George Edward Lynch Cotton, Bishop of Calcutta (29 October 1813 – 6 October 1866) was an English educator and clergyman, known for his connections with
British India
The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
and the
public school system.
Life in England
He was born at
Chester
Chester is a cathedral city and the county town of Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Dee, close to the English–Welsh border. With a population of 79,645 in 2011,"2011 Census results: People and Population Profile: Chester Loca ...
, a grandson of the late
George Cotton,
Dean of Chester
The Dean of Chester is based at Chester Cathedral in the Diocese of Chester and is the head of the Chapter at the cathedral.
List of deans
Early modern
*1541 Thomas Clerk (first Dean of Chester)
*1541–1547 Henry Man (afterwards Bishop of S ...
.
His father, Thomas George D'Avenant Cotton -- born in
Acton, Cheshire, England on 28 June 1783 to George and Catherine Maria ( Tomkinson) Cotton -- was a
captain
Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...
in the
Royal Fusiliers and died in the
Peninsular War in 1813 at the
Battle of Nivelle
The Battle of Nivelle (10 November 1813) took place in front of the river Nivelle near the end of the Peninsular War (1808–1814). After the Allied siege of San Sebastian, Wellington's 80,000 British, Portuguese and Spanish troops (20, ...
, two weeks after George's birth.
He received his education at
The King's School, Chester
The King's School, Chester, is a British co-educational independent day school for children aged 4 to 18. It is one of the seven 'King's Schools' established (or re-endowed and renamed) by King Henry VIII in 1541 after the Dissolution of t ...
,
Westminster School, and at
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...
. Here he joined the
Low Church party, and was a close friend of several disciples of
Thomas Arnold, including
CJ Vaughan and
WJ Conybeare. Arnold's influence determined the character and course of Cotton's life.
He graduated BA in 1836, and became an assistant master at
Rugby School
Rugby School is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) in Rugby, Warwickshire, England.
Founded in 1567 as a free grammar school for local boys, it is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain. ...
. He became master of the fifth form in about 1840. In 1852 he accepted the appointment of headmaster at
Marlborough College, reviving its financial, educational and reputational status.
Both Rugby School and Marlborough College
boarding houses were subsequently named after him.
Cotton married his cousin, Sophia Ann Tomkinson, daughter of Rev. Henry Tomkinson and niece of
T. J. Phillips Jodrell, on 26 June 1845. They had two children; a son,
Edward Cotton-Jodrell
Sir Edward Thomas Davenant Cotton-Jodrell (29 June 1847 – 13 October 1917), known until 1890 as Edward Thomas Davenant Cotton, was a British Army officer and Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1885 to 1900.
Early li ...
(later MP for Wirral) and a daughter, Ursula Mary, who also married within the clergy.
Burke's Landed Gentry
''Burke's Landed Gentry'' (originally titled ''Burke's Commoners'') is a reference work listing families in Great Britain and Ireland who have owned rural estates of some size. The work has been in existence from the first half of the 19th cent ...
: Burke's Landed Gentry
''Burke's Landed Gentry'' (originally titled ''Burke's Commoners'') is a reference work listing families in Great Britain and Ireland who have owned rural estates of some size. The work has been in existence from the first half of the 19th cent ...
:
India
In 1858 Cotton was offered the office of the
Bishop of Calcutta, which, after much hesitation, he accepted. The government of
India had just been transferred from the
British East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...
to the crown, and questions of education were eagerly discussed, following
Macaulay's famous ''Minute on Indian Education''.
Cotton established schools for British and Eurasian children including the
Bishop Cotton School Shimla. The
Bishop Cotton Boys' School
Bishop Cotton Boys' School is an all-boys school for boarders and day scholars in Bangalore, India, founded in the memory of Bishop George Edward Lynch Cotton, Bishop of Calcutta. The school has been described as "The Eton of the East".
Th ...
and
Bishop Cotton Girls' School in Bangalore were established in his memory. The Bishop Cotton School in Nagpur also bears his name. He founded many other schools in India, including
St. James' School in Calcutta, and
Cathedral and John Connon in
Bombay
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...
.
As the senior Anglican prelate in India, he also consecrated a number of new churches throughout the subcontinent, including
St. Luke's Church, Abbottabad
St Luke's Church, Abbottabad is an Anglican church dedicated to Saint Luke, now under the jurisdiction of the Peshawar Diocese of the Church of Pakistan. It was founded in the town of Abbottabad, British India, in 1864.
History
The work on ...
, and others on what then used to be the
Punjab Province and later became the
North West Frontier Province
The North-West Frontier Province (NWFP; ps, شمال لویدیځ سرحدي ولایت, ) was a Chief Commissioner's Province of British India, established on 9 November 1901 from the north-western districts of the Punjab Province. Followin ...
.
A memoir of his life with selections from his journals and correspondence, edited by his widow, was published in 1871.
Death
On 6 October 1866, he had consecrated a cemetery at
Kushtia on the
Ganges in the then
Bengal Presidency
The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William and later Bengal Province, was a subdivision of the British Empire in India. At the height of its territorial jurisdiction, it covered large parts of what is now South Asia and ...
, and was crossing a plank leading from the bank to the steamer when he slipped and fell into the river
Gorai. He was carried away by the current and never seen again.
The phrase "to bless one's cotton socks" is traceable to Cotton's death. While Bishop of Calcutta, Cotton ensured that children in his schools had socks to wear, and he blessed the socks upon their arrival, as he did other goods. Over time, "Cotton's socks" became "Cotton socks". Upon his sudden death, the Archbishop was asked, "Who will bless his cotton socks".
Bibliography
*
References
Attribution:
*
External links
Bibliographic directoryfrom
Project Canterbury Project Canterbury (sometimes abbreviated as PC) is an online archive of material related to the history of Anglicanism. It was founded by Richard Mammana, Jr. in 1999 with a grant from Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, and is ho ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cotton, George Edward Lynch
1813 births
1866 deaths
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
People educated at Westminster School, London
Founders of Indian schools and colleges
Deaths by drowning in India
People educated at The King's School, Chester
Anglican bishops of Calcutta
Masters of Marlborough College
Anglican bishops of West Malaysia