![Castesandtribes](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Castesandtribes.jpg)
Edgar Thurston
CIE (1855– 12 October 1935) was the British Superintendent at the
Madras Government Museum from 1885 to 1908 who contributed to research studies in the fields of
zoology
Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, an ...
,
ethnology
Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology). ...
and
botany
Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...
of India, and later also published his works at the museum. Thurston was educated in medicine and lectured in
anatomy
Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having i ...
at the
Madras Medical College while simultaneously holding a senior position at the museum. His early works were on
numismatics
Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, medals and related objects.
Specialists, known as numismatists, are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, but the discipline also inc ...
and geology, and these were later followed by researches in
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...
and
ethnography
Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject ...
. He succeeded Frederick S. Mullaly as the Superintendent of Ethnography for the
Madras Presidency
The Madras Presidency, or the Presidency of Fort St. George, also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision (presidency) of British India. At its greatest extent, the presidency included most of southern India, including the ...
.
Early life
Edgar Thurston was the son of Charles Bosworth Thurston of
Kew, London. Schooled at
Eton College
Eton College () is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI of England, Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. i ...
, he then studied medicine at
King's College, London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King G ...
, qualifying as
LRCP in 1877. He worked as a medical officer in
Kent County Lunatic Asylum and became a curator of the museum at King's College before joining the Madras Museum in 1885 as a superintendent.
Ethnography and geography
Whereas early European ideas on
phrenology
Phrenology () is a pseudoscience which involves the measurement of bumps on the skull to predict mental traits.Wihe, J. V. (2002). "Science and Pseudoscience: A Primer in Critical Thinking." In ''Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience'', pp. 195–203. C ...
were applied to identify mental traits of individuals, advocates of
scientific racism
Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscience, pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.. "Few tragedies ...
used what they considered to be more refined
anthropometric measurements to identify
castes. Thurston was one such person. He believed that intelligence was inversely proportional to the breadth of the nose and claimed that he scrutinised this as well as handwriting when recruiting clerks in his office. He gave lectures to the students of the Madras University and sometimes to the Madras Police on practical anthropology during the 1890s, and he trained the Madras Police in the use of anthropometry for criminal identification. The
Bertillon system
The history of anthropometry includes its use as an early tool of anthropology, use for identification, use for the purposes of understanding human physical variation in paleoanthropology and in various attempts to correlate physical with racial ...
had already been incorporated in the
Bengal
Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...
and Madras Police departments by the 1890s and Thurston's training was intended to help the police identify membership of what were then termed as "
criminal castes".
In 1901, Thurston was appointed to the Ethnographic Survey of India project, established at that time following the success of
Herbert Hope Risley
Sir Herbert Hope Risley (4 January 1851 – 30 September 1911) was a British ethnographer and colonial administrator, a member of the Indian Civil Service who conducted extensive studies on the tribes and castes of the Bengal Presidency ...
's Ethnographic Survey of Bengal.
Risley was an adherent to the theories of scientific racism and had been appointed as director of Ethnology in India. Thurston worked as a part of this project to collect accurate anthropometric measurements. These included a number of measurements of the skull and derived indices or proportions such as the
nasal index.
He did this work alongside his role as superintendent of the Madras Museum, a position that he did not leave until 1908.
Among other published works, Thurston wrote the seven volumes of ''
Castes and Tribes of Southern India
''Castes and Tribes of Southern India'' is a seven-volume encyclopedia of social groups of Madras Presidency and the princely states of Travancore, Mysore, Coorg and Pudukkottai published by British museologist Edgar Thurston and K. Rangachari i ...
'', published in 1909 as part of the Ethnographic Survey of India. In that work he was assisted by
K. Rangachari, a colleague from the Madras museum who had also assisted him in a 1906 ethnographic study, ''Ethnographic Notes in Southern India''. Rangachari had supplied most of the forty photographs used in this earlier study.
[ The September 1910 edition of '']Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...
'' described the 1909 publication as
Thurston also authored ''The Madras Presidency, with Mysore Coorg, and the associated States'', being the third volume of the four-volume series "Provincial Geographies of India
The ''Provincial Geographies of India'' was a four-volume book series which was published between 1913-23 by the Cambridge University Press under the editorship of Thomas Henry Holland
Sir Thomas Henry Holland (22 November 1868 – 15 ...
" which was published between 1913–23 by the Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press
A university press is an academic publishing hou ...
under the editorship of Thomas Henry Holland
Sir Thomas Henry Holland (22 November 1868 – 15 May 1947) was a British geologist who worked in India with the Geological Survey of India, serving as its director from 1903 to 1910. He later worked as an educational administrator at Edi ...
which included physical information and ethnographic notes.
Botany and zoology
Thurston made numerous collections of plant and animals specimens, many of which were sent to the British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
. In the late 1880s he was involved in studies on pearl fishing in the Gulf of Mannar. On a visit to Europe he sought to find electric lights that would work at a depth of 20 fathoms so as to assist in pearl harvesting. Some species have been named after him, including the marine organisms '' Manaria thurstoni'' (E.A. Smith, 1906), '' Sepia thurstoni'' (W. Adam & W. J. Rees, 1966), '' Mobula thurstoni'' (Lloyd, 1908), and '' Ecteinascidia thurstoni'' (Herdman, 1890). Also, a species of Indian snake, '' Gerrhopilus thurstoni'' ( Boettger, 1890), is named in his honor.
Museum and art
Aside from his role at the Madras Museum, Thurston was for some time Honorary Secretary to the now-defunct Fine Arts Society of Madras and was influential in promoting the artistic works of Raja Ravi Varma
Raja Ravi Varma ( ml, രാജാ രവിവർമ്മ; 29 April 1848 – 2 October 1906) was an Indian painter and artist. He is considered among the greatest painters in the history of Indian art. His works are one of the best examples ...
and his brother C. Raja Raja Varma
C. Raja Raja Varma was an Indian painter and the youngest brother of the painter Raja Ravi Varma. He was known as a plein-air artist. He acted as assistant, secretary, and business manager to his brother.
Life
Varma was also an English langua ...
.
Later life
Thurston was awarded the Kaisar-i-Hind Medal
The Kaisar-i-Hind Medal for Public Service in India was a medal awarded by the Emperor/Empress of India between 1900 and 1947, to "any person without distinction of race, occupation, position, or sex ... who shall have distinguished himself (o ...
, first class, on 26 June 1902. He was made C.I.E. in 1909. He retired to England and spent his winters at Penzance
Penzance ( ; kw, Pennsans) is a town, civil parish and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is about west-southwest of Plymouth and west-southwest of London. Situated ...
where he studied the local plants and regularly hosted a New Year party for the local botanists. He died on 12 October 1935 at Penzance.
Works
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See also
*Robert Vane Russell
Robert Vane Russell (8 August 1873 – 30 December 1915) was a British civil servant, known for his role as Superintendent of Ethnography for what was then the Central Provinces of British India, coordinating the production of publications deta ...
Notes
Further reading
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External links
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Works on Google Books
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thurston, Edgar
1855 births
1935 deaths
British Indologists
Companions of the Order of the Indian Empire
Recipients of the Kaisar-i-Hind Medal
British male writers
Alumni of King's College London
People educated at Eton College