James Thomason
{{Short description|British administrator and civil servant}}
{{About|the East India Company civil servant|the American football player|Jim Thomason}}
{{Infobox officeholder
|honorific_prefix =
|name = James Thomason
|honorific_suffix =
|image = James Thomason.png
|caption =
|birth_date = {{Birth date|1804|5|3|df=yes}}
|birth_place = Great Shelford, England, United Kingdom
|death_date = {{Death date and age|1853|9|27|1804|5|3|df=yes}}
|death_place = Bareilly, United Provinces of Agra and Oudh
|order1 = Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces
|term_start1 = 22 December 1843
|term_end1 = 10 October 1853
|governor_general1= The Lord Ellenborough
The Viscount Hardinge
The Marquess of Dalhousie
|predecessor1 = Sir George Russell Clerk
|successor1 = John Russell Colvin
|awards =
|alma_mater = East India Company College
}}
James Thomason (3 May 1804 – 17 September 1853) was a British administrator of the East India Company and Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces between 1843 and 1853.
Early life
The son of Thomas Truebody Thomason, a British cleric in Bengal from 1808, and his first wife Elizabeth Fawcett, he was born on 3 May 1804 in Little Shelford. He was educated in England from 1814, at Aspenden Hall School, Hertfordshire, where he knew Thomas Babington Macaulay, living with his paternal grandmother Mrs Dornford, and Charles Simeon.{{cite ODNB|id=27251|title=Thomason, James|first=David J.|last=Howlett}} Simeon, in Cambridge, his godfather and effective guardian, gave him a great deal of attention.{{cite book |last1=Hopkins |first1=Hugh Evan |title=Charles Simeon of Cambridge |date=2012 |publisher=Wipf and Stock Publishers |isbn=978-1-61097-813-2 |page=169 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wkdNAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA169 |language=en}}
In 1818 Thomason became a pupil in 1819 at Stanstead Park, near Racton in Sussex, of George Hodson, who was tutoring Albert Way, son of Lewis Way in what became a small class of six boys that included Samuel Wilberforce.{{cite book |last1=Newsome |first1=David |title=The Parting of Friends: The Wilberforces and Henry Manning |date=1993 |publisher=Gracewing Publishing |isbn=978-0-8028-3714-1 |page=40 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WTT34mhMtC8C&pg=PA40 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Meacham |first1=Standish |title=Lord Bishop: The Life of Samuel Wilberforce, 1805–1873 |url=https://archive.org/details/lordbishoplifeof0000meac |url-access=registration |date=1970 |publisher=Harvard University Press |page=[https://archive.org/details/lordbishoplifeof0000meac/page/8 8] |isbn=9780674539136 |language=en}} He moved on to Haileybury College.
Career in India
James Thomason returned to India in 1822. He held numerous positions there, including magistrate-collector, settlement officer in Azamgarh (1832–37), and foreign secretary to the government of India (1842–43). In 1843 he was named Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces, a post he held for ten years. By 1853 he had also established a system of 897 locally supported elementary schools in centrally located villages that provided a vernacular education for children throughout the region. He was appointed as governor of Madras by Queen Victoria, but did not survive to assume the post.{{cite encyclopedia|title=James Thomason biography – British colonial governor | encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica|url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/592913/James-Thomason|publisher=Britannica Online|accessdate=1 March 2015}} He died on 27 September 1853, at Bareilly, India, where he was staying with Maynie Hay, his married daughter.
Legacy
File:ThomasonCollegeOfEngineeringRoorkeeEst1847.jpg in 2001.]]
James Thomason proposed that a civil engineering college be established at Roorkee. In 1847, the first civil engineering college in India begun in part to train engineers for the Ganges Canal was opened and named the Thomason College of Civil Engineering in Thomason's memory by Proby Cautley, the designer of the canal. It gained university status in 1949{{Cite web|url=http://www.iitr.ac.in/institute/pages/History.html|title = History, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee}} It is now the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee.
References
{{Reflist}}
Further reading
- {{cite book|title=The India List and India Office List|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_3VQTAAAAYAAJ|year=1819|publisher=Harrison}}
- {{cite book|author=Richard Temple|author-link=Sir Richard Temple, 1st Baronet|title=James Thomason — Lieutenant-Governor|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZbtlywslQ6kC|date=February 2006|publisher=Read Books|series=Rulers of India series|isbn=978-1-84664-413-9}}
{{s-start}}
{{s-gov}}
{{succession box | title=Lieutenant Governor of North-Western Provinces | before=Sir G. R. Clerk | after=A. W. Begbie
(acting) | years=22 December 1843 – 10 October 1853}}
{{s-end}}
{{Authority control}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2017}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomason, James}}
Category:British East India Company civil servants
Category:Members of the Council of India
Category:Lieutenant-governors of the North-Western Provinces