Lieutenant-Colonel Aubrey John "A.J." O'Brien (5 December 1870 – 31 August 1930) was an officer in the

British Indian Army The British Indian Army, commonly referred to as the Indian Army, was the main military of the British Raj before its dissolution in 1947. It was responsible for the defence of the British Indian Empire, including the princely states, which co ...

and a writer on India.''Who Was Who 1929-1940'' (published 1941)

Education

O'Brien's father was Edward O'Brien of the

Bengal Civil Service The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 300 million p ...

. Aubrey O'Brien was educated at Dover College and at Sandhurst.

Military career

He served three and a half years in the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, and one and a half years in the 110th Maratha Light Infantry before spending 29 years in the Punjab Commission.

Judicial career

He also remained the district judge as a Lieutenant at

Bannu Bannu ( ps, بنو, translit=banū ; ur, , translit=bannū̃, ) is a city located on the Kurram River in southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It is the capital of Bannu Division. Bannu's residents are primarily members of the Banuchi tribe ...

(then part of British India, now in Pakistan). On 9 November 1901 he was promoted to the rank of captain and appointed as the 1st Deputy Commissioner of the newly formed Mianwali District (then part of British India, now in Pakistan). He served Mianwali not once but three times, the second time in 1906 and the third time in 1914. However he was promoted to the rank of major during his third tenure at Mianwali.

Awards and honours

O'Brien was made CIE in 1906 and CBE in 1919.

Death

He died in

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...

, aged 59, from undisclosed causes and Obituary, ''The Times'', 2 September 1930 was interred at Brompton Cemetery, London.

Selected works

*''Female infanticide in the Punjab'', Folklore 19:3 (1908), pp. 261–75 *''Mianwali Folklore Notes'', Folklore 22:1 (1911), pp. 73–77 *''The Mohammedan Saints of the Western Punjab'', ''The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland'' 41 (1911), pp. 509–520 (with Reginald Bolster) *''Cupid and Cartridges (Sketches of Sport in the Punjab)'', 1911 (with Reginald Bolster) *''Bahawalpur: Transformation of an Indian State'', '' The Times'', 4 November 1926

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Obrien, Aubrey J. 1870 births 1930 deaths British Indian Army officers British non-fiction writers Burials at Brompton Cemetery Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Companions of the Order of the Indian Empire Loyal Regiment officers Mianwali District Military personnel from Kensington British male writers Male non-fiction writers Writers in British India British people in colonial India