Mark Wilks
Colonel Mark Wilks FRS (1759 โ 19 September 1831) was a Manx soldier, historian and East India Company administrator who worked in southern India principally in the princely state of Mysore. He was the acting Resident at the Wodeyar Court.
Life
He was born at
He purchased cadetship through
He wrote several historical works including, Report on the Internal Administration of Mysore. This was a continuation of a report on the survey of the
After his return from India, Mark Wilks, with the active help and co-operation of
In 1813 he was appointed Governor for three years of Saint Helena where the exiled former French Emperor Napoleon is said to have found Wilks a highly engaging and affable man. Saint Helena was chiefly a center for slave trade and as Governor he did not outlaw it but he is thought to have taken a sympathy for Samuel Ally, a freed slave.[4] Wilks invited William Roxburgh to study the possibility of cultivating cinchona. After the British government took temporary control of St Helena from the EIC during Napoleon's time on St Helena, Wilks return to England in 1816 and was elected to the Manx parliament, the House of Keys. In 1826, after the death of his father-in-law, he became Speaker of the house. A portrait of Mark Wilks still hangs in the Tynwald building in Douglas.
In February 1826, as Colonel Mark Wilks, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.[5]
He married twice. In 1813 he married his second wife, Dorothy Taubman, daughter of his predecessor as Speaker. He had a son John Barry (named after Barry Close) who died young and a daughter, Laura, who married Gen. Sir John Buchan KCB of Kelloe House, Berwickshire, where Wilks died on a visit in 1839.
Sir Mark Wilks Collet, 1st Baronet was his great-great nephew. Their papers are held together at the Manx National Heritage Library and Archives.[6]
References
- . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885โ1900.
- ^ Moore, Arthur William (1901). Manx Worthies, Or, Biographies of Notable Manx Men and Women. S.K. Broadbent. p. 155. Retrieved 1 February 2021.
- ^ Historical sketches of the south of India, in an attempt trace the history of Mysoor by Lieut. Colonel Mark Wilks. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme; vol. 1 (1810); vols. 2 & 3 (1817)
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link) - ^ "Review of Historical Sketches of the South of India; in an Attempt to Trace the History of Mysoor by Colonel Mark Wilks, volumes ii & iii". The Quarterly Review. 18: 47โ73. October 1817.
- ^ "Samuel Ally (1804-1822) - Find A Grave Memorial". www.findagrave.com. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
- ^ "Library and Archive Catalogue". Royal Society. Retrieved 30 October 2010.
- ^ "Family papers of Sir Mark Edlmann Collet, including Buchan, Wilks, Cubbon and Collet relatives - Archives Hub". Manx National Heritage Library and Archives. Retrieved 1 February 2021.
External links
- Historical Sketches of the South of India (Volume 1)
- Historical Sketches of the South of India (Volume 2)
- Historical Sketches of the South of India (Volume 3)
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