Frederic Growse

{{short description|British civil servant in North-Western Provinces, India}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Frederic Growse

| image = Bathing ghat, Bulandshahr, Growse.jpg

| alt =

| caption = Growse engraving at Bathing Ghat, Bulandshahr

| birth_name = Frederic Salmon Growse

| birth_date = 1836

| birth_place = Suffolk, England

| death_date = 19 May {{death year and age|1893|1836}}

| death_place = Haslemere, Surrey, England

| other_names =

| occupation = District magistrate and collector for Indian Civil Service

| years_active = 1860–1890

| known_for = *Founding the Government Museum, Mathura

Encouraging local Indian handicrafts
Buildings: Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart, Mathura, Garden Gate, Bathing Ghat and Town Hall, Bulandshahr

| notable_works = *English translation of the Ramayana of Tulsidas

Bulandshahr; or, Sketches of an Indian district; social, historical and architectural (1884)

}}

Frederic Salmon Growse {{post-nominals|list=CIE}} (1836 – 19 May 1893) was a British civil servant of the Indian Civil Service (ICS), Hindi scholar, archaeologist and collector, who served in Mainpur, Mathura, Bulandshahr and Fatehpur during British rule in India.

Growse studied Indian literature and languages, and founded the Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart and the Government Museum, both at Mathura. Between 1876 and 1883, he published in series, the first English translation of the Ramayana of Tulsidas. He also wrote Mathurá: A district memoir (1880) and a description of the district of Bulandshahr (1884) and of its new architecture (1886).

Described as "never a persona grata to his superiors", he was nonetheless gazetted CIE in 1879. At Bulandshahr between 1878 and 1884 he caused a number of buildings to be constructed using local designs and craftsmen. In 1882, he donated a collection of Indian pottery to the British Museum.

Early life and education

Frederic Growse (also spelled Frederick)Surrey, England, Electoral Registers, 1832-1962. England and Wales Register (1939) was born in 1836 in Bildeston, Suffolk, England, the third and youngest son of Robert{{cite web |title=Growse, Frederic Salmon – Persons of Indian Studies by Prof. Dr. Klaus Karttunen |date=13 February 2017 |url=https://whowaswho-indology.info/2458/2458/ |access-date=13 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210124033648/https://whowaswho-indology.info/2458/2458/ |archive-date=24 January 2021}}{{cite book|title=Luzac's Oriental List and Book Review|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X4spAAAAYAAJ|year=1894|publisher=Luzac & Company|page=118}}{{cite book |last1=Gupta |first1=Rupa |last2=Gupta |first2=Gautam |title=Forgotten Civilizations: The Rediscovery of India's Lost History |date=2021 |publisher=Hachette India |location=Gurugram |isbn=978-93-91028-47-3 |page=124 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=of5UEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT124 |language=en |chapter=9. Frederic Salmon Growse}} and Mary Growse.[https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JWJQ-FZD Frederic Salmon Growse England Births and Christenings, 1538–1975.] Family Search. Retrieved 15 April 2021. {{subscription required}} He matriculated from Oriel College in 1855 and then gained a scholarship at Queen's College, Oxford, from where he received a master's degree after being in the first class of moderations and second class of classics. He was a contemporary of Charles Crosthwaite.[https://www.jstor.org/stable/25197161 "Notes of the Quarter (April, May, June, 1893) III Obituary Notices"], Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 25, Issue 3, July 1893, pp. 650–652. {{doi|10.1017/S0035869X0014359X}} In 1859, he passed the ICS examination. At an unknown date he converted to Catholicism and was described as a "zealous observer of its precepts" but "without any bigotry".[https://books.google.com/books?id=AGAaAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA223 "Obituary"], The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review and Oriental and Colonial Record, New Series, Vol. VI, Nos. 11 & 12 (1893). pp. 223–225.

