Walter Elliot (naturalist)

Sir Walter Elliot, KCSI (16 January 1803 – 1 March 1887) was a British civil servant in colonial India.

He was also an eminent orientalist, linguist, archaeologist, naturalist and ethnologist who worked mainly in the Presidency of Madras.

He then went to Haileybury College, with a recommendation from his aunt, the widow of the 12th Lord Elphinstone, graduated with "high distinction", and in January 1819 took up an appointment in the East India Company's Civil Service as a "writer".

[1][2][3] Elliot's training continued at the college at Fort St George in Madras, where he excelled in languages, winning an award of 1000 pagodas for his proficiency in Tamil and Hindustani.

He then arranged with Sir Thomas Munro and Mountstuart Elphinstone to be transferred into the newly acquired territory of southern Maratha district.

They received good treatment from their captors, and it was during this period that he learnt about Hindu ideas of kinship, caste and custom.

Elliott took up a post as his private secretary, and the two sailed together on a yacht, the Prince Regent which was gifted to them by the imam of Muscat.

Elphinstone's successor, George Hay, 8th Marquess of Tweeddale, found Elliot working in a whole range of capacities, and well beyond his position as a private secretary.

Elliot found deep-seated corruption and collusion between village elites, local revenue officials, and five zamindar families that held most of the land in the district.

The East India Company's court of directors were impressed by his work and appointed him commissioner of the Northern Circars, a position of responsibility that he managed until 1854 when he became a Member of the Council of the Governor of Madras.

[2] During 1858, Elliot temporarily replaced George Harris, 3rd Baron Harris and Governor of the Madras Presidency as the provisional governor; it fell to him to announce that following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Honourable East India Company's responsibilities would be transferred to The Crown, beginning the British Raj.

[9] He collected specimens of molluscs, beached whales and dolphins and a range of other species which were examined by experts in Britain like Richard Owen.

[12] Elliot's home in Randals Road, Vepery, Madras was a focal point for scholars in the region.

[2] On 15 January 1839, he married Maria Dorothea Hunter Blair (c.1816–1890), daughter of Sir David Hunter-Blair, 3rd Baronet, in Malta.