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{{short description|British colonial civil servant (1813-1906)}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2017}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2017}}
{{infobox person
| honorific_prefix = [[Order of the British Empire|Sir]]
| name = Henry Edward Landor Thuillier
| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|CSI|FRS}}
| image = Henry Edward Landor Thuillier.jpg
| caption = Henry Edward Landor Thuillier
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1813|7|10}}
| birth_place = [[Bath, Somerset]], England
| death_date = {{dda|df=y|1906|5|6|1813|7|10}}
| death_place = [[Richmond, London]], England
| resting_place = [[Richmond Cemetery]], England
| education =
| alma_mater = [[Addiscombe Military Seminary]], Surrey, England
| father = John Pierre Thuillier
| mother =
| spouse = {{plainlist|
* {{marriage|Susanne Elizabeth Cardew|1836|1844|end=died}}
* {{marriage|Annie Charlotte Macpherson|1847}}
}}
| children = 10
| relatives = {{nowrap|[[Henry Ravenshaw Thuillier|Col Sir Henry Ravenshaw Thuillier]] (son)}}
}}

'''Sir Henry Edward Landor Thuillier''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|CSI|FRS}} (10 July 1813 – 6 May 1906) was [[Surveyor General of India]]. Under his direction, 796,928 square miles of India were surveyed, including difficult mountainous, forest, and desert regions, often for the first time. He was responsible for the printing in 1854 of the first postage stamps valid throughout India. Thuillier was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1869, made a CSI in May 1870, and knighted in June 1879.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=24739 |date=1 July 1879 |page=4206}}</ref>

==Early life==
Thuillier was born at Bath on 10 July 1813, was youngest of eleven children (five sons and six daughters) of [[John Pierre Thuillier]], Baron of Malapert, and merchant of Cadiz and Bath, by his wife Julia, daughter of James Burrow of Exeter. An elder sister, Julia, married [[Walter Savage Landor]] in 1811. He was descended from [[Huguenots]] who, on the revocation of the [[Edict of Nantes]] in 1685, first settled in Geneva. He was educated at the [[East India Company]]'s military academy, [[Addiscombe Military Seminary|Addiscombe]].<ref name=DNB1912>"Thuillier, Henry Edward Landor" by [[Frank Herbert Brown]] in ''[[Dictionary of National Biography]]'', 1912 supplement.</ref>

==Marriage==
Thuillier married firstly in 1836 Susanne Elizabeth (died 1844), daughter of the reverend Haydon Cardew of [[Curry Mallet]], Somerset, by whom he had a son (Colonel Sir [[Henry Ravenshaw Thuillier]], [[Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire|KCIE]], also Indian surveyor-general, 1887–95), and a daughter; and secondly in 1847 Annie Charlotte, daughter of [[George Gordon Macpherson]], [[Bengal medical service]], by whom he had six sons (three of them became officers in the Indian army) and two daughters.<ref name=DNB1912/>

==Career==
Thuillier was gazetted to the Bengal artillery on 14 December 1832 and was stationed at the headquarters, [[Dum Dum]]. Transferred to the survey department in December 1836, he first served with parties in [[Ganjam]] and [[Orissa, India|Orissa]], and later was in charge of the revenue surveys in the Bengal districts of [[Cachar]], [[Sylhet_District|Sylhet]], [[Cuttack]], and [[Patna]]. In January 1847, ten months before receiving his captaincy, he was appointed deputy surveyor-general and superintendent of revenue surveys. That post he held for seventeen years, in the course of which he much improved the survey system and rendered the results more readily accessible to the public.<ref name=DNB1912/> He "followed in the track of the different trigonometrical series, and thus had the advantage of fixed stations on which to base his detailed surveys".<ref>''Memoir on Indian Surveys'', 1878.</ref> He was joint author with Captain R. Smythe of ''The Manual of Surveying in India'' (Calcutta, 1851; 3rd edit. 1885). There he discussed the difficult question of Indian [[orthography]], which was officially standardised while he had charge of the department.<ref name=DNB1912/>

He was president of [[Asiatic Society of Bengal|The Asiatic Society of Bengal]] in 1863.<ref>[http://asiaticsocietycal.com/president/index.htm Presidents & Secretaries.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160901074336/http://asiaticsocietycal.com/president/index.htm |date=1 September 2016 }} The Asiatic Society. Retrieved 17 December 2016.</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://archive.org/details/journalofasiati321863asia|title=Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal|first1=India)|last1=Asiatic Society (Calcutta|first2=India)|last2=Asiatic Society (Calcutta|date=12 February 1832|publisher=Calcutta|via=Internet Archive}}</ref>