Career

File:Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart, Mathura.jpg

Having joined the Indian Civil Service on 10 August 1860,{{cite book |author=Govt. Sectt., N.W.P. and Oudh |title=History of services of gazetted officers employed under the government of the N.W.P. and Oudh |date=1881 |publisher=North-Western Provinces and Oudh Govt. Press |location=Allahabad |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofservice00alla/page/40/mode/2up?q=Growse}} Growse arrived in India on 17 November 1860. The following year he was posted to the North-Western Provinces, one of the regions of British India. There, he studied Indian literature and languages. In 1868, he was a district assistant in Mainpuri (western UP){{cite book|last=Talbot|first=Cynthia|title=The Last Hindu Emperor: Prithviraj Cauhan and the Indian Past, 1200–2000|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m3DjCgAAQBAJ|year=2016|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|language=English|isbn=978-1-107-11856-0|page=210}} and in the 1870s he was appointed district collector at Mathura,[http://www.mathura-vrindavan.com/mathura/museum.htm Government Museum], Mathura - Vrindavan. Retrieved 15 April 2021. the birth place of Krishna.{{cite book|last=Morris|first=Jan |title=Stones of Empire: The Buildings of the Raj|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8zD1Ugfq9KwC|year=2005|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=0-19-280596-7|page=165}} There he built the Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart, paying for a third of its cost. Its design was based on John Ruskin's principles of architecture, and it was built using local craftsmanship, but was unfinished at the time of his transfer out of the district.{{cite book |last1=Growse |first1=Frederic Salmon |title=Mathurá: A district memoir|date=1883 |publisher=North-western provinces and Oudh government Press |location=Allahabad |pages=160–162 |url=https://archive.org/details/mathurdistrict00growrich/page/n203/mode/2up?view=theater}} He also founded the Government Museum there in 1874.

=Bulandshahr=

File:Collector's House, Bulandshahr.jpg

In November 1877 Growse was appointed district magistrate and deputy collector at Bulandshahr and in 1878 made Bulandshahr's Magistrate and Collector. There he lived at Collector's House until 1884.{{Cite web|title=Indian Architecture of To-day as Exemplified in the New Buildings of Bulandshahr District, Part II · Highlights from the Digital Content Library|url=https://dcl.dash.umn.edu/highlights/items/show/256|access-date=15 April 2021|website=dcl.dash.umn.edu|archive-date=16 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210416165147/https://dcl.dash.umn.edu/highlights/items/show/256|url-status=dead}} By that time he was a fellow of Calcutta University.{{cite book |last1=Growse |first1=F. S. |title=The Ramayana of Tulsidas |date=1883 |publisher=Allahabad |pages=i–xx |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.283665 |chapter=Inside cover and introduction}} In 1878 he commissioned Mainpuri craftsmen to produce reredos for a Catholic church in Suffolk.{{cite journal |last1=Head |first1=Raymond |title=Indian Crafts and Western Design from the Seventeenth Century to the Present |journal=RSA Journal |date=1988 |volume=136 |issue=5378 |pages=121–122 |jstor=41374508 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41374508 |issn=0958-0433|url-access=subscription}} At the time, Elizabeth King, the wife of Robert Moss King, district collector of Meerut, visited Growse in Bulandshahr and noted some detail of the reredos production in her memoirs, The Diary of a Civilian's Wife in India 1877-1882.{{cite book |last1=King |first1=Augusta Moss |title=The diary of a civilian's wife in India, 1887-1882 |date=1884 |page=122 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lREIAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA122 |language=en}}{{efn|Elizabeth Augusta Moss King accompanied her husband to India, and on their second tour wrote diaries published in two volumes in 1884.{{cite web |title=Robert Moss King 1832-1903 |url=http://www.natgould.org/robert_moss_king_1832-1903 |website=www.natgould.org |access-date=13 March 2023}}}}

