Kaye, SIR JOHN WILLIAM

Kaye, SIR JOHN WILLIAM, the historian of English India, was born in 1814, and educated at Eton and Addiscombe Military College. He served for some years in the Bengal Artillery, but retired in 1841 to devote himself to literature. In 1856 he entered the service of the East India Company in England, and, on the transfer of the government of India to the crown, was appointed to succeed John Stuart Mill as secretary in the Political and Secret Department of the India Office, a post which he retained until failing health obliged him to retire in 1874. Three years before he had been knighted, and two years later he died, July 24, 1876. Kaye's works are The History of the War in Afghanistan (4 vols. 1851-53); History of the Administration of the East India Company (1853); The Life and Correspondence of Sir John Malcolm (1856); Christianity in India (1859); History of the Sepoy War in India in 1857-58 (2 vols. 1866-71); and Essays of an Optimist (1870). His account of the mutiny struggle has given rise to much embittered controversy, but despite its faults is a noble monument of historical industry and insight. A revised edition of the Sepoy War, along with Colonel Malleson's history of the Indian Mutiny, together forming a connected history, was completed in 6 vols. in 1890.