https://indianpedia.org/index.php?action=history&feed=atom&title=Lawrence_Samuel_DurrellLawrence Samuel Durrell - Revision history2026-07-30T09:21:35ZRevision history for this page on the wikiMediaWiki 1.45.4https://indianpedia.org/index.php?title=Lawrence_Samuel_Durrell&diff=116122&oldid=prev>DEFCON5 at 06:20, 19 June 20212021-06-19T06:20:18Z<p></p>
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{{Infobox person<br />
| name = <!-- use common name/article title --><br />
| image = <!-- filename only, no "File:" or "Image:" prefix, and no enclosing [[brackets]] --><br />
| alt = <!-- descriptive text for use by speech synthesis (text-to-speech) software --><br />
| caption = <br />
| birth_name = <!-- only use if different from name --><br />
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1884|09|23|df=y}}<br />
| birth_place = [[Dum Dum]], Calcutta<br />
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1928|04|16|1884|09|23|df=y}}<br />
| death_place = [[Dalhousie, India|Dalhousie]], India<br />
| nationality = <br />
| other_names = <br />
| occupation = Engineer<br />
| alma_mater = [[Thomason College of Civil Engineering]]<br />
| years_active = <br />
| known_for = <br />
| notable_works = <br />
| spouse = {{marriage|[[Louisa Durrell|Louisa Dixie]]|1910}}<br />
| children = [[Lawrence Durrell|Lawrence]], [[Margaret Durrell|Margaret]], [[Leslie Durrell|Leslie]], [[Gerald Durrell|Gerald]]<br />
| family = [[Durrell family|Durrell]]<br />
}}<br />
'''Lawrence Samuel Durrell''' (23 September 1884 – 16 April 1928) was a [[British India]]n subject and engineer, best remembered as the father of novelist [[Lawrence Durrell]] and naturalist and writer [[Gerald Durrell]]. He was an [[Anglo-Indian]] in the sense that he was of English descent and brought up in [[India]].<br />
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== Early life ==<br />
Durrell was born in [[Dum Dum]], north of Calcutta (present day [[Kolkata]]) on 23 September 1884, the son of Samuel Amos Durrell and his wife, Dora Maria Johnstone, and christened in [[Fatehgarh]], Bengal, on 7 October 1884.<ref>FamilySearch.org, ''India, Births and Baptisms, 1786–1947'', at https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FG7P-F96. Retrieved 8 November 2012; FamilySearch.org, ''India, Marriages, 1792–1948'', at https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FGN1-Q53. Retrieved 8 November 2012.</ref><br />
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== Career ==<br />
An [[engineer]] by profession, he studied in the Thomason College of Civil Engineering (now the [[Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee]]). While he worked for the [[North-West Railway]] in [[Jalandhar]], his son Lawrence was born in 1912. Durrell went on to work for the [[Mymensingh–Bhairab Bazar Railway Company]] in Bengal.<br />
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In 1918, he became the chief engineer of the famous [[Darjeeling Himalayan Railway]], and in 1920 left the company to found his own company Durrell & Co., Engineers and Contractors at Sakci, which became the industrial boomtown of [[Jamshedpur]]. Gerald Durrell was born in Jamshedpur in 1925. Many of the important industrial constructions in Jamshedpur were undertaken by his company, including the Tinplate Company of India, the Indian Cable Company, and the Enamelled Ironware Company, and contractual work for the [[Tata Steel|Tata Iron and Steel Works]].<br />
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Although Durrell purchased a house in [[Dulwich]] and was planning on moving to [[England]], instead he transferred to [[Lahore]] with his family for supervising contract work. In 1928, the engineer fell ill due to causes which were medically undiagnosed and attributed to overwork. The family moved to [[Dalhousie, India|Dalhousie]] for the climate in 1928, but Durrell died on 16 April 1928 of suspected [[cerebral haemorrhage]] and is buried in the English cemetery at Dalhousie.<br />
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Like many Englishmen whose families had been resident in India for generations, Durrell worked and socialised with Indians of all confessions and castes. On one occasion, according to a story told by Lawrence Durrell, his novelist son, Durrell gave up his membership at a club when his proposal to include an [[University of Oxford|Oxford]]-educated [[India]]n doctor who had saved his son's life was turned down.<br />
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== Personal life and family ==<br />
In [[Roorkee]], he met [[Louisa Dixie Durrell|Louisa Florence Dixie]] and married her in 1910.<ref name=Haag2017>{{Cite book |title=The Durrells of Corfu |last=Haag |first=Michael |year=2017 |location=[[London]] |publisher=[[Profile Books]] |isbn=978-1782832294}}</ref> The couple had three sons and two daughters: [[Lawrence Durrell|Lawrence]] (1912), Margery (1915), [[Leslie Durrell|Leslie]] (1917), [[Margaret Durrell|Margaret]] (1919), and [[Gerald Durrell|Gerald]] (1925).<ref name=Haag2017 /><br />
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==References==<br />
{{reflist}}<br />
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*''Through the Dark Labyrinth: Biography of Lawrence Durrell'', [[Gordon Bowker (writer)|Gordon Bowker]], [[Sinclair Stevenson]], 1996<br />
*''Gerald Durrell: The Authorized Biography'', [[Douglas Botting]], Carroll & Graf, 1999<br />
*''Alexandria: City of Memory'', [[Michael Haag]], Yale University Press, London and New Haven, 2004, which contains biographical material on the writer Lawrence Durrell and his family.<br />
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{{Gerald Durrell}}<br />
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Durrell, Lawrence Samuel}}<br />
[[Category:1884 births|Durrell, Lawrence S]]<br />
[[Category:1928 deaths|Durrell, Lawrence S]]<br />
[[Category:Scientists from Kolkata|Durrell, Lawrence S]]<br />
[[Category:English engineers|Durrell, Lawrence S]]<br />
[[Category:20th-century Indian engineers|Durrell, Lawrence S]]<br />
[[Category:People from Haridwar]]<br />
[[Category:Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee alumni]]</div>>DEFCON5