Author: Atkinson, James
Biography:
ATKINSON, James (1780-1852: ODNB)
Physician, orientalist. The son of Thomas English and Ann Atkinson, he was born in county Durham and baptised at Sunderland on 9 Mar. 1780. He studied medicine at Edinburgh and London before becoming a medical officer on board an East Indiaman. He was appointed surgeon in the Bengal medical service in 1805 but moved to Calcutta in 1813 to take up a post as assistant assay master at the mint. At Calcutta he married Jane Bathie on 14 Oct. 1815; they had three sons and one daughter. Atkinson embarked on an intensive study of Oriental languages. A pioneer in Oriental studies, he translated a range of Persian texts into English verse and prose: his translations of Firdausi are listed in this database, as are his translations of Tassoni and Foscolo (qq.v.). His Customs and Manners of the Women of Persia, a translation from Persian, was issued in London in 1832. DNB lists an 1836 translation of Leyla and Mejnûn from the Persian of Nizami Ganjavi but no copy has been located. Atkinson was also an accomplished portraitist and artist who illustrated his Sketches in Affghanistan [sic] (1842). After long service in India where, among other occupations, he was editor of the Government Gazette and travelled to Kabul as superintending army surgeon, he retired to England in 1847. He died on 7 Aug. 1852 at 18 Dorset Square, Marylebone, London, and was buried at Brompton cemetery on 14 Aug. (DNB, ODNB 22 Jan. 2018; ancestry.co.uk 1 Jan. 2026; C.E. Buckland, Dictionary of Indian Biography) SR