Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces (1853-7).[3]
News extracts
Obituary
Obituary printed in the Edinburgh Evening Courant, 3 November 1857:
THE LATE HON. Mr. COLVIN.—The Hon. John Russell Colvin, the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces of India, whose death has been reported, was one of the most experienced civil servants of the Hon. East India Company. Having received his early education at Haileybury, where his career was most distinguished and successful, in 1824 he went out to Calcutta, and entered the civil service of the Bengal Presidency. Having held some posts of inferior importance, we find him in 1829 acting as assistant to the Resident at Hyderabad, and Ambassador to the Nizam. In 1832 he was appointed Assistant Secretary in the revenue and judicial department at Calcutta, from which he was promoted in 1836 to be secretary to the Sudder Board of Revenue in the Lower Provinces. The next post in which we find Mr Colvin is that of private secretary to the late Lord Auckland, who took his seat Governor-General at Calcutta, March 4, 1836, and when that nobleman resigned, Mr Colvin returned with him to England, where he was absent on furlough for about three years. Returning to India, we find him appointed about the year 1846 or 1847 to the Commissionership of the Tenasserim Provinces, where he did much and permanent good; he was more especially useful in reducing to uniformity the system of judicial procedure adopted the native judges in their courts. In 1850 he was appointed to the at first temporary, but afterwards permanent, judgeship of the Sudder Court at Calcutta, where he again appeared in his character as a legal reformer, and devoted much energy and labour to the prevention of appeals, which had grown to an excessive number, and involved a proportionate loss of both time and money to the litigants. On the 14th of October 1853, he was appointed to the Lieutenant-Governorship of the North-Western Provinces, the highest civil post but one in rank next after the Governor-General himself. The career of Mr Colvin was almost exclusively judicial, and he was but little engaged in revenue and other civil questions; but in his own particular line he has left behind him a name which stands second to none.[5]
Legacy
Tribute by Lord Canning
"It is the melancholy duty of the Right Honourable the Governor-General in Council to announce the death of the Honourable John Russell Colvin, the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces.
"Worn out by the unceasing anxieties and labours of his charge, which placed him in the very front of the dangers by which of late India has been threatened, health and strength gave way; and the Governor-General in Council has to deplore with sincere grief the loss of one of the most distinguished amongst the servants of the East India Company. The death of Mr. Colvin has occurred at a time when his ripe experience, his high ability, and his untiring energy would have been more than usually valuable to the State. But his career did not close before he had won for himself a high reputation in each of the various branches of administration to which he was at different times attached; nor until he had been worthily selected to fill the highest post in Northern India; and he leaves a name which not friends alone, but all who have been associated with him in the duties of Government, and all who may follow in his path, will delight to honour."[3] (pp. 202-3).
Tribute by his son, Sir Auckland Colvin, K.C.S.I., &c.
"Where our dead fall in India, they lie. They are buried by her rivers, in her forests, among her mountains, on her roadsides. Lucknow, Delhi, Ghazipur, Cawnpur—a score of cities, claim their dust. In the Agra Fort, where Mr. Colvin rests, a monument was raised over his remains by the pious care of a successor. His tomb stands in conspicuous solitude before the deserted Audience Hall of the Emperor Akbar. As we linger by it, our thoughts recur to the past. We hear the waters rolling in upon the distant Scottish shore; the murmuring of pines on peaceful Simla hill-sides. The years glide on in pleasurable labour. Rest and retirement are in view. Of a sudden, in that fatal May, the land is smitten by a fiery blast of revolt and anarchy; and life is swallowed up in disaster. Endeavour, success, and disappointment have in the grave their ending. But the spirit of man survives imperishable; and the purpose of predecessors, such as he was whose life has been traced in these pages, animates the best of those who yet labour in our Indian Empire."[3] (pg 206.)
Dictionary of Indian Biography
"COLVIN, JOHN RUSSELL (1807–1857).
