Dictionary of Indian Biography/Colvin, John Russell
COLVIN, JOHN RUSSELL (1807–1857)
Lieutenant-Governor : I.C.S. : son of James Colvin, Calcutta merchant : born in Calcutta, May 29, 1807 : educated at St. Andrews and at Haileybury : went to Bengal in 1826, to Hyderabad in 1827 : was Assistant and Deputy Secretary in the Judicial and Revenue Departments of the Government of India, 1831–5 : Secretary to the Board of Revenue, 1835 : Private Secretary to the Governor-General, Lord Auckland, 1836–42; and is said to have exercised considerable influence over the latter's Afghan policy. He was Resident in Nipal, 1845, Commissioner of Tenasserim, 1846 : Judge of the Sadr Court at Calcutta : Lieutenant-Governor of the N.W.P. from Nov. 7, 1853. It was said that Colvin "over-governed" : he worked with extraordinary industry, and greatly increased the business of the Government : his action in the mutiny has been the subject of controversy : he issued, in May, a proclamation which was not entirely approved: the violence of the outbreak fell upon him without warning, and the forces at his disposal were inadequate to meet it. He was "worn out by the unceasing anxieties and labours of his charge"—so ran Lord Canning's notification of his death : he fell ill, became worse, and died in cantonments on Sep. 9, 1857 : and was buried in the fort at Agra. Sir Auckland Colvin, in his life of his father, J. R. Colvin, in the "Rulers of India" series, has exhausted the subject.