George Uglow Pope

George Uglow Pope
Statue of G. U. Pope in Triplicane, Chennai.
Born	24 April 1820 Bedeque, Prince Edward Island, Canada
Died	11 February 1908 (aged 87) Oxford, England
Resting place	St Sepulchre's Cemetery, Jericho, Oxford, England
Occupation	Anglican missionary, Tamil scholar, translator
Spouse(s)	Mary Carver (m. 1841–45) Henrietta Page (m. 1849)

George Uglow Pope (24 April 1820–11 February 1908) or G.U. Pope was an Anglican Christian missionary and Tamil scholar who spent 40 years in Tamil Nadu and translated many Tamil texts into English. His popular translations included those of the Tirukkural and Tiruvachagam. He was the head of the Bishop Cotton Boys' School, Bangalore and a Lecturer at Balliol College, Oxford. A statue on the Chennai beach recognizes him for his contribution to the understanding and promotion of the Tamil language.

George Uglow Pope was born on 24 April 1820 in Bedeque, Prince Edward Island in Canada. His father was John Pope (1791–1863), of Padstow, Cornwall, a merchant who became a missionary, who emigrated to Prince Edward Island in 1818, and Catherine Uglow (1797-1867), of Stratton, north Cornwall. The family moved to Nova Scotia, St. Vincent's before returning to Plymouth, England in 1826 where John Pope became a prosperous merchant and ship-owner. George Uglow Pope's and his younger brother William Burt Pope studied at the Wesleyan schools in Bury and Hoxton and at the age of fourteen George joined missionary service in southern India.

He left for South India in 1839 and arrived at Sawyerpuram near Tuticorin with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Pope started studying Tamil as a teenager in England and during the voyage to India and Pope later turned into a scholar of Tamil, Sanskrit and Telugu. In 1841 he was ordained by the Church of England and he married Mary Carver, daughter of another Anglican priest. Pope worked in the Tirunelveli region where he also interacted with other missionaries like Christian Friedrich Schwartz. In 1845, Mary died at Tuticorin and Pope moved to Madras. He married Henrietta Page, daughter of G. van Someren and they left for England in 1849. During this period he worked with many figures in the Oxford Catholic movement including such as Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, Archbishop Trench, Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop John Lonsdale, E. B. Pusey, and John Keble.