Francis Henry Skrine Explained

Francis Henry Bennett Skrine (1847–1933) was an English traveller, orientalist and official in British India.

Life

He was the son of the Rev. Clarmont Skrine of Warleigh Lodge, Wimbledon, previously an army officer, and his wife Mary Anne Auchmuty Bennett, daughter of Major Charles Butson Bennett.^[1] He was educated at Blackheath School and entered the Indian Civil Service in 1868.^[2]

In 1870 Skrine was appointed assistant magistrate and collector in Nadia district.^[3] He worked on famine relief in Bihar during 1874, and in Madras in 1877–8. He was officiating commissioner of Bhagalpur in 1893–4.^[4] He became collector of customs at Calcutta in 1895, and commissioner of Chittagong division, retiring in 1897.^[2]

Subsequently Skrine travelled in Central Asia.^[5]

Works

• Memorandum on the Material Condition of the Lower Orders in Bengal During the Ten Years from 1881–82 to 1891–92 (1892), an investigation covering the condition of agricultural workers.^[6] In 1891 Skrine had compiled a census report for Shahabad district.^[7]
• Laborious Days: Leaves from the Indian Record of Sir Charles Alfred Elliott (1892)^[8]
• An Indian Journalist: being the life, letters and correspondence of Dr. Sambhu C. Mookerjee, late editor of "Reis and rayyet" Calcutta (1895)^[2]
• The Life of Sir William Wilson Hunter, K.C.S.I (1901),^[2] on William Wilson Hunter, an authorised biography.^{[9] [10]}
• The Heart of Asia: a History of Russian Turkestan and the Central Asian Khanates (1899) with Denison Ross^[11] Annette Meakin questioned some of the reporting of this book on Central Asian women.^[12]
• The Expansion of Russia, 1815–1900 (1904)^[13]
• Fontenoy and Great Britain's Share in the War of the Austrian Succession, 1741–48 (1906)^[14]
• Bahaism, the religion of brotherhood and its place in the evolution of creeds (1912)^[15]
• Gossip about Dr Johnson and Others being Characters from the Memoirs of Miss Laetitia Matilda Hawkins (1926),^[16] from Laetitia Matilda Hawkins.^[17]

Family

Skrine married Helen Lucy Stewart, and was the father of Clarmont Percival Skrine.^[18]

Notes and References

1. Book: Fox-Davies, Arthur Charles. Armorial Families. 5th. 1905. T. C. & E. C. Jack. Edinburgh. 1242.
2. Book: Dictionary of Indian Biography. Ardent Media. 392–. GGKEY:BDL52T227UN. 1971.
3. Book: Major General H. G. Hart. The New Army List, Militia List and Indian Civil Service List. 1876. 481.
4. Book: Great Britain. India Office. The India List and India Office List for .... 1819. Harrison and Sons. 614.
5. [s:The Indian Biographical Dictionary (1915)/Skrine, Francis Henry]
6. Book: Bindeshwar Ram. Land and Society in India: Agrarian Relations in Colonial North Bihar. 1 January 1997. Orient Blackswan. 978-81-250-0643-5. 179.
7. Book: Peter Gottschalk. Religion, Science, and Empire: Classifying Hinduism and Islam in British India. 2013. OUP USA. 978-0-19-539301-9. 224.
8. Book: Francis Henry Skrine. Laborious Days: Leaves from the Indian Record of Sir Charles Alfred Elliott. 1892. J. Larkins.
9. Hunter, William Wilson. 3.
10. Review of Life of Sir W. W. Hunter by F. H. Skrine. Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art. 1 March 1902. 93. 2418. 266–267.
11. Book: Ghani. Iran & The West. 5 September 2013. Routledge. 978-1-136-14458-5. 344.
12. Book: Nile Green. Writing Travel in Central Asian History. 2 January 2014. Indiana University Press. 978-0-253-01148-0. 197.
13. Book: Francis Henry Skrine. The Expansion of Russia, 1815–1900. 1904. University Press.
14. Book: Ira D. Gruber. Books and the British Army in the Age of the American Revolution. 25 October 2010. Univ of North Carolina Press. 978-0-8078-9940-3. 318.
15. Book: Catalog of copyright entries: Books. Part, group 1. 1912. Library of Congress, Copyright Office.. 310.
16. Book: Ian Bartlett. Robert J. Bruce. William Boyce: A Tercentenary Sourcebook and Compendium. 18 January 2011. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 978-1-4438-2807-9. 319.
17. Book: Pat Rogers. The Samuel Johnson Encyclopedia. 1996. Greenwood Publishing Group. 978-0-313-29411-2. 176.
18. Book: John F. Riddick. Who was who in British India. 1 January 1998. Greenwood Press. 978-0-313-29232-3. 333.