Author: MALCOLM, John
Biography:
MALCOLM, John (1769-1833: ODNB)
The son of George Malcolm and his wife Margaret Pasley, he was born on 2 May 1769 at Burnfoot, Westerkirk, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, and baptised on 4 May. He was initially educated at the parish school but at the age of twelve he moved to London under the protection of an uncle. There he joined the East India Company and was sent to India as ensign to the regiment at Vellore. Thus began his long and mostly successful career in the military and as a government administrator. Malcolm learned to speak Persian fluently but in 1794 he returned to Britain in poor health; while there he briefly studied at the University of Edinburgh. On his return to India in 1795 he was appointed envoy to Persia; later he was acting private secretary to Marquess Wellesley. He married Isabella Charlotte Campbell in Madras on 4 July 1807; they had one son and four daughters. Malcolm was now at the rank of lieutenant colonel. He returned to England in 1815, the year that his History of Persia was published, and was knighted. Malcolm returned to India without his family in 1817 and participated in the Third Anglo-Maratha war. He had hoped to become governor of Bombay and when the choice fell elsewhere he resigned and returned to England. The family lived first in Sussex and then at Hyde Hall, Hertfordshire, where Malcolm spent his time writing. In 1827 he returned to Bombay, now as governor, but immediately found himself embroiled in a political scandal. When he returned to England in 1831 he became ill while working on his Government of India (1833) and Live of Clive (1836). Malcolm died at his lodgings, Princes Street, Hanover Square, London, on 30 May 1833. He was buried at St. James's, Piccadilly, on 6 June but in 1861 was reinterred at Kensal Green Cemetery where his wife was also buried on her death in 1867. There is a bust of Malcolm by Francis Chantrey in the north transept of Westminster Abbey. His will was proved on 24 July 1833 and left his unpublished manuscripts to his wife to be used as she saw fit. (ODNB 27 July 2026; ancestry.co.uk 27 July 2026; findmypast.co.uk 27 July 2026) SR
Other Names:
- Sir John Malcolm