"Lieutenant-Governor: I.C.S.: son of James Colvin, Calcutta merchant: born in Calcutta, May 29, 1807: educated at St. Andrews and at Haileybury: went to Bengal in 1826, to Hyderabad in 1827: was Assistant and Deputy Secretary in the Judicial and Revenue Departments of the Government of India, 1831-5: Secretary to the Board of Revenue, 1835: Private Secretary to the Governor-General, Lord Auckland, 1836-42; and is said to have exercised considerable influence over the latter’s Afghan policy. He was Resident in Nipal, 1845, Commissioner of Tenasserim, 1846: Judge of the Sadr Court at Calcutta: Lieutenant-Governor of the N.W.P. from Nov. 7, 1853. It was said that Colvin “over-governed:” he worked with extraordinary industry, and greatly increased the business of the Government: his action in the mution has been the subject of controversy: he issued, in May, a proclamation which was not entirely approved: the violence of the outbreak fell upon him without warning, and the forces at this disposal were inadequate to meet it. He was “worn out by the unceasing anxieties and labours of his charge”—so ran Lord Canning’s notification of his death: he fell ill, became worse, and died in cantonments on Sep. 9, 1857: and was buried in the fort at Agra. Sir Auckland Colvin, in his life of his father, J.R. Colvin, in the “Rulers of India” series, has exhausted the subject.[6]
Last will and testament
By his last will and testament, written 5th July 1856, Mr Colvin:
appointed his wife, Emma Sophia Colvin, brothers Bazett David Colvin and Binny James Colvin, John Cowie, David Cowie and Henry Blunt, executors: a codicil named Cudbert Bendley Thornhill of the Bengal Civil Service to be local executor of his effects in the North-West Provinces, only;
appointed his wife guardian of his infant children, or his sister, Lady Colquhoun, or thirdly, Bazett David Colvin. Will included inventory of government and other securities and insurance policies;
bequeathed his books, after his wife selected what she should choose, to his eldest surviving son, to be divided between him and the second surviving son;
demised to his eldest surviving son, a silver inkstand, the gift to Mr Colvin of Lord Auckland; and to his second surviving son, a silver bowl, an early gift to Mr Colvin from his mother; (these last two bequests to take place after the death of his wife);
entrusted two life insurance policies to his executors, to receive and invest, and pay the income to his wife, and eldest son, James Henry Bayley Colvin; and
made several other provisions to his wife, eldest son, and other surviving children, citing his three daughters, and two youngest sons, Clement Sneyd and Walter Mytton, and citing certain provisions with respect to marriage settlements.[7]
↑ British India Office. Ecclesiastical Returns. Baptism: “Christenings at Calcutta Fort William in Bengal and Bahar A.[D. 1807]. Calcutta July 1807. 11th John Russell Son of James Colvin Esq’r and Maria his wife born the 29th May 1807.” Original record held by The British Library (London); digital image online at findmypast.co.uk (accessed by Alison Kilpatrick by subscription, 2018-06-29).
↑ British India Office. Ecclesiastical Returns. British India Office. Ecclesiastical Returns. “Marriages solemnized within the Chaplaincy Station or District of Calcutta in the Archdeaconry and Diocese of Calcutta.” John Russell Colvin, Civil Service, bachelor, under age; and Emma Sophia Sneyd, Calcutta, spinster, under age; T. Macan of Calcutta, parent or next friend; married 10th May 1827, by licence, in the Cathedral, by Wm. Eales, Senior Presidency Chaplain; witnesses: H. Wood, A. Colvin, W. Ainslie. Digital image online at findmypast.co.uk (accessed by Alison Kilpatrick by subscription, 2018-08-10).
↑ 3.03.13.23.33.4 Colvin, Sir Auckland. Rulers of India. John Russell Colvin: The Last Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West under the the Company. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1895.
↑ British India Office. Ecclesiastical Returns. British India Office. Ecclesiastical Returns. “Burials at Agra.” John Russell Colvin, Lieutenant-Governor, N.W.P. [North West Provinces], aged 50 years, died 9th September 1857, cause of death: dysentery; buried 10th September 1857 by F. Hinde. Digital image online at findmypast.co.uk (accessed by Alison Kilpatrick by subscription, 2018-08-10).
↑Edinburgh Evening Courant, 3 November 1857 (pg 1). “The Late Hon. Mr [John Russell] Colvin.” Digital image online at The British Newspaper Archive, britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk (accessed by subscription, and transcribed by Alison Kilpatrick 2018-08-09).
↑ Buckland, C.E. Dictionary of National Biography." “Colvin, John Russell (1807–1857).” (pg 90.) London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., Ltd., 1906. Transcribed by Alison Kilpatrick, 2018-08-20).
↑ British India Office. Wills and Administrations. (1) Estate of John Russell Colvin dec’d Account Current Filed 29 Apr [or Nov] 1858 R Belchambers Deputy Registrar. (2)(a) “Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal Ecclesiastical Side In the Goods of the Honorable John Russell Colvin deceased Petition Filed and Probate Granted to Henry Blunt and David Cowie two of the Executors in India R.P[—] this 27th day of November 1857 R. Belchambers Deputy Reg’r.” (2)(b) “This is the Last Will and Testament of me John Russell Colvin; written 5th July 1856; with two codicils, including the appointment of Cudbert Bendley Thornhill of the Bengal Civil Service to be local Executor of his will in the N.W. Provinces of India, only. Digital images online at findmypast.co.uk (accessed by Alison Kilpatrick by subscription, 2018-08-10).
India Births and Baptisms, 1786-1947Database, FamilySearch, John Russell Colvin, 11 Jul 1807; citing , reference v 7 p 252; FHL microfilm 498,609.
India Marriages, 1792-1948index, FamilySearch John Russell Colvin and Emma Sophia Sneyd, 10 May 1827; citing Calcutta, Bengal, India, reference ; FHL microfilm 498,957.
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