Elgin, Lord

Elgin, Lord (1811-1863) Governor General and Viceroy of India from 1862 to 1863. Born on 20 July 1811, Lord Elgin was educated at Eton and Christ Church at Oxford. A contemporary and friend of his predecessors, dalhousie and canning, he had acquired vast experience in colonial administration as Governor of Jamaica from 1842 to 1846 and Governor General of Canada from 1846 to 1854.

Elgin';s career in India was cut short by his sudden death after only twenty months of office, mostly carrying on Canning';s work. He spent the summer of 1863 at Simla and died of heart disease at Darmashala while on tour in upper India and was buried there. The main event of his time was the Ambala campaign in the Northwest frontier to suppress a tribal insurrection there. [KM Mohsin]

[Mohsin, KM former Professor of History, Dhaka University]