The Geography of British India: Political & Physical

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Though the book is primarily intended for the Student, from the upper classes of schools all through the stages of College, University, Military, and Civil Service studies and examinations in England. Scotland, Ireland, and India alike, it is much more. Its generalisations as well as details will enable the ordinary reader, probably for the first time, to form a just idea of the magnitude of the British Indian Empire; of the variety of its races, and all that concerns peoples more numerous than those of Europe; of the course of the history of every Province and even District when under native rulers; of the splendid and widespread archceological and architectural remains of these rulers and of the success of the British Government, thus far, in making the Empire a unity for the first time in history; so that by detailed administration; education, and free religious suasion, its two hundred and fifty-three millions may be trained to govern themselves.

George Smith CIE FRGS LLD (1833-1919) was a 19th-century Scottish historian and geographer who spent his working life in India. He was father to a family of eminent figures. He was educated at the High School in Edinburgh then studied at the University of Edinburgh graduating around 1850.In 1855 he moved to Calcutta, in India, to act as the first Principal of the Doveton College, a boys' school in Madras. In 1856, aged 23, he became a Fellow of the University of Calcutta and also began to operate as their Examiner. From 1857 he was Editor of the "Calcutta Review". From 1860 he was the official Indian correspondent for The Times newspaper in Britain. By the 1870s he had returned to Scotland and was living at Scagrore House in Seafield, east of Leith. He was then editor of the journal, "Friends of India" From 1878 he was Secretary of the United Free Church of Scotland. In 1879 he became Vice President of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.

THIS volume is the result of twenty years of preparation. It would have been more easy and pleasant to have given adequate literary expression to the extensive and comparatively new materials in two or three volumes. But Mr. Murray's request that the facts and descriptions should be included in a work of five hundred pages, to form one of the admirable series of his Student's Manuals, involved an almost excessive degree of condensation in the writing, while it promised wider usefulness for the result. Though the book is thus primarily intended for the Student, from the upper classes of schools all through the stages of College, University, Military, and Civil Service studies and examinations in England, Scotland, Ireland, and India alike, it is much more. Its generalisations as well as details will enable the ordinary reader, probably for the first time, to form a just idea of the magnitude of the British Indian Empire; of the variety of its races, and all that concerns peoples more numerous than those of Europe; of the course of the history of every Province and even District when under native rulers; of the splendid and widespread archaeological and architectural remains of these rulers; and of the success of the British Government, thus far, in making the Empire a unity for the first time in history; so that, by detailed administration, education, and free religious suasion, its two hundred and fifty-three millions may be trained to govern them- selves. The volume may, practically, be found by the traveller to be a Guide-book in the best form. The Index, and Maps of Provinces, in districts, should make it the most handy Gazetteer, as well as a full and an accurate work of reference for all classes.

In the year 1862 I submitted to the late Earl of Elgin, soon after he had taken his seat as Viceroy and Governor- General, a detailed statistical system for the uniform preparation of the annual Administration Reports ordered by Parliament in 1853, with a view to the taking of a Census of all India in 1871, and the compilation of an Imperial Gazetteer. Mr. Samuel Laing, who was at that time Indian Finance Minister, warmly supported the scheme. The Calcutta Statistical Committee was accordingly appointed; and my system, adapted from that of the International Statistical Congress, was carried into effect after three years of official discussion in India, and in the India Office when Sir Stafford North cote was Secretary of State. Each of the Twelve Provinces of India, and many of the larger of the Hundred and Fifty-three Ruling Native States, now render an account of their stewardship to the Governor- General in Council, and to the Secretary of State, for Parliament, according to this uniform scheme.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages