Elliott Colvin (died 1883) should not be confused with Elliot Colvin (died 1940).
| Elliott Graham Colvin | |
| Birth Place: | Calcutta, British India |
| Birth Date: | 1836 |
| Death Date: | 3 November 1883 |
| Death Place: | Sahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India |
Elliott Graham Colvin (1836–1883) was a British Indian Civil Service (ICS) Officer. He served in Mathura and Meerut during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and later became Meerut's Commissioner.
After his death, a gate was erected in his memory in Bulandshahr on the instructions of Frederic Growse.
Elliott Colvin was born in 1836 in Calcutta, now Kolkata, to John Russell Colvin.[1] [2] His siblings included Auckland Colvin and Walter Colvin.[3] He was educated at Eton and Haileybury, England.[4] [5] In 1850 he became a naval cadet.[6]
On 18 September 1862 in Nainital, he married Edith, the eldest daughter of Peter Cunningham.[7] [8] The Times of India later noted that "he was peculiarly happy in his married life".[4] He learnt French, German and Russian, and was familiar with several Northern Indian dialects.[4]
Colvin returned to India in 1855 and was an assistant in the Agra division at the onset of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, during which he served at Mathura.[4] He fought at Hathras, Aligarh and the surrounding areas.[9] He also became well known at Budaun.[4] He spent a few months at Meerut before being appointed as superintendent of the Terai District towards Rohilkhand.[4] [10] In 1880 he was transferred to Benares.[2] Later, he became settlement officer, collector and commissioner back at Meerut.[4] There, he led the search for European graves and commissioned maintenance of the burial sites.[9]
At the age of 47, Colvin's health began to deteriorate.[4] He died of "inflammation of the lungs" on 3 November 1883 at Sahanpur, and his body was taken to Meerut.[4] [11] [12] He was buried at Meerut cemetery.[4] At Meerut, he was succeeded by Mr. Quinton, a member of the Viceregal Council.[13]
Following his death, a gate in his memory was constructed at a cost of 4,000 rupees at the east wall of Moti Bagh in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh, at the instruction of Frederic Growse.[14] Growse wrote in his 1884 book Bulandshahr; or, Sketches of an Indian district; social, historical and architectural that Colvin's "sudden untimely death, on the 3rd November 1883, was deeply felt by all classes of the community".[14] An illustration of the gate was planned for inclusion in the second part of Growse's Indian Architecture of To-day as Exemplified in New Buildings in the Bulandshahr District.[15]