[1] After being educated at Rugby and the East India Company College at Haileybury, Temple joined the Bengal Civil Service in 1846.

His hard work and literary skill were soon recognised; he was private secretary for some years to John Lawrence in the Punjab, and gained useful financial experience under James Wilson.

[3] The British government, dogmatically committed to a laissez-faire economic policy, castigated Temple for interfering in the workings of the market.

Seeing this appointment as an opportunity to "retrieve his reputation for extravagance in the last famine," Temple implemented new relief policies which ultimately failed to relieve widespread starvation.

[4] In 1877, a poor crop harvest in Britain raised prices of grain, while India exported twice as much wheat than the previous year.

In addition to the colonial government's refusal to suspend taxation, this led to severe food shortages, particularly in areas supplied by railroads and granaries.

He was not otherwise a parliamentary success, and to the public, he was best known from caricatures in Punch, which exaggerated his physical peculiarities and made him look like a lean and hungry tiger.

[2] Temple had kept a careful journal of his parliamentary experiences, intended for posthumous publication; and he self-published a short volume of reminiscences.