At Bulandshahr between 1878 and 1884 Growse caused a number of buildings to be constructed using native designs and craftsmen which he saw as more in keeping with his "Gothic principles" than the utilitarian colonial buildings preferred by the Public Works Department (PWD).Stamp, Gavin. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/41373304 "British Architecture in India 1857–1947"], Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol. 129, No. 5298 (May 1981), pp. 357–379. {{subscription required}} In 1979 he received the CIE. According to Gavin Stamp, Growse so irritated the PWD that they had him moved to another district.{{cite book |last1=Mayer |first1=Roberta A. |last2=Forest |first2=Lockwood De |title=Lockwood de Forest: Furnishing the Gilded Age with a Passion for India |date=2010 |publisher=Associated University Presse |location=Newark |isbn=978-0-87413-973-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Hx5tDzcwnqcC&dq=bulandshahr&pg=PA83 |language=en|page=83}} In May 1884, at a meeting of the Royal Society of Arts, Purdon Clarke, keeper of Indian art at the South Kensington museum, was one of the first to commend the work of Growse in Bulandshahr, crediting particularly his efforts on the Bulandshahr Chowk.{{cite book |last1=Tillotson |first1=G. H. R. (Giles Henry Rupert) |title=The tradition of Indian architecture : continuity, controversy, and change since 1850 |date=1989 |publisher=New Haven : Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-04636-6 |pages=84–99 |url=https://archive.org/details/traditionofindia0000till/page/84/mode/2up?q=bulandshahr}} He encouraged and assisted in the construction of the Bathing Ghat, Garden Gate and the Town Hall.{{cite journal |title=Bulandshahr |journal=The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science, Art, and Finance |date=4 April 1885 |volume=59 |issue=1,536 |pages=457–458 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YmEwAQAAMAAJ&dq=moti+bagh+bulandshahr&pg=PA458 |publisher=Saturday Review, Limited |language=en}} He was one of a few self-professed historians who held the view that Indian architecture was produced through patronage, and achieved by trust rather than written contracts.{{cite book |last1=Glover |first1=William |editor1-last=Rajagopalan |editor1-first=Mrinalini |editor2-last=Desai |editor2-first=Madhuri Shrikant |title=Colonial Frames, Nationalist Histories: Imperial Legacies, Architecture and Modernity |date=2012 |publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. |location=Farnham, Surrey |isbn=978-0-7546-7880-9 |pages=31–34 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ABPPHmBhr18C&dq=growse&pg=PR31 |language=en |chapter=1. Making Indian modern architects}} His work was praised by John Lockwood Kipling in The Journal of Indian Art (1884).{{cite book |last1=Swallow |first1=Deborah |editor1-last=Barringer |editor1-first=Tim |editor2-last=Flynn |editor2-first=Tom |title=Colonialism and the Object: Empire, Material Culture and the Museum |date=2008 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-10687-4 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JBKBgC-Y9WkC&pg=PA58 |language=en |chapter=5. Colonial architecture, international exhibitions and official patronage of the Indian artisan: A case of a gateway from Gwalior in the Victoria and Albert museum}}

File:Bathing ghat Bulandshahr 1880.png|Bathing ghat Bulandshahr 1880

File:Town Hall Bulandshahr. North Verandah. Photograph by Chunni Lál.jpg|Town Hall

File:Garden Gate, Bulandshahr (1880s).jpg|Garden Gate

=Later=

Growse was district magistrate and collector at Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh, from 1885 to 1886 where he produced a supplement to the Fatehpur Gazetteer, paying particular attention to architecture and archaeology which had been largely ignored by the author of the original gazetteer in 1884 who Growse thought had probably not visited any of the places about which he had written, relying instead on native informants who were not equipped to comment on such matters.[https://archive.org/details/supplementtofact00growrich/page/n5/mode/2up "Preface"] in F. S. Growse. (1887) A Supplement to the Fatehpur Gazetteer. Allahabad: Government Press. pp. 1–3 (p. 1).

