John Peter Lucius Gwynn (22 June 1916 – 14 September 1999) was a British civil servant, whose career spanned the colonial

Indian 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 ...

, the independent

Civil Services of India The Civil Services refer to the career government civil servants who are the permanent executive branch of the Republic of India. Elected cabinet ministers determine policy, and civil servants carry it out. Central Civil Servants are employee ...

, and the

British Civil Service His Majesty's Home Civil Service, also known as His Majesty's Civil Service, the Home Civil Service, or colloquially as the Civil Service is the permanent bureaucracy or secretariat of Crown employees that supports His Majesty's Government, which ...

Early life

His father was

John Tudor Gwynn John Tudor ("Jack") Gwynn, CIE, ICS (13 November 1881 – 17 May 1956) was an Irish-born British civil servant in India and cricketer. Early life and cricket career The seventh son of the Very Rev John Gwynn D.D. and Lucy Josephine O’Brien ...

, at that time a serving member of the

(ICS), later to become a ''

Manchester Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' correspondent and writer on Indian affairs. His mother was Joan Elton Sedding, daughter of the architect

John Dando Sedding John Dando Sedding (13 April 1838 – 7 April 1891) was an English church architect, working on new buildings and repair work, with an interest in a "crafted Gothic" style. He was an influential figure in the Arts and Crafts movement, many of wh ...

.
Irish Times
', Dublin, 30 November 1999 Gwynn's first five years were spent in

Madras State Madras State was a state of India during the mid-20th century. At the time of its formation in 1950, it included the whole of present-day Tamil Nadu (except Kanyakumari district), Coastal Andhra, Rayalaseema, the Malabar region of North and c ...

in India. In 1921 his father retired from the ICS on account of increasing deafness and the family returned to Britain. Peter attended the

Dragon School ("Reach for the Sun") , established = 1877 , closed = , type = Preparatory day and boarding school and Pre-Prep school , religion = Church of England , president = , head_label = Head , head = Emma Goldsm ...

in Oxford until his father took over Baymount Preparatory School in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

as proprietor/headmaster and the family settled in Ireland. Peter then attended

St Columba's College, Dublin St Columba's College is a co-educational independent day and boarding school founded in 1843 located in Whitechurch, County Dublin, Ireland. Among the founders of the college were Viscount Adare (who later became The 3rd Earl of Dunraven and M ...

and went on to study

Classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

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 ...

, where he took his BA Honours (first class, with gold medal) in 1938.

Indian Civil Service career

Gwynn spent a year training for the

and studying

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

before entering the service in November 1939. He was posted in

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 ...

and worked in the

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

-speaking part of that province which later became

Andhra State Andhra State (IAST: ; ) was a Administrative divisions of India#States and union territories, state in India created in 1953 from the Telugu language, Telugu-speaking northern List of districts in India, districts of Madras State. The state was ...

and then part of

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

.''The Hindu'', Chennai, 16 June 2016 After

Indian Independence Act 1947 The Indian Independence Act 1947 947 CHAPTER 30 10 and 11 Geo 6is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that partitioned British India into the two new independent dominions of India and Pakistan. The Act received Royal Assent on 18 J ...

in 1947 Peter Gwynn opted to stay on in the civil service under the new

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...

. In 1959 Peter Gwynn married Patricia Margaret “Peggy” Satur, daughter of Andrew Satur, a businessman of

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

. The couple had two sons, John Jude Lucius Gwynn (born 1960) and Robert Charles Patrick Gwynn (born 1963). Peter Gwynn became Secretary in the Education Ministry of Andhra Pradesh and was instrumental in the introduction of compulsory primary education in that state. After that he served as Second Secretary in the Board of Revenue until his retirement from the ICS. When he retired in 1968 he was apparently the last remaining British member of the service.Diary in ''The Times'', London, autumn 1968 In addition to his official duties Peter Gwynn contributed in his spare time to the cultural life of Andhra Pradesh, helping to found the

Telugu Academy Telugu Academy, known as Telugu Akademi in official materials and some sources (from te, script=latn, Telugu Akāḍemī), can refer to two institutes set up to promote the use of Telugu and develop, preserve and modernize the language. The origi ...

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...

and serving as a member of the governing body of the

Salar Jung Museum The Salar Jung Museum is an art museum located at Dar-ul-Shifa, on the southern bank of the Musi River, India, Musi River in the city of Hyderabad, Telangana, India. It is one of the List of museums in India, notable National Museums of India. ...

Later life

In 1968 the family moved to England where Peter Gwynn entered the UK civil service as a

Treasury A treasury is either *A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry. *A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be state or royal property, church treasure or in p ...

under secretary, remaining in post until his final retirement in 1976. During his retirement he worked on his linguistic projects, compiling a Telugu grammar book in conjunction with Professor

Bhadriraju Krishnamurti Bhadriraju Krishnamurti (19 June 1928 – 11 August 2012) was an Indian linguist, specialized in Dravidian languages. He was born in Ongole (Andhra Pradesh). He was Vice Chancellor of Hyderabad Central University from 1986 to 1993 and founded the ...

(''A Grammar of Modern Telugu'', Oxford University Press, 1985) and completing a dictionary of the Telugu language (''A Telugu-English Dictionary'', Oxford University Press, 1991). Peter Gwynn died in

Bromley Bromley is a large town in Greater London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley. It is south-east of Charing Cross, and had an estimated population of 87,889 as of 2011. Originally part of Kent, Bromley became a market town, char ...

, Kent on 14 September 1999.

Works

* ''A Grammar of Modern Telugu'' (1985) (with Prof.

) * ''A Telugu-English Dictionary'' (1991)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gwynn, J P L 1916 births 1999 deaths Dravidologists 20th-century Indian linguists Indian Civil Service (British India) officers British people in colonial India Lexicographers Linguists from the United Kingdom