Walter Elliot (naturalist)

Sir Walter Elliot, KCSI (16 January 1803 – 1 March 1887) was a Scottish civil servant in India. He was also an eminent orientalist, linguist, naturalist and ethnologist who worked mainly in the Presidency of Madras. Born in Edinburgh, he studied at the East India College in Haileybury and joined the Indian Civil Service at Madras in 1820 and worked on till 1860. He was invested Knight Commander of the Order of the Star of India (KCSI) in 1866.

Elliot was born in 1803 at Edinburgh, son of James Elliot of Wolfelee and Caroline. His early education was under a private tutor and he later was at school near Doncaster. He then went to Haileybury College, with a recommendation from his aunt, the widow of the twelfth Lord Elphinstone, graduated with "high distinction", and took up an appointment in the East India Company's Civil Service. He landed in Madras on 14 June 1820.

Elliot's training continued at the college at Fort St. George, in Madras where he excelled in languages, winning an award of 1000 pagodas for his proficiency in Tamil and Urdu. He later learned other languages: Marathi, Arabic, Persian and Telugu. For two years he worked as an assistant to the collector of Salem district. He then arranged with Sir Thomas Munro and Mountstuart Elphinstone to be transferred into the newly acquired territory of southern Maratha district.

In 1824 Elliot was caught up in the Kittur insurrection, which tried to take over a territory then under the control of Kittur Chennamma. He was taken prisoner, while his superior, St. John Thackeray, the political agent of Dharwar (and uncle of William Makepeace Thackeray), was killed. Elliot and an assistant Stevenson were held in imprisonment for six weeks. They received good treatment from their captors, and it was during this period that he learnt about Hindu ideas of kinship, caste and custom. The southern Maratha district was subsequently moved from the control of the Madras to the Bombay Presidency but he was allowed to stay on by the governor of Bombay, Sir John Malcolm. During this period he gained a reputation as an adventurer, historian, big-game hunter and linguist.

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