CBE
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
(7 August 1865 – 28 April 1938) was a civil servant in
British India
The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
Haig was the son of Major Robert Wolseley Haig RA, FRS, (1830–72) the military astronomer, and Maria Georgina Brown. His maternal great grandfather was
Charles James Blomfield
Charles James Blomfield (29 May 1786 – 5 August 1857) was a British divine and classicist, and a Church of England bishop for 32 years.
Early life and education
Charles James Blomfield was born in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, the eldest son (an ...
, Bishop of London. He was also descended from the Haigs of Bonnington, branch of the Border house of Haig of
Bemersyde
Bemersyde is a hamlet in the Mertoun parish of Berwickshire, in the Scottish Borders. It sits on the left bank of the River Tweed, about three miles east of Melrose. Bemersyde House, the ancestral home of the Haig family, is the most notable feat ...
, and was thus related to the first Lord Haig. He was educated at
Wellington College Wellington College may refer to:
*Wellington College, Berkshire, an independent school in Crowthorne, Berkshire, England
** Wellington College International Shanghai
** Wellington College International Tianjin
* Wellington College, Wellington, Ne ...
Indian Army
The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four- ...
Who Was Who
''Who's Who'' is a reference work. It is a book, and also a CD-ROM and a website, giving information on influential people from around the world. Published annually as a book since 1849, it lists people who influence British life, according to i ...
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, 2014, online edition. Retrieved 28 May 2014. He was promoted to Captain on 6 February 1895, and to Major on 6 February 1902.
Indian civil service
Haig entered the Berar Commission in 1892 and became Assistant Commissioner, then Deputy Commissioner, Inspector-General of Police, Jails, Stamps, Registration, and Excise, and Civil and Sessions Judge. He was officiating Secretary to the Board of Examiners, Fort William, 1897 and 1898–99. He entered the Political Department in 1901 as First Assistant to the 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 ...
, a post that gave him day to day control of Berar.
Haig became Assistant Secretary to the Government of India, Foreign Department, in 1907, then Political Agent in
Alwar
Alwar (Pronunciation: lʋəɾ is a city located in India's National Capital Region and the administrative headquarters of Alwar District in the state of Rajasthan. It is located 150 km south of Delhi and 150 km north of Jaipur. ...
, 1907–08. Following the assassination of Sir Curzon Wyllie in London 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 ...
in 1909, Haig was appointed officiating Political ADC to the Secretary of State for India 1909–10 ( Lord Morley).
Haig's final years abroad were spent mostly in Persia. He was the British Consul at Kerman in 1910, became First Assistant to the Agent to the Governor-General in Baluchistan in 1912 and quickly moved on to become Consul-General and Agent to the Government of India, Khurasan, Persia in 1914–16. He held the same post at Ispahan 1916 and Tehran 1919. He retired in 1920.
Academic career
Soon after Haig returned to Europe, he was appointed Professor of Arabic, Persian and Hindustani at Trinity College, Dublin. Later he was lecturer in Persian at the
School of Oriental Studies
SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury ar ...
, University of London. Haig was known for his meticulous attention to detail and the careful planning which went into his work. Some reviewers said that he tended to go too far and produce an overly-detailed end result, but his writings appeared in the ''Journal'' of the
Royal Asiatic Society
The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS), was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the en ...
, and other learned societies, and he was assigned the third and fourth volumes of '' The Cambridge History of India''. Unfortunately, he was only able to fully complete the third volume before illness set in and the fourth had to be completed by Richard Burn to Haig's plan. It was published in 1937, the year before Haig's death.
Haig made two important translations into English of Badaoni's ''Tarikh-i-Bada'uni'' (history), a source for the reign of
Emperor Akbar
Abu'l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar (25 October 1542 – 27 October 1605), popularly known as Akbar the Great ( fa, ), and also as Akbar I (), was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Hum ...
's, and the ''Burhan-i-Massir'' of Tabatabai, an important source for the
Nizam Shahi
The Ahmadnagar Sultanate was a late medieval Indian Muslim kingdom located in the northwestern Deccan, between the sultanates of Gujarat and Bijapur. Malik Ahmed, the Bahmani governor of Junnar after defeating the Bahmani army led by general J ...
dynasty of
Ahmadnagar
Ahmednagar (), is a city located in the Ahmednagar district in the state of Maharashtra, India, about 120 km northeast of Pune and 114 km from Aurangabad. Ahmednagar takes its name from Ahmad Nizam Shah I, who founded the town in 1 ...
.
Herald
Haig was appointed March Pursuivant of Arms in Scotland in 1923 and was
Albany Herald
Albany Herald of Arms is a Scottish herald of arms of the Court of the Lord Lyon.
The office was first mentioned in a diplomatic mission from Scotland to England in 1401. The office was probably instituted on the creation of Robert Stewart, s ...
1927–35.
Personal life
Haig married Beatrice, older sister of
Michael Lloyd Ferrar Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Lloyd Ferrar (16 April 1876 – 25 February 1971) was a British Indian army officer and civil servant who worked as a chief commissioner of the Penal Settlement at Port Blair on Andaman Islands and Nicobar Islands.
Born ...
, ICS, in 1892. Beatrice died in 1927. They had one son (Robert Wolseley) who joined the Imperial Bank of Iran, and two daughters (Margaret Wolseley and Helen Ferrar).
Death
Haig died at home, in Kensington, London, on 28 April 1938 after a long illness."Obituary: Sir Wolseley Haig, Soldier Administrator, Orientalist" in ''The Times'', 30 April 1938, p. 14.
Selected publications
;Books
*''Hints on the study of Urdu, for the use of candidates for the lower and higher standard examinations in that language''. Pioneer Press, Allahabad, 1898.
* Historical landmarks of the Deccan. ' Pioneer Press, Allahabad, 1907.
*''The history of the Nizam Shahi kings of Ahmadnagar''. British India Press/Education Society's Press, Bombay, 1923. (Reprinted from ''
The Indian Antiquary
''The Indian Antiquary: A journal of oriental research in archaeology, history, literature, language, philosophy, religion, folklore, &c, &c,'' (subtitle varies) was a journal of original research relating to India, published between 1872 and 1 ...
'', April 1920 – November 1923.)
* The Cambridge history of India Vol. III Turks and Afghans. ' University Press, Cambridge, 1928. Edited by Wolseley Haig.
*''Persian grammar''. Linguaphone Institute, London, c. 1930.
*''Persian''. Linguaphone Institute, London, 1933. (With Darab Khan, Mojtaba Minovi and Ghulām Ḣusain) (third edition) (Linguaphone Oriental language Courses)
*''The Cambridge shorter history of India''. University Press, Cambridge, 1934. Editor H.H. Dodwell. (contributor)
*''The Cambridge history of India Vol. IV The Mughul period''. University Press, Cambridge, 1937. Planned by Wolseley Haig, edited by Richard Burn.
;Other works
*Various entries in ''
The Encyclopaedia of Islam
The ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'' (''EI'') is an encyclopaedia of the academic discipline of Islamic studies published by Brill. It is considered to be the standard reference work in the field of Islamic studies. The first edition was published ...
''.
*Contributions to the Persian ''Bible'' published in London by B. & F.B.S., 1928.