Author: Urquhart, John
Biography:
URQUHART, John (1777-1830: IOR)
According to his burial record of 26 Apr. 1830 at Calcutta, Bengal, his age at death was 52 years 11 months and 27 days, giving a birth or possibly baptism of 29 April 1777. His will states that he had served the EIC in the Mint (since 4 Aug. 1790) “more than thirty one years”--which must raise the possibility that he was born in India but would have meant that he left the Mint around 1821 which is problematic because the death notices do not indicate early departure. Furthermore, the obituary of his brother William Urquhart (1772-1821), the printer and proprietor of the Madras Courier, states that his brother died aged 49 and “arrived in 1794 from Calcutta, his native country, and was creditably employed as Superintendent of the Madras Gazette.” So we have a second source which is evidence the brothers were born in India. Against this there is the reasonable assumption that they were Scottish. If so they may be the William and John Urquhart who were the sons of William Urquhart baptised at Rathen, Aberdeenshire, in 1772 and 1777, but this is highly speculative. Moral Poems (1812) has been attributed to him here for the first time on the basis of information contained in The Happy State of Great Britain (1829), which refers to the earlier volume dedicated to Gilbert Elliot, Lord Minto, and includes a letter from his brother. The 1829 Preface states that “it was written at an early period of my life, about the commencement of the war with France, immediately after the revolution,” indicating that he wrote it sometime after 1793, probably before he was twenty. The connection to Gilbert Elliot, Lord Minto, sometime student of David Hume and Governor General of India 1807-13 does not resolve the issue of birth dates. Urquhart married Elizabeth Caroline Rose (1784-1866) on 24 June 1805 at Calcutta. They had at least eight children. He died on 25 Apr. 1830 at Calcutta and was buried the following day. (Asiatic Journal Mar. 1822, 290, Oct. 1830, 76; BL, IOR, L/AG/34/29/46 f. 209-214, L/AG/34/29/221 f. 170-174) AA