Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Lee-Warner, William
LEE-WARNER, Sir WILLIAM (1846–1914), Indian civil servant and author, was the fifth and youngest son of the Rev. Henry James Lee-Warner, honorary canon of Norwich, of Thorpland Hall, Norfolk, by his wife, Anne, daughter of the Rev. Henry Nicholas Astley, rector of East Barsham, Norfolk. He was born at Little Walsingham vicarage 18 April 1846, and went in 1859 to Rugby, where he won the regard of Dr. Temple. Elected in 1865 a scholar of St. John's College, Cambridge, he took honours in the moral science tripos in 1869. In later years Cambridge gave him the honorary degree of LL.D. Both at school and at Cambridge he made his mark in sports; he represented the university against Oxford at racquets as late as 1889, and throughout a strenuous official career he retained his athletic and open-air tastes. On passing the Indian civil service examination of 1867, he was posted to the Bombay Presidency in 1869. Two years later the governor, Sir Philip Wodehouse [q.v.], also a Norfolk man, made him his private secretary. Thereafter Lee-Warner served in an exceptional variety of posts, whereby he saw the problem of Indian administration from every side. At one time he was in charge of education in Berar, then collector, first of Poona, and next of Satara; subsequently he was political agent at Kolapur (1886–1887). He had had a period of service with the government of India as under-secretary in the foreign department in 1884, and in August 1887 he became secretary to the Bombay government in the political and judicial departments, being later promoted to the chief secretaryship. He represented the Bombay government in the viceroy's legislature in 1893–1894 and again early in 1895. In the latter year he was appointed resident in Mysore and ex-officio chief commissioner of Coorg, but he retired a few months later. The most important of the various inquiries on which he served was the epoch-making education commission of 1882–1883. His political appointments provided him with material for his Protected Princes of India (1894) which, as revised and enlarged in The Native States of India (1916), remains the standard authority.
In 1895 Lord George Hamilton brought Lee-Warner home to be secretary of the political and secret department at the India Office. In this capacity and later as a member of the secretary of state's council, to which he was appointed in November 1902 for ten years, he had important influence upon Indian affairs. He was created K.C.S.I. in 1898. Cautious in temperament and alive to the dangers of instability of policy in dealing with Eastern peoples, Lee-Warner, who had come of strongly liberal stock, was no reactionary; but he was regarded as such by many Indian politicians, who disliked his book, The Citizen of India (1897), which was written in order to correct prevalent misconceptions of the British rule. His own straightforwardness of purpose and acute perceptions made him quick to diagnose motives and policies which appeared to him tortuous or malign, and he probably over-estimated the secret political influence of the Brahmin hierarchy. He looked with suspicion upon the political demands of the educated classes, because he did not believe that they would inure to the benefit of the country as a whole. An obituary notice of him in The Times (19 January 1914) justifiably states that no more genuine friend of the Indian people, and particularly of the agricultural classes, served India in our time. He was trusted and admired by successive secretaries of state; and though his intimate knowledge of Indian intricacies and his fearless independence of judgement were a foil to Lord Morley's radical ideals for India, that statesman recognized the value of his criticism when he put forward the recommendation whereby in 1911 Lee-Warner was promoted G.C.S.I.
Lee-Warner wrote the authoritative Life of the Marquis of Dalhousie (1904) and, from intimate personal knowledge, Memoirs of Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wylie Norman (1908). He contributed to this Dictionary, to the Cambridge Modern History, to the Encyclopædia Britannica, and to other works of reference, besides writing frequently for the quarterly and monthly reviews. Of marked simplicity of character, and a devout evangelical churchman, his activities in religious and philanthropic enterprise were many-sided. He used up his strength both of mind and body remorselessly. After his retirement from the India Office in 1912, he had many schemes for literary and other work for his beloved India. Refusing to rest, he broke down in health, and died 18 January 1914. He is buried in the churchyard of the home of his childhood, Little Walsingham.
Lee-Warner married in 1876 Ellen Paulina, eldest daughter of Major-General J. W. Holland, and was survived by three sons. Another son was accidentally drowned at Nanaimo, Vancouver Island, in 1906.
[Lee-Warner's books and articles; The Times, 19 January 1914; Lord Sydenham in the Spectator, 31 January 1914; personal knowledge.]