Harold Littledale (3 October 1853 – 11 May 1930) was a professor of English who worked in India. He published commentaries on the works of

Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his ...

Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ' ...

and

Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poe ...

. He was also a naturalist who documented bird life mainly in western India.

Life and work

Littledale was born in

Rathgar Rathgar (), is a suburb of Dublin in Ireland. It was originally a village which from 1862 was part of the township of Rathmines and Rathgar; it was absorbed by the growing city and became a suburb in 1930. It lies about three kilometres south of ...

to Dublin solicitor William Francis Littledale and Jane Cross. Educated at

the Royal School, Armagh The Royal School, Armagh is a co-educational voluntary grammar school, founded in the 17th century, in the city of Armagh in Northern Ireland. It has a boarding department with an international intake. It is a member of the Headmasters' and Hea ...

and

Trinity College, Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

with a BA (1876) he went to India in 1879 where he served as a vice principal at

Baroda College The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, formerly Baroda College, is a public university in the city of Vadodara, in Gujarat state, India. Originally established as a college in 1881, it became a university in 1949 after the independence of ...

. He became a director of vernacular instruction in Baroda State (1879–99). He was also a Fellow of

Bombay University The University of Mumbai is a collegiate, state-owned, public research university in Mumbai. The University of Mumbai is one of the largest universities in the world. , the university had 711 affiliated colleges. Ratan Tata is the appointed ...

. Littledale travelled across the Himalayas, camping and shooting. He published a pamphlet ''Rough Notes of Travel and Sport in Kashmir and Little Thibet'' (1888) which was considered an amusing account. He travelled with the geologist

Robert Bruce Foote Robert Bruce Foote (22 September 1834 – 29 December 1912) was a British geologist and archaeologist who conducted geological surveys of prehistoric locations in India for the Geological Survey of India. For his contributions to Indian archaeolog ...

who was surveying the Baroda State. A keen naturalist, sportsman, and collector of bird eggs, he wrote extensively on his observations from around India and contributed notes to various journals including ''Stray Feathers'' edited by

A.O. Hume Allan Octavian Hume, CB ICS (4 June 1829 – 31 July 1912) was a British civil servant, political reformer, ornithologist and botanist who worked in British India. He was the founder of the Indian National Congress. A notable ornithologist, H ...

and later the journal of the

Bombay Natural History Society The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), founded on 15 September 1883, is one of the largest non-governmental organisations in India engaged in conservation and biodiversity research. It supports many research efforts through grants and publi ...

of which he was an early member. While being a sport hunter himself, he saw native snaring of birds as a cause of decline in the numbers of the

lesser florican The lesser florican (''Sypheotides indicus''), also known as the likh or ''kharmore'', is the smallest in the bustard family and the only member of the genus ''Sypheotides''. It is endemic to the Indian Subcontinent where it is found in tall gras ...

. He was a proponent of introducing game species for the purpose of hunting and suggested the introduction of chukar into western India. In 1897 he suggested that notes be collated from observers to augment the earlier works on birds. He shot tigers around Baroda, and also documented folklore such as the use of tigress' milk as medicine. A collection of birds eggs that he made was purchased by the Baroda Museum. Littledale married Ana (Annapurna Turkhud) the daughter of

Atmaram Pandurang Atmaram Pandurang or Atmaram Pandurang Turkhadekar (or just Turkhad in English publications) (1823 – 26 April 1898) was an Indian physician and social reformer who founded the Prarthana Samaj and was one of the two Indian co-founders (the other ...

on November 11, 1880, and they had a daughter Ana NellineNelline is from Nalini, a pseudonym used by Annapurna, a nickname given by her admirer

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...

who wrote several poems on her. and a son Harold Aylmer. After the death of his wife in Edinburgh in 1891, Littledale married Sybil Frances Hanbury and they had five children. Littledale left Baroda in 1898 and his position as professor of English was taken by

Sri Aurobindo Sri Aurobindo (born Aurobindo Ghose; 15 August 1872 – 5 December 1950) was an Indian philosopher, yogi, maharishi, poet, and Indian nationalist. He was also a journalist, editing newspapers such as ''Vande Mataram''. He joined the ...

. He was professor of English at

Cardiff University , latin_name = , image_name = Shield of the University of Cardiff.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms of Cardiff University , motto = cy, Gwirionedd, Undod a Chytgord , mottoeng = Truth, Unity and Concord , established = 1 ...

from 1899 until his retirement in 1921. At Grangetown, he founded a Shakespeare reading circle in 1910. A collection made by Littledale of photographs from India, including pictures from

Nainital Nainital ( Kumaoni: ''Naintāl''; ) is a city and headquarters of Nainital district of Kumaon division, Uttarakhand, India. It is the judicial capital of Uttarakhand, the High Court of the state being located there and is the headquarters o ...

before the 1880 landslide are held in the Cambridge University Library.

Note

References

External links

Representations of Hippocrates and Indian medicine
(1917 manuscript)
Essays on Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King (1893)

The Two Noble Kinsmen by William Shakspere and John Fletcher. Edited from the Quarto of 1634. Part II. (1885)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Littledale, Harold 1853 births 1930 deaths English literature academics Writers from Dublin (city) Members of the Bombay Natural History Society