Author: Paterson, John David
Biography:
PATERSON, John David (1754-1809: ancestry.co.uk)
He was probably the eldest of at least five children of John Paterson (1705-89), a Scottish attorney who had settled in London by 1745 and later became Clerk to the Commissioners for the Land Tax for the City of London (1772-1789). His first wife (and mother of John David Paterson) is not known. There seems to be no baptism record for any of the children and their dates are reconstructed here from his will and their burial records: John David 1754-1809, George (1757-1831), Anne Alicia (1758?-1837), Maria Margaretta (1759-1833), Jane Meliora (1760-1830). The sons may have been educated at Eton. They both entered the EIC. John David joined in Nov. 1775 as a writer and eventually rose to the position of judge and magistrate at Dacca, where he died on 27 May 1809. His brother George rose to become the Deputy Accountant General of the EIC, and his illegitimate son Horace Hayman Wilson, later a distinguished Orientalist, edited his uncle John David Paterson’s posthumous collection Odes to the Ragas, and Other Poems (1818). During his time in India, Paterson became a founder member of the Asiatic Society in 1784 and contributed papers to the journal Asiatic Researches: “Of the Origin of the Hindu Religion” 8 (1808), 43-82 and “Of the Gra’mas or the Musical Scales of the Hindus” 9 (1809) 448-63. The inventory to his will (1810) contains a list of his books (ff. 968-70). (ancestry.co.uk 12 Dec. 2021; findmypast.co.uk 12 Dec. 2021; European Magazine Dec. 1789, 471; Madras Courier 21 June 1809; "Wilson, Horace Hayman," ODNB 12 Dec. 2021; C. R. Wilson, List of Inscriptions on Tombs and Monuments in Bengal [1896], 203; Calcutta Gazette 14, 21, 28 Sept. 1809; Morning Post 6 May 1831; Yvonne Devereux Papers, BL Mss Eur C853) AA