Sir William Ouseley
HFRSE FSAScot (1767September, 1842), was a British
orientalist.
Early life
Ouseley was born in
Monmouthshire
Monmouthshire ( cy, Sir Fynwy) is a county in the south-east of Wales. The name derives from the historic county of the same name; the modern county covers the eastern three-fifths of the historic county. The largest town is Abergavenny, wit ...
, the eldest son of Captain
Ralph Ouseley and his wife Elizabeth (born Holland). He was tutored at home in the company of his brother,
Gore
Gore may refer to:
Places Australia
* Gore, Queensland
* Gore Creek (New South Wales)
* Gore Island (Queensland)
Canada
* Gore, Nova Scotia, a rural community
* Gore, Quebec, a township municipality
* Gore Bay, Ontario, a township on Manito ...
and his cousin,
Gideon Ouseley. All three had notable careers.
[R. W. Ferrier, "Ouseley, Sir Gore, first baronet (1770–1844)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 200]
accessed 10 Nov 2011
/ref>
In 1787 he went to Paris to learn French, and there laid the foundation of his interest in Persian literature. In 1788 he became a cornet, a junior cavalry officer, in the 8th regiment of dragoons
Dragoons were originally a class of mounted infantry, who used horses for mobility, but dismounted to fight on foot. From the early 17th century onward, dragoons were increasingly also employed as conventional cavalry and trained for combat w ...
. At the end of 1794 he sold his commission and went to Leiden
Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration w ...
to study Persian.
Marriage and family life
In 1798 he was in Crickhowell
Crickhowell (; cy, Crucywel , non-standard spelling ') is a town and community in southeastern Powys, Wales, near Abergavenny, and is in the historic county of Brecknockshire.
Location
The town lies on the River Usk, on the southern edge ...
where he eventually would publish his ''Travels'' and have them locally printed.William Gore Ouseley
Sir William Gore Ouseley (26 July 1797 – 6 March 1866) was a British diplomat who served in various roles in Washington, D.C., Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. His main achievement were negotiations concerning ownership of Britain's interests ...
who was a diplomat in South America and a renowned artist.
Knighted
In 1800, Charles Lord Cornwallis (1738–1805), who from 1786 to 1793 had been Governor-General of India, had him knighted in recognition of his promotion of oriental studies.[William Ouseley in Iranica on line]
accessed 15 September 2007
Published works
In 1795 he published ''Persian Miscellanies''; in 1797–1799, ''Oriental Collections''; in 1799, ''Epitome of the Ancient History of Persia''; in 1800, ''The Oriental Geography of Ebn Haukal'' (The Oriental Geography of Ibn Hawqal
Muḥammad Abū’l-Qāsim Ibn Ḥawqal (), also known as Abū al-Qāsim b. ʻAlī Ibn Ḥawqal al-Naṣībī, born in Nisibis, Upper Mesopotamia; was a 10th-century Arab Muslim writer, geographer, and chronicler who travelled during the ye ...
);and in 1801, a translation of the ''Bakhtiyar-nama
The ''Bakhtiyar-nama'' is a medieval Iranian romance, which both has a prose and verse version. The earliest surviving version of the work is in the Arabic prose text of ''ʿAjāʾib al-bakht fī qiṣṣat al-aḥdī ʿashar wazīran wa-mā jāra ...
'' entitled ''Bakhtiyar Nama and Observations on Some Medals and Gems''. He received the degree of LL.D. from the University of Dublin
The University of Dublin ( ga, Ollscoil Átha Cliath), corporately designated the Chancellor, Doctors and Masters of the University of Dublin, is a university located in Dublin, Ireland. It is the degree-awarding body for Trinity College Dub ...
in 1797, and in 1800 he was knighted.
Persia
When his younger brother, Sir Gore Ouseley, was sent, in 1810, as Ambassador
An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or s ...
to what was then called Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
(Iran), Sir William accompanied him as his Secretary. In September 1812 he cadged passage on HMS ''Salsette'', then at Smyrna, and with her returned to England in 1813. In 1819–1823 he published, in three volumes, ''Travels in Various Countries of Middle East'', especially Persia (Iran), in 1810, 1811 and 1852. He also published editions of John Lewis Burckhardt's ''Travels in Arabia'', ''Arabian Proverbs'' and ''Notes on the Bedouins and Wahbys''. He contributed a number of important papers to the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature.
He died at Boulogne-sur-Mer
Boulogne-sur-Mer (; pcd, Boulonne-su-Mér; nl, Bonen; la, Gesoriacum or ''Bononia''), often called just Boulogne (, ), is a coastal city in Northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department of Pas-de-Calais. Boulogne lies on the ...
.
References
Attribution:
*
External links
William Ouseley
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ouseley, William
1767 births
1842 deaths
People from Monmouthshire
Iranologists
19th-century Welsh historians
18th-century Welsh historians