He donated a collection of Indian pottery to the British Museum in 1882.{{cite web |title=Frederic Salmon Growse|url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG10266 |website=www.britishmuseum.org |access-date=13 April 2021}}

Writing

File:The Rámáyana of Tulsi Dás.djvu

In 1868 at Mainpur, Growse produced an article on the Prithviraj Raso, a poem about the 12th-century Hindu Emperor, Prithviraj Chauhan.{{Citation|title=Validating Pṛthvīrāj Rāso in colonial India, 1820s–1870s|date=2015|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/last-hindu-emperor/validating-prthviraj-raso-in-colonial-india-1820s1870s/990D880379981B38AC277B561F52A60A|work=The Last Hindu Emperor: Prithviraj Chauhan and the Indian Past, 1200–2000|pages=183–218|editor-last=Talbot|editor-first=Cynthia|place=Cambridge|publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/CBO9781316339893.007 |isbn=978-1-107-11856-0|access-date=19 April 2021|url-access=subscription}}

In 1874, six years after the first local text on the subject was published, the government press at Allahabad published his enlarged version in a book titled Mathura: A District memoir with illustrations by the Autotype Fine Art Company.{{cite book|last=Bayly|first=Christopher Alan |title=Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780–1870|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8bqEzPPp8xIC|year=1999|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=0-521-57085-9|page=356}} In it he included early Buddhist archeology, and chapters on Hindu sects and the origin of place names.

In Mathura, he became intrigued by the popularity among its ordinary people of the Ramayana of Tulsidas.{{cite book|last1=Burger|first1=Maya |last2=Pozza|first2=Nicola|title=India in Translation Through Hindi Literature: A Plurality of Voices|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=obTJsLl_YTQC&pg=PA164|volume=2|year=2010|publisher=Peter Lang|location=Bern|language=English|isbn=978-3-0343-0564-8|pages=164–180}} In 1876 he published his translation into English of the original text by Tulsidas. Growse published a revised version in 1880 as a four-volume second edition and published a full version in 1883.{{cite web |title=The Ramayana of Tulsi Das. Tulsi Das; Frederic Salmon Growse, translator |url=https://www.booksofasia.com/stock_detail.php?stockid=116347 |website=www.booksofasia.com |access-date=19 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210419163957/https://www.booksofasia.com/stock_detail.php?stockid=116347 |archive-date=19 April 2021}} It was the first illustrated version of the complete English translation of the Ramcharitmanas, which he completed in Bulandshahr. He writes in the introduction that the epic Sanskrit Ramayana of Valmiki had been translated into several languages including English, but the more popular Hindi version, a retelling of Rama's life, titled Ramcharitmanas by Tulsidas, previously had not been translated into English.

In 1884 he published Bulandshahr; or, Sketches of an Indian district; social, historical and architectural. His obituary in the journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland describes this work as "chiefly interesting as showing how he was able to transfer his sympathies from a Hindu to a Musulman population, when the requirements of a bureaucratic regime compelled his removal".

Later life

Due to ill-health, Growse retired to England in 1890, where he lived at Thursley Hall, Haslemere, and was active in the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and Natural History.[https://archive.org/details/proceedingssuff01histgoog/page/n26/mode/2up "List of Members, 1892"], Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and Natural History, Vol. VIII (1894), Part I, pp. iii–ix (p. v.) He updated and revised their volume of materials on the history of the Suffolk parish of Bildeston in 1891 which was published in 1892.[https://heritage.suffolk.gov.uk/media/pdfs/bildeston.pdf "Parish: Bildeston otherwise Bilston"]. p.7

Death and legacy

File:Growse memorial St Mary's Church Bildeston.jpg

Growse died from tuberculosis at Haslemere, Surrey, on 19 May 1893. Probate was granted to Lydia Catherine Growse on an estate of £5,224.[https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/Calendar/GetImgSrc?filePath=%2F1893%2FG%2F000905_groves_1893.Png 1893 Probate Calendar.] p. 256. Growseganj Gate, one of Bulandshahr's four gates is named for him.[https://censusindia.gov.in/2011census/dchb/DCHB_A/09/0911_PART_A_DCHB_BULANDSHAHR.pdf "Census of India 2011: Bulandshahr village and town directory"]. Series 10, PART XII-A.{{cite book |last1=Nevill |first1=H. R. |title=District Gazetteers Of The United Provinces Of Agra And Oudh Bulandshar Vol-V |date=1922 |publisher=Government Branch Press |location=Lucknow |pages=204–208|url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.1369/page/n217/mode/2up?q=Growseganj+}}

In 2014, a seminar was given at the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library titled "Familiarity with the Familiar: Frederick Salmon Growse's Fragmentary Visions of the Architecture of Bulandshahr, 1878–1886".[https://www.indiaculture.nic.in/sites/default/files/Annual_Reports_Organizations/AnnualReportEnglishNehruMemorialMuseumandLibrary_2014-2015_05.04.2018.pdf 49th Annual Report 2014-2015]. Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, 2015. p. 28.