Succeeding [[Andrew Scott Waugh|Sir Andrew Scott Waugh]] as surveyor-general on 13 March 1861, he was promoted lieutenant-colonel in the same year, colonel on 20 September 1865, and major-general on 26 March 1870. The survey of the more settled parts of India had been completed, and many of the surveys under Thuillier were over mountainous and forest-clad regions or sandy deserts, and frequently in parts never before visited by Europeans. In every branch, he showed organising and administrative talent. In 1868 he transferred the preparation of the ''Atlas of India'' from England to Calcutta, selecting a staff of engravers there for the purpose, and encouraging [[John Bobanau Nicklerlieu Hennessey]]<ref>''Dictionary of National Biography'', Suppl. II.</ref> to introduce the photo-zincographic process. Under Thuillier's superintendence 796,928 square miles, or more than half the dependency, were dealt with. He was elected a fellow of the [[Royal Society]] in 1869, made a C.S.I., in May 1870, and knighted on 26 June 1879. In July 1876 he was awarded a good service pension.<ref name=DNB1912/>

==First stamps of India==
[[File:Four annas H3 F2 smaller.jpg|thumbnail|A four annas stamp of 1854 from the first issue of India.]]
In 1854, while a captain at the Lithographic Office of the survey department, he was responsible for the printing of the [[Postage stamps and postal history of India|first postage stamps for the whole of India]], the first stamps issued ''in'' India being the [[Scinde Dawk]] stamps issued for use in the [[Scinde|Province of Scinde]] (now in Pakistan) in 1852. The stamps produced by Thuillier were only printed in India when the Court of Directors of the East India Company would not authorise the printing of the stamps in England despite several unsuccessful attempts by different people in India to produce a stamp that could be reliably printed in quantity.<ref>[[Leslie L. R. Hausburg|Hausburg, L.R.R.]], "The Stamps of British India", ''[[The London Philatelist]]'', Vol. XVII, March 1908, No. 195, pp. 53–57.</ref>

==Retirement==
[[File:Richmond Old Cemetery, tomb for Lucy Thuillier & Henry Edward Landor Thuillier.jpg|thumb|'''Richmond Old Cemetery''']]
Thuillier retired on 1 January 1878, and the secretary of state, in a despatch dated 18 July 1878, highly commended the energy and perseverance of his forty-one years' service, and congratulated him on the results. He was gazetted lieutenant-general on 10 July 1879, general on 1 July 1881, and (a rare distinction for an officer with little actual military service) colonel commandant of the [[Royal Artillery]] on 1 January 1883. Settling at Richmond, he was long a useful member of the [[Royal Geographical Society]]'s council and came to be looked upon as the father of the East India Company's service. Of fine presence and genial temper, he retained his faculties till his death on 6 May 1906 at [[Richmond, London|Richmond]], where he was buried in [[Richmond Cemetery|Richmond Old Cemetery]].<ref name=DNB1912/>

==Portraits==
There are three portraits in oils: (1) by Mr. Beetham (1846), formerly owned by Sir Henry Thuillier; (2) by Mr. G. G. Palmer (1885), formerly in the surveyor-general's office, Calcutta; and (3) by Mrs. Rowley (1896), presented by her to his eldest daughter, Mrs. Westmorland.<ref name=DNB1912/>

==Selected publications==
*''The Manual of Surveying in India''. Calcutta, 1851; 3rd edit. 1885. (With Captain R. Smythe)

==Notes and references==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
{{Wikisource|Thuillier, Henry Edward Landor (DNB12)|Thuillier, Henry Edward Landor}}
* {{Cite ODNB|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-36519|title=Thuillier, Sir Henry Edward Landor (1813–1906), army officer and surveyor|year=2004|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/36519|last1=Brown|first1=F. H.|editor1-first=Elizabeth|editor1-last=Baigent}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Thuillier, Henry}}
[[Category:1813 births]]
[[Category:1906 deaths]]
[[Category:British East India Company people]]
[[Category:British surveyors]]
[[Category:Burials at Richmond Cemetery]]
[[Category:Companions of the Order of the Star of India]]
[[Category:Knights Bachelor]]
[[Category:Military personnel from Bath, Somerset]]
[[Category:Royal Artillery officers]]
[[Category:Surveyors General of India]]
[[Category:Thuillier family|Henry Edward Landor]]
[[Category:British fellows of the Royal Society]]

Henry Edward Landor Thuillier - Revision history

Owen79097529716 at 09:19, 9 April 2026