James Atkinson (Persian scholar)

James Atkinson (17 March 1780 – 7 August 1852) was a surgeon, artist and Persian scholar - "a Renaissance man among Anglo-Indians"

Atkinson was born in Darlington, County Durham, England, the son of a woolcomber. He showed at an early age a remarkable gift for languages and portraiture and was enabled by the kindness of a friend to study medicine at Edinburgh and London. He first sailed to India in 1802 as Surgeon’s Mate on board a ship of the Honourable East India Company (HEIC). On his second trip in 1805 he was appointed Assistant Surgeon in the Bengal service of the HEIC and placed in medical charge of the station of Backergunj near Dacca in present-day Bangladesh.

It was whilst at Backergunj that he began his study of Persian and other oriental languages. He became a close friend of Sir Charles D’Oyly who was the Collector of Dacca (1808–1812) and a keen amateur artist. George Chinnery stayed with D’Oyly during this period and both D’Oyly and Atkinson became his pupils becoming heavily influenced by his passion for painting Indian landscapes and village life.

It was Atkinson's proficiency with languages that brought him to the attention of The Lord Minto, the Governor General of India, who invited Atkinson to Calcutta in 1812 where he was appointed Assistant to the Assay Master at the Calcutta Mint (appointed Deputy Assay Master in 1818). The Assay Master was Horace Hayman Wilson, orientalist and Secretary to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, who published the first Sanskrit to English dictionary in 1819. For most of 1820 while Wilson was setting up the new Mint at Benares Atkinson worked alongside James Prinsep, the antiquarian and numismatist, at the Calcutta Mint.

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