Notes

Selected publications

=Articles=

[https://archive.org/details/journalofasiatic48asia/page/270/mode/2up "Bulandshahr Antiquities"], Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. 48 (1879), No. 4, pp. 270–276.
[https://gbr01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fumedia.lib.umn.edu%2Fitem%2Fp16022coll189%3A1500%2Fp16022coll189%3A1438%3Fchild_index%3D118%26q%3D%2522Journal%2520of%2520Indian%2520Art%2522%26query%3D%26sidebar_page%3D40%26sort%3Ddate_created_sort%2520asc%252C%2520title_sort%2520asc&data=05%7C01%7Canjna.harrar%40nhs.net%7Cc2057340c419498f2b4f08db2065fc07%7C37c354b285b047f5b22207b48d774ee3%7C0%7C0%7C638139394604140068%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=rq6Hkdko%2B9bR%2BPi76GvfEiM%2BurX8Xbpu67UQDJQteRw%3D&reserved=0 “The Art of 'Tar-Kashi' or Wire- Inlay”]. Journal of Indian Art and Industry, no. 22, (1888): 51- 56.

=Books=

[https://archive.org/details/mathurdistrict00growrich Mathurá: A district memoir]. Allahabad: North-western Provinces and Oudh Government Press, 1874.
The Rámáyana of Tulsi Dás, Book 1. Childhood. Allahabad: North-western Provinces and Oudh Government Press, 1876.
[https://archive.org/details/rmyanatulsids04growgoog/page/n3/mode/2up The Rámáyana of Tulsi Dás, Book 1. Childhood]. Allahabad: North-western Provinces and Oudh Government Press, 1880.
[https://archive.org/details/rmyanatulsids05growgoog The Rámáyana of Tulsi Dás. Part III-VI]. Allahabad: North-western Provinces and Oudh Government Press, 1880.
[https://archive.org/details/rmyanatulsids05growgoog The Rámáyana of Tulsi Dás]. Allahabad: North-western Provinces and Oudh Government Press, 1883.
[https://archive.org/details/bulandshahrorsk00growgoog/page/n8 Bulandshahr; or, Sketches of an Indian district; social, historical and architectural]. Benares: Medical Hall Press, 1884.
Indian Architecture of To-day as Exemplified in New Buildings in the Bulandshahr District Part I. North-Western Provinces and Oudh Government Press, 1885. Part II. Benares: Medical Hall Press, 1886.
[https://archive.org/details/supplementtofact00growrich/page/n3/mode/2up A Supplement to the Fatehpur Gazetteer]. Allahabad: Government Press, 1887.
Materials for a History of the Parish of Bildeston, in the County of Suffolk. With pedigrees and genealogical notices ... Compiled in the year 1859, revised and brought up to date in 1891, by F. S. Growse. London: Mitchell & Hughes, 1892.

References

External links

[https://bulandshahrlegacy.org/2021/07/23/frederic-salmon-growse-the-man-that-built-bulandshahr-in-the-19th-century/ Frederic Salmon Growse: The Man that built Bulandshahr in the 19th Century]
{{cite web |title=John Growse grave monument details at St Mary Magdalene Church burial ground, Bildeston, Suffolk,England |url=https://www.gravestonephotos.com/public/gravedetails.php?grave=603728 |website=www.gravestonephotos.com}}

Category:1836 births

Category:1893 deaths

Category:19th-century British civil servants

Category:Tuberculosis deaths in England

Category:Indian Civil Service (British India) officers

Category:Companions of the Order of the Indian Empire

Category:Indologists

Category:Alumni of the Queen's College, Oxford

Category:People from Suffolk

Category:English collectors

Category:English Roman Catholics

Category:English non-fiction writers