Frederik Adolph de Roepstorff

Frederik Adolph de Roepstorff (25 March 1842 – 24 October 1883) was a Danish philologist who worked in the Andaman penal colony in India, where he was shot dead by a convict.

He went back to Denmark in 1871, married Hedevig Christiane Willemoës (30 November 1843 – 21 August 1896, Copenhagen) on 11 January 1872 and made a trip again in 1878.

The other version, said to be of greater veracity, is that a havildar from the Madras army stationed at Nankauri was on trial for assaulting a convict.

It took five days for the news to reach, and for officials to arrive, leaving Mrs de Roepstorff to deal with the situation on her own.

[3][2][4] His grave was described as being in ‘the little Camorta graveyard, where the bluff near the English settlement overlooks the beautiful Nancowry harbour, and the nestling huts of the natives whom he loved so well’.

In his spare time he took a great interest in the fauna and flora, collecting specimens for the Indian Museum, as well as sending them to specialists in Europe.

[8] De Roepstorff and his wife were both interested in linguistics, philology, and ethnography and they compiled a dictionary of the Nancowry dialect.

They also edited a translation of the Gospel of Matthew into Nicobarese which had been begun by Moravian missionaries and this was published after his death by his wife in 1884.