Sir George Clarke Sir Sydenham Clarke : (1848-1933) (1) Sir George Sydenham Clarke, 1st Baron Sydenham of Combe (1848-1933): educated at Repton & Rossall schools, Haileybury College run by East India Company & Wimbledon House School: topped entrance & final examinations of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich: joined the Royal Engineers 1868: served in Egypt in 1882, examining the Alexandria fortifications after the British bombardment. His significant report was followed by his appointment to the War Office staff in 1883: served in the Sudan in 1885, & promoted major: Secretary to the Colonial Defence Committee (1885-92) & the royal commission on army & navy administration (1888-90): promoted colonel in 1898: Governor Victoria, Australia, 1901: recalled in November 1903 to serve on the committee for the reconstitution of the War Office: secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence 1904: appointed governor of Bombay Presidency 1907. He first supported greater participation of Indians in the administration; however, disturbed by growing political violence, he became preoccupied with law & order. His prosecution & conviction in 1908 of the Brahman leader Tilak for sedition led to riots in Bombay & reproaches from Secretary of State John Morley. [Edited extract from Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National Univ., Vol. 8, 1981] (2) …during his entire tenure (1907-13), in fact, Lord Sydenham, perhaps Lord Curzon in miniature, had raised the hornet’s nest in his dealing with the University & its affairs that made him most unpopular in Western India. He used the first convocation address to make peace with the nationalist sentiment that so prominently prevailed among the Indians of that time. He quoted couplets from the Bhāgawad Gita, applauded the victory of Asiatic Japan over Russia, & categorically distanced himself from Macaulay’s famous pronouncement of 1835: ‘We must do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us & the millions whom we govern, a class of persons Indian in blood & colour but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, & in intellect.’ To reassure the Indians of what his attitude towards them would be, further Clarke added: ‘We cannot, by education, transform the ‘intellect’ of an ancient people, or reconstruct their ‘tastes’ & ‘opinions’ in exact accordance with foreign models. Even if such a proceeding were practicable, it would be eminently undesirable; because a process of artificial conversion which takes no account of inherent genius & aptitudes is more likely to injure than to elevate a native population.’ But Sir George’s commitment was very short lived. [Aruna Tikekara, The Cloister’s Pale: A Biography of the University of Bombay on Internet] (3) Sir Clarke’s prosecution & conviction in 1908 of the Brahman leader Tilak for sedition led to riots in Bombay & reproaches from John Morley. Clarke continued to repress sedition & agitation by western-educated Indians, causing concern in London. On his retirement in 1913, Clarke was raised to the peerage as Lord Sydenham of Comb. He spoke frequently in the House of Lords & continued writing, becoming increasingly reactionary. [From Australian Dictionary of Biography…, Vol. 8, 1981]
... evident in some of the recent acts of the bureaucracy, such as the separation of Judicial and Executive of which Sir Harvey Adamson has given the details in his speech in Council. The policy of Sir Sydenham Clarke in Bombay is of the same type, and from the Mofussil we hear of politician Magistrates who are busy re-establishing the use of foreign articles by skilful exhibitions of sympathy attended with... him. The separation of Judicial and Executive functions, the pet scheme of the old mendicancy, will be carried out only in a district or two of Eastern Bengal as an experiment. The policy of Sir Sydenham Clarke has confined itself to sweet words and abstention from repression, and the milk of Mr. Morley's sympathy is limited to so much as can be bottled for use in a Council of Notables. So too the ...
... when they approach the bureaucracy with their "co-operation". What it is precisely that the various Satraps want of their long-suffering allies, we cannot conjecture. Some seem to want, like Sir George Clarke, the entire cessation of political agitation, because the political agitator is the spiritual granduncle of the political assassin. Others seem to want the entire Indian community to leave their ...
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