Robert Montgomery Martin (c. 1801 – 6 September 1868) was an Anglo-Irish author and civil servant. He served as Colonial Treasurer of Hong Kong from 1844 to 1845. He was a founding member of the

Statistical Society of London The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is an established statistical society. It has three main roles: a British learned society for statistics, a professional body for statisticians and a charity which promotes statistics for the public good. ...

(1834), the Colonial Society (1837), and the East India Association (1867).

Biography

Early life

Robert Montgomery Martin was born in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

, Ireland, into a Protestant family, the son of John Martin and Mary Hawkins; and trained as a doctor. About 1820 he went out to

Ceylon Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

, under the patronage of Sir Hardinge Giffard, a friend of his father. Travelling onwards to the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...

, where he arrived in June 1823; he joined the expedition of HMS ''Leven'' and HMS ''Barracouta'' under

William Fitzwilliam Owen Vice Admiral William Fitzwilliam Owen (17 September 1774 – 3 November 1857), was a British naval officer and explorer. He is best known for his exploration of the west and east African coasts, discovery of the Seaflower Channel off the coa ...

, bound for

Delagoa Bay Delagoa is a marine ecoregion along the eastern coast of Africa. It extends along the coast of Mozambique and South Africa from the Bazaruto Archipelago (21°14’ S) to Lake St. Lucia in South Africa (28° 10' S) in South Africa's Kwazulu-Nat ...

. Martin was temporarily appointed assistant surgeon, serving also as botanist and naturalist on the south-east coast of Africa,

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

, and Indian Ocean islands. On 10 November 1824 Martin left the expedition at

Mombassa Mombasa ( ; ) is a coastal city in southeastern Kenya along the Indian Ocean. It was the first capital of British East Africa, before Nairobi was elevated to capital status in 1907. It now serves as the capital of Mombasa County. The town is ...

, and by way of

Mauritius Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, about off the southeastern coast of East Africa, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island (also called Mauritius), as well as Rodrigues, Ag ...

made his way back to the Cape. Later he set sail for

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

returning to India around the end of 1828. He lived there for a year, before sailing back to England in 1830.

Writer

Martin became a writer. According to his own account in 1840 he had been studying colonial questions for ten years. He published fifty thousand volumes on India and the colonies. In 1838 he was assigned an office in

Downing Street Downing Street is a gated street in City of Westminster, Westminster in London that houses the official residences and offices of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In a cul-de-sac situated off Whiteh ...

, and in a year brought out his work on the '' Statistics of the Colonies of the British Empire'', compiled from official sources, but without official support. In 1840 he founded and for two years edited the ''

Colonial Magazine Colonial or The Colonial may refer to: * Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology) Architecture * American colonial architecture * French colonial architecture * Spanish colonial architecture Automobiles * Colon ...

''. On 5 December 1837 he presented a petition to the House of Commons for an amended colonial administrative department. In 1839, as a member of the court of the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

, he was active in promoting the appointment of the commission which sat in 1840 on the East Indian trade. Martin was a prominent witness.

Official

In January 1844 Martin was appointed treasurer of the newly acquired island of Hong Kong, where he was also a member of the legislative council. He continued to write and was in poor health. In May 1845 he disagreed with the governor about raising revenue from

opium Opium (also known as poppy tears, or Lachryma papaveris) is the dried latex obtained from the seed Capsule (fruit), capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid mor ...

and on being refused six months' leave, resigned in July 1845. In his reports he insisted that Hong Kong was as a British colony doomed to failure. After making unsuccessful efforts to induce the Secretary of State to reinstate him, Martin returned to a literary life, near London. In 1851 he went to

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

on a mission to report on the affairs of two mining companies operating there.

Family

Martin married Jane Avis Frances Keith in 1826. She eloped with Dr. John Sheridan (1805–1858) and emigrated to South Australia, where they were important colonists. In 1847 the marriage was dissolved by Parliament, and he married Eliza Barron, later as

Eliza Phillips Eliza Phillips (''née'' Barron; 1823 – 18 August 1916) was an English animal welfare activist and co-founder of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. She was the RSPB's vice president and publications editor. Biography Early life an ...

known in bird welfare.

