Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie (5 October 1848 – 1 July 1909) was a
British Indian army officer, and later an official of the British Indian Government. Over a career spanning three decades, Curzon Wyllie rose to be a Lieutenant Colonel in the British Indian Army and occupied a number of administrative and diplomatic posts. He was the British resident to Nepal and the Princely state of
Rajputana, and later, the political ''
aide-de-camp'' to the Secretary of State for India,
Lord George Hamilton
Lord George Francis Hamilton (17 December 1845 – 22 September 1927) was a British Conservative Party politician of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who served as First Lord of the Admiralty and Secretary of State for India.
Backgroun ...
. Curzon Wyllie was assassinated on 1 July 1909 in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
by the Indian revolutionary
Madan Lal Dhingra
Madan Lal Dhingra (18 September 1883 — 17 August 1909) was an Indian revolutionary, pro-independence activist. While studying in England, he assassinated William Hutt Curzon Wyllie, a British official.
Early life
Madan Lal Dhingra was bo ...
, who was a member of
India House
India House was a student residence that existed between 1905 and 1910 at Cromwell Avenue in Highgate, North London. With the patronage of lawyer Shyamji Krishna Varma, it was opened to promote nationalist views among Indian students in Britai ...
in London.
Early life
Curzon Wyllie was born at
Cheltenham on 5 October 1848 to General
William Wyllie (13 August 1802 – 26 May 1891) and his wife, Amelia (13 October 1806 – 14 January 1891). Third and youngest son of five children, Wyllie was educated at
Marlborough College (1863–4) and the
Royal Military College, Sandhurst
The Royal Military College (RMC), founded in 1801 and established in 1802 at Great Marlow and High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England, but moved in October 1812 to Sandhurst, Berkshire, was a British Army military academy for training infant ...
(1865–6) before joining the army in October 1866 as ensign 106th foot (
Durham Light Infantry
The Durham Light Infantry (DLI) was a light infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 to 1968. It was formed in 1881 under the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 68th (Durham) Regiment of Foot (Light Infantry) and t ...
), subsequently arriving in India in 1867. Both his elder brothers, John William Shaw Wyllie (1835–1870) and Francis Robert Shaw Wyllie (4 June 1837 – 1907) served in India. The latter Francis Shaw Wyllie joined the Bombay civil service, became under-secretary to the Bombay government, and died in London in February 1907.
Indian service
Arriving in India in February 1867, Wyllie was promoted to lieutenant in October 1868 and joined the Indian staff corps in 1869. He was posted to the
2nd Gurkha regiment for a year. In 1870, Wyllie was selected for civil and political employment and appointed to the
Oudh
The Oudh State (, also Kingdom of Awadh, Kingdom of Oudh, or Awadh State) was a princely state in the Awadh region of North India until its annexation by the British in 1856. The name Oudh, now obsolete, was once the anglicized name of ...
commission, serving under General Barrow and
Sir George Couper.
Wyllie was promoted to captain in October 1878 and transferred to the foreign department in January 1879, serving as cantonment magistrate of
Nasirabad, assistant commissioner in
Ajmer-Merwara
Ajmer-Merwara, also known as Ajmir Province and as Ajmer-Merwara-Kekri, was a former province of British India in the historical Ajmer region. The territory was ceded to the British by Daulat Rao Sindhia by a treaty on 25 June 1818.
It was u ...
, and subsequently as the assistant to Sir
Robert Groves Sandeman
Sir Robert Groves Sandeman, KCSI (1835–1892) was a British Indian Army officer and colonial administrator. He was known for his activities in Balochistan, where he introduced a system of "tribal pacification" that endured until the partitio ...
, the governor-general's agent in
Baluchistan. He was part of Major-General Sir
Robert Phayre
Colonel Robert Phaire, (1619?–1682), was an officer in the Irish Protestant and then the New Model armies and a Regicide. He was one of the three officers to whom the warrant for the execution of Charles I was addressed, but he escaped severe ...
's contingent in the
Second Anglo-Afghan War
The Second Anglo-Afghan War (Dari: جنگ دوم افغان و انگلیس, ps, د افغان-انګرېز دويمه جګړه) was a military conflict fought between the British Raj and the Emirate of Afghanistan from 1878 to 1880, when the l ...
, when his actions earned him mentions in the Viceroy's dispatches. After the war, Wyllie was appointed the military secretary to the governor of
Madras,
William Patrick Adam
William Patrick Adam, CIE, DL (14 September 1823 – 24 May 1881) was a British colonial administrator and Liberal politician. He was twice First Commissioner of Works under William Gladstone and also served briefly as Governor of Madras betw ...
(later also his brother-in-law) from December 1880 until Adam's death in the following May. On 29 December 1881, Wyllie married Katharine Georgiana Carmichael (15 July 1858 — 9 September 1931), second daughter of David Fremantle Carmichael of the Indian Civil Service. Made CIE in 1881, he was promoted to major in October 1886 and to lieutenant-colonel in 1892.
Wyllie served as the private secretary to acting governor
William Huddleston till November 1881, subsequently overseeing the affairs of
Malhar Rao Gaekwar of
Baroda
Vadodara (), also known as Baroda, is the second largest city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It serves as the administrative headquarters of the Vadodara district and is situated on the banks of the Vishwamitri River, from the state capital ...
before taking the post of the assistant resident at
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, in the northern part of Southern India ...
from December 1881 to November 1882. Through the next 14 years, Wyllie served in political and government posts in a number of different places, mostly in
Rajputana . During this time he oversaw relief for
the famine of 1899-1900. In between 1893 and 1899, Wyllie was the officiating resident in Nepal when in February 1898 he was selected as the agent to the governor-general in central India. In May 1900 he was transferred in the same capacity to
Rajputana, where he remained for the rest of his service in India.
