Frederic Salmon Growse CIE (1836 – 19 May 1893) was a British civil servant of the Indian Civil Service (ICS), Hindi scholar, archaeologist and collector, who served in Mainpuri, Mathura, Bulandshahr and Fatehpur during British rule in India.

Growse studied Indian literature and languages, and founded the Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart and the Government Museum, both at Mathura.

[1][7] Its design was based on John Ruskin's principles of architecture, and it was built using local craftsmanship,[12] but was unfinished at the time of his transfer out of the district.

[20][21] He was one of a few self-professed historians who held the view that Indian architecture was produced through patronage, and achieved by trust rather than written contracts.

[23] Growse was district magistrate and collector at Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh, from 1885 to 1886 where he produced a supplement to the Fatehpur Gazetteer, paying particular attention to architecture and archaeology which had been largely ignored by the author of the original gazetteer in 1884 who Growse thought had probably not visited any of the places about which he had written, relying instead on native informants who were not equipped to comment on such matters.

[1][27] In it he included early Buddhist archeology, and chapters on Hindu sects and the origin of place names.

[14] He writes in the introduction that the epic Sanskrit Ramayana of Valmiki had been translated into several languages including English, but the more popular Hindi version, a retelling of Rama's life, titled Ramcharitmanas by Tulsidas, previously had not been translated into English.

[1] His obituary in the journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland describes this work as "chiefly interesting as showing how he was able to transfer his sympathies from a Hindu to a Musulman population, when the requirements of a bureaucratic regime compelled his removal".

[1] Due to ill-health, Growse retired to England in 1890,[3][7] where he lived at Thursley Hall, Haslemere, and was active in the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and Natural History.