| AdminHistory | Maria Graham (1785 1842), later Maria, Lady Callcott, was a writer of travel books and children's books, and also an accomplished illustrator. In 1808 her father George Dundas (1756-1814) took an appointment as head of the naval works at the British East India Company's dockyard in Bombay. When he went out to India he brought his daughter with him. During the trip Maria met a Scottish naval officer, Thomas Graham, third son to Robert Graham, the last Laird of Fintry. They married in India in 1809. In 1811, the young couple returned to England, where Maria published her first book, 'Journal of a Residence in India', followed soon afterwards by 'Letters on India'.
Colonel Colin Mackenzie (1753-1821) was born in the island of Levis in Scotland. He joined as Cadet Engineer in the East India Company and arrived in Madras in 1783. He collected a large number of manuscripts, coins, inscriptions, maps etc., bearing on the literature, religion, history, manners and customs of the people not only from different parts of India but also from Ceylon and Java. On his appointment as Surveyor-General of India in 1818, Colonel Mackenzie took his valuable collections with him to Calcutta and went on adding to them till his death in 1821. His collections now constitute part of the core of the collection of manuscripts preserved in Government Oriental Manuscripts Library (GOML), Madras. |