Return to England
In March 1901 Wyllie returned to Britain on being appointed the political ''aide-de-camp'' to
Lord George Hamilton
Lord George Francis Hamilton (17 December 1845 – 22 September 1927) was a British Conservative Party politician of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who served as First Lord of the Admiralty and Secretary of State for India.
Backgroun ...
, the Conservative
Secretary of State for India
His (or Her) Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for India, known for short as the India Secretary or the Indian Secretary, was the British Cabinet minister and the political head of the India Office responsible for the governance of th ...
(1895–1903). Wyllie's acquaintance and understanding of the Indian princes and his service in India meant he was assigned important and often delicate matters relating to the princely states and their relations to the British crown. He oversaw the arrangements for the Indian princes visiting for the
coronation of King Edward VII
The coronation of Edward VII and his wife, Alexandra, as King and Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and as Emperor and Empress of India took place at Westminster Abbey, London, on 9 August 1902. Originally scheduled for 26 ...
in August 1902, and for his service was invested as a Member (fourth class) of the
Royal Victorian Order
The Royal Victorian Order (french: Ordre royal de Victoria) is a dynastic order of knighthood established in 1896 by Queen Victoria. It recognises distinguished personal service to the British monarch, Canadian monarch, Australian monarch, or ...
(MVO) two days after the ceremony, on 11 August 1902. He was further knighted and invested as a Knight Commander of the
Order of the Indian Empire
The Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire is an order of chivalry founded by Queen Victoria on 1 January 1878. The Order includes members of three classes:
#Knight Grand Commander (GCIE)
#Knight Commander ( KCIE)
#Companion ( CIE)
No appoi ...
(KCIE) by King
Edward VII
Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910.
The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria and ...
at
Buckingham Palace on 24 October 1902. Promotion to a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) followed in June 1907. At this time, he was also involved in affairs relating to Indian students in Britain, including being involved in associations and charities for the Indians, as well as overseeing the Indian nationalist opinion that was finding voice in Britain at the time. Curzon Wyllie was head of head of Secret Police and collected lot of information about Savarkar and this fact was not mentioned in contemporary British media.
Assassination
Popplewell quotes ''
The Indian Sociologist
''The Indian Sociologist'' was an Indian nationalist journal in the early 20th century. Its subtitle was ''An Organ of Freedom, and Political, Social, and Religious Reform''.
The journal was edited by Shyamji Krishnavarma from 1905 to 1914, ...
'' as describing Wyllie and Lee Warner "as early as October 1907" as "old unrepentant foes of India who have fattened on the misery of the Indian peasant every (sic) since they began their career".
He was assassinated in London on the evening of 1 July 1909 by
Madan Lal Dhingra
Madan Lal Dhingra (18 September 1883 — 17 August 1909) was an Indian revolutionary, pro-independence activist. While studying in England, he assassinated William Hutt Curzon Wyllie, a British official.
Early life
Madan Lal Dhingra was bo ...
at the Imperial Institute,
South Kensington
South Kensington, nicknamed Little Paris, is a district just west of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with ...
, where he and his wife were attending an event organised by the
National Indian Association.
[EJ Beck]
Open University, Retrieved 27 July 2015 Dhingra was an Indian student at the
University of London
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...
who had close ties with the nationalist
India House
India House was a student residence that existed between 1905 and 1910 at Cromwell Avenue in Highgate, North London. With the patronage of lawyer Shyamji Krishna Varma, it was opened to promote nationalist views among Indian students in Britai ...
and ''The Indian Sociologist''. Dhingra fired at Curzon Wyllie with a revolver, killing him instantly, and mortally wounding Dr Cawas Lalcaca, a Parsi physician from
Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...
, who attempted to come to Wyllie's aid and stop Dhingra. Wyllie was buried at
Richmond Cemetery
Richmond Cemetery is a cemetery on Lower Grove Road in Richmond in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England. The cemetery opened in 1786 on a plot of land granted by an Act of Parliament the previous year. The cemetery has been expande ...
, Surrey, on 6 July. Dhingra was sentenced to death in July 1909 and hanged at
Pentonville Prison
HM Prison Pentonville (informally "The Ville") is an English Category B men's prison, operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. Pentonville Prison is not in Pentonville, but is located further north, on the Caledonian Road in the Barnsbury ar ...
on 17 August 1909.
References
Sources
''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''* ''Gokhale: the Indian moderates and the British raj'' (1977) by B. R. Nanda.
* ''Raj: the making and unmaking of British India'' (1997) by Lawrence James.
* ''The Oxford history of modern India, 1740–1947'' (1965) by
Percival Spear
Thomas George Percival Spear (1901–1982) was a British historian of modern South Asia, in particular of its colonial period. He taught at both Cambridge University and St. Stephen's College, Delhi.
Personal life and education
Born in Ba ...
.
* ''The British conquest and dominion of India'' (1989). by
Penderel Moon.
See also
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wyllie, Curzon
1848 births
1909 deaths
1900s murders in London
Indian Political Service officers
Knights Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire
Commanders of the Royal Victorian Order
British people in colonial India
Assassinated military personnel
British military personnel of the Second Anglo-Afghan War
106th Regiment of Foot officers
Graduates of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst
People from Cheltenham
Assassinated English people
India House
People murdered in London
Deaths by firearm in London
Indian Staff Corps officers
Male murder victims
Burials at Richmond Cemetery