https://indianpedia.org/index.php?action=history&feed=atom&title=Henry_Whitelock_TorrensHenry Whitelock Torrens - Revision history2026-07-31T06:54:37ZRevision history for this page on the wikiMediaWiki 1.45.4https://indianpedia.org/index.php?title=Henry_Whitelock_Torrens&diff=502622&oldid=prevSherry6361 at 19:49, 23 April 20262026-04-23T19:49:58Z<p></p>
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'''Henry Whitelock Torrens''' (20 May 1806 – 16 August 1852), son of Major-General [[Henry Torrens (British Army officer, born 1779)|Henry Torrens]], was born on 20 May 1806. He received his [[Bachelor of Arts|B.A.]] at [[Christ Church, Oxford]] (where he was a [[president of the United Debating Society]]<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hollis |first1=Christopher |title=The Oxford Union |date=1965 |publisher=Evans |url=https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/773996}}</ref>), and entered the [[Inner Temple]]. After a short service under the [[Foreign Office]], he obtained a [[writership]] from the Court of Directors of the [[East India Company]] and arrived in India in November 1828 and held various appointments at [[Meerut]]. In 1835 he joined the Secretariat, in which he served in several departments under Sir [[William Hay Macnaghten]]. In 1839 he assisted [[James Hume (magistrate)|James Hume]] in the editing of the ''[[Eastern Star (newspaper)|Eastern Star]]'', a weekly paper, which became a daily paper called the ''[[Calcutta Star]]''. He was secretary (1840–1846) and a Vice-President (1843–1845) to the [[Asiatic Society|Asiatic Society of Bengal]] (now the [[Asiatic Society]]). In December 1846, he was appointed Agent to the Governor-General at [[Murshidabad]]. Here in his endeavours to improve the Nizamat administration, his relations with the [[Nawabs of Bengal and Murshidabad|Nawab Nizam]] and his officials became greatly strained.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=e_dA0RAwd4oC&pg=PA426 ''Dictionary of Indian Biography''; by C. E. Buckland, p. 426]</ref><br />
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He was a clever essayist as well as a journalist and scholar, and his scattered papers were deservedly collected and published at [[Calcutta]] in 1854.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=XNQoV16G88AC&pg=PA337 The Cambridge History of English Literature, Volume 14 by A. W. Ward, page 337].</ref> Torrens also began the first English-translation of ''[[The Arabian Nights' Entertainment]]'' from Arabic-language sources, publishing his renditions of the first 50 tales in 1838.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Shaw |first=Graham |title=The Edinburgh Companion to British Colonial Periodicals |date=2024 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-1-3995-0063-0 |editor1-last=Davis |editor1-first=Caroline |series=Edinburgh companions to literature and the humanities |location=Edinburgh |page=84 |chapter=Mofussil Versus Metropolis, Subalterns Versus Seniors: The Rise and Demise of the Meerut Universal Magazine |editor2-last=Finkelstein |editor2-first=David |editor3-last=Johnson |editor3-first=David}}</ref><br />
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Torrens died of [[dysentery]] at Calcutta while on a visit to the Governor-General on 16 August 1852 and was buried in the [https://web.archive.org/web/20150815071906/http://indian-cemeteries.org/cemetery_details.asp?town=Calcutta&cem=Lower%20Circular%20Road%20Cemetery Lower Circular Road Cemetery].<br />
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==References==<br />
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[[Category:1806 births]]<br />
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[[Category:Presidents of the Oxford Union]]<br />
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[[Category:British barristers]]<br />
[[Category:British male essayists]]<br />
[[Category:Deaths from dysentery]]<br />
[[Category:Torrens family]]<br />
[[Category:19th-century British male journalists]]<br />
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