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The model English Civilian
DESPITE MY many interests, it's those in search of old British roots who gravitate towards me even in the most unlikely of groups. As one Canadian did from among the Elderhostelers. She narrated to me the tales she'd been handed down over the last 70- plus years, and wanted to know whether they were true. Having had no contact with either Gujarat or Bengal, I could not confirm anything, but wonder whether any reader could add to these plain tales from another era.
John Beames was the great-grandfather of the seeker-after- the-truth. A John Company Civilian who had served in Gujarat and Bengal on both sides of the 1850s, he was an outstanding administrator and scholar who was apparently at one point in time judged by his peers to have been the best Civilian to have served in India. He wrote The Memoirs of a Bengali Civilian, compiled a Bengali-English dictionary, and his A Comparative Grammar of the Indo-Aryan Language is said to be a classic still referred to by linguists.
His son, David Beames, my questioner's grandfather, joined the Bengal Army and acquired the reputation of being a rather raffish rake. He wooed and won the heart of the daughter of the Governor-General, but apparently for some reason was packed off to Canada to begin life anew. It was he, his granddaughter told me, who was, ``we've been told'', the central figure in the short Rudyard Kipling novel about ``The Gadsbys''.
None of this has anything to do with Madras, but I wonder whether anyone here can provide my Canadian friend the confirmation she'd like to hear. I know there's at least one British genealogist around in Madras, and perhaps he may have some answers. There might also be a linguist or a Civilian interested in the past who might have an answer or two too.
S.MUTHIAH
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