Richard Carnac Temple

Sir Richard Carnac Temple, 2nd Baronet, CB, CIE, GCStJ, FBA, FSA (15 October 1850 – 3 March 1931) was an Indian-born British administrator and the Chief Commissioner of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and an anthropological writer.

He was the eldest son of Sir Richard Temple (1826–1902), a baronet, and his first wife, Charlotte Frances (née Martindale, d. 1855).

[3] After education at Harrow School and, from 1868, at Trinity Hall, Cambridge,[4] Temple was commissioned in the Royal Scots Fusiliers in 1871.

[2] Promoted to captain in 1881,[4] he served in the Third Burmese War from 1885 and as a consequence, in 1887, was given charge of Mandalay following the removal of king Thibaw.

The lavish lifestyle of his son and the high taxation introduced during the First World War caused him such financial difficulties that he sold The Nash in 1926.

[2][3] Temple had been honoured as a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire in 1894, recognising his work in India, and in 1913 he was President of the anthropological section of the British Association.

In 1916, he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in recognition of his involvement with the Joint Committee of the St. John Ambulance Association and British Red Cross that operated during World War I.

He wrote in 1914: The practices and beliefs included under the general head of Folk-lore make up the daily life of the natives of our great dependency, control their feelings, and underlie many of their actions.

Seven years later in collaboration with Flora Annie Steel, an Anglo-Indian novelist, he wrote Wideawake Stories, a collection of Indian folk-tales.

On 18 March 1880, Temple married Agnes Fanny Searle while based at Port Blair in the Andaman Islands.