Lawrence Samuel Durrell (23 September 1884 – 16 April 1928) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

engineer, best remembered as the father of novelist

Lawrence Durrell Lawrence George Durrell (; 27 February 1912 – 7 November 1990) was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer. He was the eldest brother of naturalist and writer Gerald Durrell. Born in India to British colonial p ...

and naturalist and writer

Gerald Durrell Gerald Malcolm Durrell, (7 January 1925 – 30 January 1995) was a British naturalist, writer, zookeeper, conservationist, and television presenter. He founded the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Jersey Zoo on the Channel Island o ...

Early life

Durrell was born in

Dum Dum Dum Dum is a city and a municipality of Kolkata district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is a part of Kolkata urban area and also a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA). Etymology During the 19th ...

, north of Calcutta (present day

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

) on 23 September 1884, the son of Samuel Amos Durrell and his wife, Dora Maria Johnstone, and christened in

Fatehgarh Fatehgarh is a cantonment town in Farrukhabad district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. It is located on the south bank of the Ganges River. It is the administrative headquarters of Farrukhabad District. Fatehgarh derives its name from ...

, Bengal, on 7 October 1884.FamilySearch.org, ''India, Births and Baptisms, 1786–1947'', at https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FG7P-F96. Retrieved 8 November 2012; FamilySearch.org, ''India, Marriages, 1792–1948'', at https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FGN1-Q53. Retrieved 8 November 2012.

Career

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...

by profession, he studied in the Thomason College of Civil Engineering (now the

Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (abbreviated IIT Roorkee) is a technical university located in Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India. It is the oldest engineering institution in India, and was founded as the College of Civil Engineering in Bri ...

). While he worked for the North-West Railway in

Jalandhar Jalandhar is the third most-populous city in the Indian state of Punjab and the largest city in Doaba region. Jalandhar lies alongside the Grand Trunk Road and is a well-connected rail and road junction. Jalandhar is northwest of the state ...

, his son Lawrence was born in 1912. Durrell went on to work for the Mymensingh–Bhairab Bazar Railway Company in Bengal. In 1918, he became the chief engineer of the famous

Darjeeling Himalayan Railway The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, also known as the DHR or the Toy Train, is a gauge railway that runs between New Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling in the Indian state of West Bengal. Built between 1879 and 1881, it is about long. It climbs from abo ...

, and in 1920 left the company to found his own company Durrell & Co., Engineers and Contractors at Sakci, which became the industrial boomtown of Jamshedpur. Gerald Durrell was born in Jamshedpur in 1925. Many of the important industrial constructions in Jamshedpur were undertaken by his company, including the Tinplate Company of India, the Indian Cable Company, and the Enamelled Ironware Company, and contractual work for the Tata Iron and Steel Works. Although Durrell purchased a house in

Dulwich Dulwich (; ) is an area in south London, England. The settlement is mostly in the London Borough of Southwark, with parts in the London Borough of Lambeth, and consists of Dulwich Village, East Dulwich, West Dulwich, and the Southwark half ...

and was planning on moving to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, instead he transferred to

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city ...

with his family for supervising contract work. In 1928, the engineer fell ill due to causes which were medically undiagnosed and attributed to overwork. The family moved to Dalhousie for the climate in 1928, but Durrell died on 16 April 1928 of suspected cerebral haemorrhage and is buried in the English cemetery at Dalhousie. Like many Englishmen whose families had been resident in India for generations, Durrell worked and socialised with Indians of all confessions and castes. On one occasion, according to a story told by Lawrence Durrell, his novelist son, Durrell gave up his membership at a club when his proposal to include an

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

-educated

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

n doctor who had saved his son's life was turned down.

Personal life and family

In Roorkee, he met Louisa Florence Dixie and married her in 1910. The couple had three sons and two daughters:

Lawrence Lawrence may refer to: Education Colleges and universities * Lawrence Technological University, a university in Southfield, Michigan, United States * Lawrence University, a liberal arts university in Appleton, Wisconsin, United States Preparator ...

(1912), Margery (1915), Leslie (1917), Margaret (1919), and

Gerald Gerald is a male Germanic given name meaning "rule of the spear" from the prefix ''ger-'' ("spear") and suffix ''-wald'' ("rule"). Variants include the English given name Jerrold, the feminine nickname Jeri and the Welsh language Gerallt and Iris ...

(1925).

References

*''Through the Dark Labyrinth: Biography of Lawrence Durrell'',

Gordon Bowker Gordon Bowker is an American entrepreneur. He began as a writer and went on to co-found Starbucks with Jerry Baldwin and Zev Siegl. He was later a co-owner of Peet's Coffee & Tea and Redhook Ale Brewery. Biography Following the death of his ...

Sinclair Stevenson Sinclair-Stevenson Ltd is a British publisher founded in 1989 by Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson. Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson became an editor at Hamish Hamilton in 1961. Thirteen years later in 1974 he became managing director, establishing ...

, 1996 *''Gerald Durrell: The Authorized Biography'',

Douglas Botting Douglas Scott Botting (22 February 1934 – 6 February 2018) was an English explorer, author, biographer and TV presenter and producer. He wrote biographies of naturalists Gavin Maxwell and Gerald Durrell (the former also being a personal frien ...

, Carroll & Graf, 1999 *''Alexandria: City of Memory'', Michael Haag, Yale University Press, London and New Haven, 2004, which contains biographical material on the writer Lawrence Durrell and his family. {{DEFAULTSORT:Durrell, Lawrence Samuel Durrell, Lawrence S Durrell, Lawrence S Durrell, Lawrence S Durrell, Lawrence S Durrell, Lawrence S People from Haridwar IIT Roorkee alumni British people in colonial India