Maurice Stewart Collis (10 January 1889 – 12 January 1973) was an administrator in

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

(Myanmar) when it was part of the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...

, and afterwards a writer on

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

and other historical subjects.

Life

He was born in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

, the son of an Irish solicitor, and went to

Rugby School Rugby School is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) in Rugby, Warwickshire, England. Founded in 1567 as a free grammar school for local boys, it is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain. Up ...

in 1903 and then in 1907 to the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, where he studied history. He entered the

Indian Civil Service The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 300 million ...

in 1911 and was posted to Burma in 1912. He had postings at

Sagaing Sagaing (, ) is the former capital of the Sagaing Region of Myanmar. It is located in the Irrawaddy River, to the south-west of Mandalay on the opposite bank of the river. Sagaing with numerous Buddhist monasteries is an important religious and ...

and elsewhere. In 1917, the British army raised a Burmese brigade with which Collis went to Palestine, but he saw no action. In 1919, he went on leave and travelled in Europe. In the 1920s he was district commissioner in

Arakan Arakan ( or ) is a historic coastal region in Southeast Asia. Its borders faced the Bay of Bengal to its west, the Indian subcontinent to its north and Burma proper to its east. The Arakan Mountains isolated the region and made it accessi ...

.In the 1920s he lived in

Kyaukpyu Kyaukpyu ( my, ကျောက်ဖြူမြို့ ; also spelt Kyaukphyu) is a major town in Rakhine State, in western Myanmar. It is located on the north western corner of Yanbye Island on Combermere Bay, and is 250 miles (400 ...

.In 1929–1930, a period when relations between Burmese, Indians and British became particularly difficult, he was district magistrate in

Rangoon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

. This period is narrated in his memoir ''

Trials in Burma {{Unreferenced, date=March 2009 ''Trials in Burma'' is a memoir by Maurice Collis, an English author of Irish origin who served in Burma in the Indian Civil Service under the British Empire written in 1937 describing events in 1929-30. After posti ...

''. He gives special attention to the political trial of J. M. Sen Gupta,

mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well a ...

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 ...

, for

sedition Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that tends toward rebellion against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent toward, or insurrection against, estab ...

in impromptu speeches made during a brief visit to Rangoon in 1930; also to two criminal trials which became politically charged because they brought to light underlying attitudes of British merchants and army officers to Burmese people. Collis's judgements were (according to his own analysis) too independent to be pleasing to the then British Government of Burma, arousing the particular disapproval of his superior,

Booth Gravely Booth may refer to: People * Booth (surname) * Booth (given name) Fictional characters * August Wayne Booth, from the television series ''Once Upon A Time'' *Cliff Booth, a supporting character of the 2019 film '' Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' ...

, Commissioner of the

Pegu Division Bago Region ( my, ပဲခူးတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; formerly Pegu Division and Bago Division) is an administrative divisions of Myanmar, administrative region of Myanmar, located in the southern central part of the count ...

. After giving judgement in the last of these trials Collis was hastily moved to the post of Excise Commissioner. After returning to England in 1934, he wrote many books, including ''Siamese White'' and ''Foreign Mud'', as well as art and literary criticism. At the age of 65 he turned his hand to painting. His younger brothers were the writer

John Stewart Collis John Stewart Collis (6 February 1900 – 2 March 1984) was an Irish biographer, rural author, and pioneer of the ecology movement. He is known for his book ''The Worm Forgives the Plough'' based on his wartime experience working in the Land Arm ...

and

Robert Collis William Robert Fitzgerald Collis (1900–1975) was an Irish doctor and writer. As an author he was known as Robert Collis. As a doctor, he was commonly known as Dr Bob Collis. Maurice Collis was his elder brother. John Stewart Collis was his tw ...

, a notable doctor and author;Other News ... Zoltan Zinn Collis
, ''

The Kildare Nationalist ''The Nationalist'' is an Irish regional newspaper, published each Tuesday in Carlow. It has three comprehensive sections, containing news, sport and 'living' articles. History The first edition of ''The Nationalist and Leinster Times'' was pu ...

'', 2 November 2006 John and Robert were twins.

Works

Autobiographies

*''The Journey Outward'' ends 1917-18 *''Into Hidden Burma'' 1919-34 *''The Journey Up (Reminiscences 1934-1968)'' *''

'' 1930-31

Biographies

*''Siamese White'' (about Samuel White and the

Anglo-Siamese War The Anglo-Siamese War (or Anglo-Thai WarOm Prakash, ''The New Cambridge History of India, Volume 2, Part 5: European Commercial Enterprise in Pre-Colonial India'' (Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 289.) was a brief state of war that existed ...

of 1687) *'' Cortés and Montezuma'' (about the

Spanish conquest of Mexico The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, also known as the Conquest of Mexico or the Spanish-Aztec War (1519–21), was one of the primary events in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. There are multiple 16th-century narratives of the eve ...

) *''Raffles'' (Faber, London, 1966; about

Stamford Raffles Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles (5 July 1781 – 5 July 1826) was a British statesman who served as the Lieutenant-Governor of the Dutch East Indies between 1811 and 1816, and Lieutenant-Governor of Bencoolen between 1818 and 1824. He is ...

) *''Marco Polo'' *''The Grand Peregrination - Being the Life and Adventures of Fernão Mendes Pinto'', Faber & Faber, London, 1949 *''Nancy Astor - An Informal Biography'' *''Somerville and Ross - A Biography'' (Faber, London, 1968; about

Edith Somerville Edith Anna Œnone Somerville (2 May 1858 – 8 October 1949) was an Irish novelist who habitually signed herself as "E. Œ. Somerville". She wrote in collaboration with her cousin "Martin Ross" ( Violet Martin) under the pseudonym " Somerville ...

and Violet Martin = "Martin Ross") *''Stanley Spencer - A Biography'' *''Wayfoong - The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation''

Histories

*''The Great Within'', Faber & Faber, London, 1941 *''The Land of the Great Image - Being Experiences of Friar Manrique in Arakan'' (Faber & Faber, London, 1943 1st edition )(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1943. First American Edition) Translate in Portuguese in 1944 (Na terra da Grande Imagem. Livraria Civilização. Porto). *''Foreign Mud - Being an Account of the Opium Imbroglio at Canton in the 1830s and the Anglo-Chinese War That Followed, 1946'' *''The First Holy One'' (Faber & Faber, London, 1948) *''British Merchant Adventurers'' *''The Hurling Time'' *''Last and First in Burma''

Fiction

*'' She Was a Queen'' *''The Mystery of Dead Lovers'' (with drawings by Cawthra Mulock) *''Quest for Sita'' *''Sanda Mala'' *''The Dark Door''

Drama

*''The Motherly and Auspicious - Being the Life of the Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi in the Form of a Drama, with an Introduction and Notes'' *''White of Mergen''

Other

*''Lords of the Sunset - A Tour in the Shan States''. Collis toured the

Shan State Shan State ( my, ရှမ်းပြည်နယ်, ; shn, မိူင်းတႆး, italics=no) also known by the Endonym and exonym, endonyms Shanland, Muang Tai, and Tailong, is a administrative divisions of Myanmar, state of Myanmar. ...

in Northern

in the winter of 1937, meeting the various local rulers, attending a funeral, and following a murder trial. *''Alva Paintings and Drawings'' *''Lord of the Three Worlds''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Collis, Maurice Administrators in British Burma 20th-century Irish writers 20th-century male writers 20th-century British writers People educated at Rugby School 1889 births 1973 deaths Civil servants from Dublin (city) Burmese writers People from Yangon British Army personnel of World War I