Later life

Martin was one of the original members of the East India Association, founded in 1866. He died at Wellesley Lodge,

Sutton, Surrey Sutton is a town in the London Borough of Sutton in South London, England. It is the administrative headquarters of the Outer London borough, on the lower slopes of the North Downs. It is south-southwest of Charing Cross, one of the fourteen ...

, on 6 September 1868.

Works

''The History of the British Colonies'' was completed in 1831; he obtained an introduction to the king, and on showing his book, received the king's permission to dedicate it to him. It did not appear till 1834, in five volumes: * Vol I: Possessions in Asia * Vol II: Possessions in the West Indies * Vol III: Possessions in North America * Vol IV: Possessions in Africa and Austral-Asia * Vol V: Possessions in Europe In 1837, Martin expanded the work, and published the new edition as ''The British Colonial Library'', in ten volumes: * Vol I: History, Statistics, and Geography of Upper and Lower Canada * Vol II: History of Austral-Asia: comprising New South Wales, Van Diemen's Island, Swan River, South Australia, &c. * Vol III: History of Southern Africa: comprising the Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius, Seychelles, &c. * Vol IV: History of the West Indies: comprising Jamaica, Honduras, Trinidad, Tobago, Grenada, the Bahamas, and the Virgin Isles. * Vol V: History of the West Indies: comprising British Guiana, Barbadoes, St. Vincent's, St. Lucia, Dominica, Montserrat, Antigua, St. Christopher's, &c. &c. * Vol VI: History of Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, the Sable Islands, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, the Bermudas, Newfoundland, &c. &c. * Vol VII: History of the British Possessions in the Mediterranean: comprising Gibraltar, Malta, Gozo, and the Ionian Islands. * Vol VIII: History of the Possessions of the Honorable East India Company. Vol I. * Vol IX: History of the Possessions of the Honorable East India Company. Vol II. * Vol X: History of the British Possessions in the Indian & Atlantic Oceans; comprising Ceylon, Penang, Malacca, Sincapore, the Falkland Islands, St. Helena, Ascension, Sierra Leone, the Gambia, Cape Coast Castle, &c. &c.

Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley Richard Colley Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, (20 June 1760 – 26 September 1842) was an Anglo-Irish politician and colonial administrator. He was styled as Viscount Wellesley until 1781, when he succeeded his father as 2nd Earl of ...

entrusted Martin with the preparation of his papers for publication, as ''The Marquis of Wellesley's Indian Despatches'', 5 vols. 1836, and ''The Marquis of Wellesley's Spanish Despatches'', 1840. For some months in 1833–4 he was engaged on the ''Taxation of the British Empire'', working mainly in the library of the House of Commons. He next turned to the records of

East India House East India House was the London headquarters of the East India Company, from which much of Company rule in India, British India was governed until the British government took control of the company's possessions in India in 1858. It was locate ...

, and brought out his ''History of the Antiquities of Eastern India'' (3 vols.) in 1838. Martin Madurai 1860

Other works were: * ''Political, Commercial, and Financial Condition of the Anglo-Eastern Empire'', 1832. * ''British Relations with the Chinese Empire'', 1832. * ''Analysis of the Parliamentary Evidence on the China Trade'', 1832. * ''Ireland as it was, is, and ought to be'', 1833. * ''Past and Present State of the Tea Trade'', 1832. * ''East and West India Sugar Duties'', 1833. * ''Poor Laws for Ireland, a Measure of Justice for England'', 1833. * ''Analysis of Parliamentary Evidence on the Handloom Weavers'', 1834–5. * ''Analysis of the Bible'' (later translated into Chinese), 1836. * ''The Colonial Policy of the British Empire'', pt. i. Government, 1837. * '' The Statistics of the British Colonies'', 1839. * ''The Monetary System of British India'', 1841. * ''Ireland before and after the Union'', 1844; 2nd edit. in 1848. * ''Steam Navigation with Australia'', 1847. * ''China, Political, Commercial, and Social'', 2 vols. 1847. * ''Free Trade in Sugar'', 1848. * ''The Hudson's Bay Territories and Vancouver's Island'', 1849. * ''The Indian Empire'' (illustrated), 5 vols. 1857. * ''The Rise and Progress of the Indian Mutiny'', 1859. * ''Sovereigns of the Coorg'' (pamphlet), 1867.

References

;Attribution

External links

Engravings from Martin's The Indian Empire