived; him with three daughters, the eldest of whom was married to Augustus E. John, and died in Paris in 1909.
A memorial tablet in bronze, designed by Sir George Frampton, with the aid of two brother artists, who were born in the same town. Sir Alfred East and Thomas Cooper Gotch, has been placed in the parish church at Kettering. ”

“ He had already been initiated into Oriental literature by Edward Rehatsek, an eccentric but learned Hungarian, who led the life of a faqir at Bombay. Shortly after his return to England Arbuthnot associated himself with Burton in founding the Kama Shastra Society, for the issue to private subscribers of unexpurgated translations of Oriental classics. ”

“ Sir Charles Bernard came back to England in 1887, in order to take up the appointment of secretary at the India office in the department of revenue, statistics, and commerce. He finally retired in 1901, after a continuous service of forty-three years. ”

“ On all these he wrote in learned publications, and he also contributed reviews to the 'Athenæum' and the 'Academy.' But he failed in his candidature for the chair of Arabic at Cambridge vacant by the death of Robertson Smith in 1894, nor was it a consolation to be appointed in 1895 professor of Arabic at University College, London, though he held that almost nominal office until his death. But at the darkest hour a new career suddenly opened before him. (Sir) Sidney Colvin introduced him to the duke of Devonshire, who was then in need of a librarian to succeed Sir James Lacaita. ”

“ His friends and pupils in India, the majority Hindus, placed by subscription a monument on his grave and founded a memorial prize for Tamil studies in the university of Madras; a gymnasium called by his name has also been erected in Bishop Cotton's school at Bangalore. ”

“ Between 1876 and 1898 he served as examiner in the school of literæ humaniores no less than a dozen times. He was also president of the Association for the Education of Women and of the Women's Suffrage Society, and latterly a member of the education committee of the Nottinghamshire county council. ”

“ Mansfield long lived a roving life, in Scotland and on the Continent. An excellent shot, he visited the moors of Scotland almost every year from 1843 to 1859, and was one of the first Englishmen to take up golf, which he first learned at Pau in 1857, and afterwards introduced at Southampton, Malvern, Winchester, and Brighton. ”

“ He left India finally in 1880, after forty years of active work. A short time was passed in Manchester, and then he settled at Oxford as diocesan secretary of the S.P.G. In 1884 he was appointed teacher of Tamil and Telugu in the university; in 1886 he was awarded the honorary degree of M.A.; and from 1888 he was chaplain at Balliol College, where he enjoyed the intimate friendship of two Masters, Jowett and Caird. In 1906 he received the gold medal of the Royal Asiatic Society, which is awarded every three years to an oriental scholar (cf. Journ. Roy. Asiatic Soc. 1906, pp. 767-790) . ”

“ The book brought about an intimate friendship between the poet and his critic. Another book that shows both his mature power of literary expression and his opinions about his own art is 'George Morland and the Evolution from him of some Later Painters' (1898) . ”

“ His eight children survived him. The eldest son, James Henry, after following his father into the Indian civil service, died of cholera, together with his wife and other members of his household, at Chinsura, Bengal, in November 1907. ”

“ He took a lively interest in his village neighbours, and his memory is preserved by the Arbuthnot Institute, Shemley Green, under the charge of the Wonersh parish council. He died in London on 25 May 1901. In 1879 he married Ellinor, daughter of Admiral Sir James Stirling [q. v.] and widow of James Alexander Guthrie of Craigie, Forfarshire, who survived him until 9 May 1911. There were no children of the marriage. ”

“ An unfortunate phrase in his charge to the jury, that 'disaffection means simply the absence of affection,' attracted much censure, but the general purport of his language on this point was approved on appeal to a full bench. In 1899 he was promoted to be chief justice of the high court at Allahabad, and knighted. ”

“ From 1876 to 1903 he was judge of the court of passage at Liverpool, an ancient court of record with local jurisdiction wider than that of a county court. He was an active volunteer, retiring in 1882 with the V.D. as lieutenant-colonel of the 18th Middlesex rifles. Retaining his health and vigour almost to the last, he died at Bournemouth on 4 Oct. ”

“ As a lawyer, Baylis is chiefly known for a treatise on domestic servants, 'The Rights, Duties, and Relations of Domestic Servants and their Masters and Mistresses' (1857; 6th edit. 1906) . Other works were: 'Fire Hints' (1884) ”

“ His mother was Winifred, eldest daughter of Robert Pope Blachford, of Osborne House, Isle of Wight. After attending preparatory schools at Romsey and Guildford, he was admitted to the foundation of Winchester College in 1835, the first year of Dr. ”