Thomas Roebuck (1781–1819) was a Scottish army officer of the

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 ...

, known as an orientalist and lexicographer.

Life

A grandson of inventor

John Roebuck John Roebuck of Kinneil FRS FRSE (1718 – 17 July 1794) was an English inventor and industrialist who played an important role in the Industrial Revolution and who is known for developing the industrial-scale manufacture of sulphuric ac ...

, he was born in

Linlithgowshire West Lothian ( sco, Wast Lowden; gd, Lodainn an Iar) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, and was one of its historic counties. The county was called Linlithgowshire until 1925. The historic county was bounded geographically by the Av ...

; politician

John Arthur Roebuck John Arthur Roebuck (28 December 1802 – 30 November 1879), British politician, was born at Madras, in India. He was raised in Canada, and moved to England in 1824, and became intimate with the leading radical and utilitarian reformers. He was ...

was a cousin. Born in 1781, he attended school at

Alloa Alloa (Received Pronunciation ; educated Scottish pronunciation /ˈaloʊa/; gd, Alamhagh, possibly meaning "rock plain") is a town in Clackmannanshire in the Central Lowlands of Scotland. It is on the north bank of the Forth at the spot where ...

, and then

Edinburgh High School The Royal High School (RHS) of Edinburgh is a co-educational school administered by the City of Edinburgh Council. The school was founded in 1128 and is one of the oldest schools in Scotland. It serves 1,200 pupils drawn from four feeder primar ...

. His uncle, Benjamin Roebuck (died 1809), of the Madras civil service, found him an appointment with the East India Company, and early in 1801 he left England to enter the 17th regiment of native infantry as a cadet. He became lieutenant-captain on 17 September 1812, and captain on 15 June 1815. Roebuck learned Hindustani, and was asked to use it when his regiment was on active service. In poor health, he obtained leave from 1806–1809, and returned to the United Kingdom. In March 1811, Roebuck was attached to

Fort William College Fort William College (also known as the College of Fort William) was an academy of oriental studies and a centre of learning, founded on 18 August 1800 by Lord Wellesley, then Governor-General of British India, located within the Fort William co ...

, Madras, as assistant-secretary and examiner. He was a member of the

Asiatic Society The Asiatic Society is a government of India organisation founded during the Company rule in India to enhance and further the cause of "Oriental research", in this case, research into India and the surrounding regions. It was founded by the p ...

. Roebuck died of fever at

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

on 8 December 1819.

Works

During his leave, Roebuck spent time in Edinburgh assisting

John Borthwick Gilchrist John Borthwick Gilchrist (19 June 1759 – 9 January 1841) was a Scottish surgeon, linguist, philologist and Indologist. Born and educated in Edinburgh, he spent most of his early career in India, where he made a study of the local languages. ...

with an English-Hindustani dictionary, and two volumes of the ''British-Indian Monitor'' for 1806–8. On the return voyage, he compiled ''An English and Hindustani Naval Dictionary'' with a short grammar (Calcutta, 1811; 2nd edit. 1813; 4th 1848; 5th, re-edited and enlarged as a ''Laskari Dictionary'' by George Small, M.A., London, 1882). At Fort William College, Roebuck superintended the publication of a Hindustani version of Persian tales, and edited, with notes in Persian, a Hindu-Persian dictionary (Calcutta, 1818). Just before his death he completed ''The Annals of the College of Fort William'' (Calcutta, 1819) and ''A Collection of Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases in the Persian and Hindustani Languages'' (Calcutta, 1824). His notes for a Hindustani lexicon were deposited in the library of the college.

Notes

External links

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Roebuck, Thomas 1781 births 1819 deaths Scottish orientalists Scottish lexicographers British East India Company Army officers People from West Lothian 19th-century lexicographers