Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/725

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paring the two Mr. J. Horace Round says: Wrottesley's own critical sense was, I think, more developed … for no genealogist, perhaps, could claim with better reason that he placed truth foremost.’ He had, too, that other virtue of the new school, the power of tacking on private history to public events in such a way as to give to the narration its reality and significance. He died on 4 March 1909, and is buried in the Wrottesley vault in Tettenhall church. He married (1) on 7 Jan. 1854 Margaret Anne, daughter of Sir John Fox Burgoyne; she died on 3 May 1883; and (2) on 21 Feb. 1889 Nina Margaret, daughter of John William Philips of Heybridge, Staffordshire, who survived him. He had no issue by either marriage.

[Salt Society, vols. i.–xviii. and i.–xii. n.s.; Genealogist, n.s. xxvi. 1909; Burgoyne's Life, 1873; J. H. Round, Staff. Cols. vol. 1910.]

J. C. W.

WYLLIE, Sir WILLIAM HUTT CURZON (1848–1909), lieutenant-colonel in the Indian army and of the government of India foreign department, born at Cheltenham on 5 Oct. 1848, was third and youngest son of the five children of General Sir William Wyllie, G.C.B. [q. v.], by Amelia, daughter of Richards Hutt of Appley, Isle of Wight, and niece of Captain John Hutt, R.N. [q. v.] Both his brothers served in India—John William Shaw Wyllie [q. v.] and Francis Robert Shaw Wyllie, some time under-secretary to the government of Bombay.

Educated at Marlborough and Sandhurst, he entered the army in Oct. 1866 as ensign 106th foot (the Durham light infantry). Arriving in India Feb. 1867, he joined the Indian staff corps in 1869, and was posted to the 2nd Gurkha regt. (the Sirmoor rifles), now the 2nd King Edward's own Gurkhas. He was specially selected for civil and political employment in 1870, when he was appointed to the Oudh commission and served under General Barrow and Sir George Couper [q. v. Suppl. II].

In Jan. 1879 he was transferred to the foreign department, serving successively as cantonment magistrate of Nasirabad, assistant-commissioner in Ajmer-Merwara, and assistant to the governor-general's agent in Baluchistan, Sir Robert Groves Sandeman [q. v.]. He went through the Afghan campaign of 1878–80, including the march on Kandahar, with Major-general Sir Robert Phayre. He received the medal and was mentioned in the viceroy's despatches. After the war he was military secretary to his brother-in-law, William Patrick Adam, governor of Madras [q. v.], from Dec. 1880 until Adam's death in the following May, and until Nov. 1881 he was private secretary to Mr. William Hudleston (acting governor).

He married on 29 December 1881 Katharine Georgiana, second daughter of David Fremantle Carmichael, I.C.S., then member of the council, Madras, who survives him.

Wyllie had charge of Mulhar Rao, the ex-Gaekwar of Baroda, from Dec. 1881 to Nov. 1882. He then became assistant resident at Haiderabad. Subsequently he was assistant commissioner, Ajmer-Merwara, 1883; first assistant in Rajputana, 1884; additional political agent, Kotah, April 1885; boundary settlement officer, Meywar-Marwar border, Nov. 1886; political agent, Kotah, Jan. 1889; officiating commissioner of Ajmer, July 1891; officiating political agent, Jhallawar, in addition to Kotah, 1891–2; resident western states of Rajputana (Jodhpur), 1892–3; resident in Meywar (Udaipur), Nov. 1893 to Feb. 1898, when he officiated as resident in Nepal. Later in 1898 he attained one of the highest appointments in the service, viz. that of agent to the governor-general in central India. In May 1900 he was transferred in the same capacity to Rajputana, where he remained during the rest of his service in India. He was made C.I.E. in 1881, and he attained his lieutenant-colonelcy in 1892.

Throughout his long and varied services in the native states of India, and more especially in Rajputana, where seventeen of the most strenuous years of his life were spent, he gained by his unfailing courtesy, his charm of manner, and above all by his high character and strength of purpose, the most remarkable influence over the chiefs and officials of the principalities under his administrative charge. In addition Wyllie had the reputation, so dear to all Rajputs, of a keen sportsman and a skilful and daring rider, who held as a trophy the blue riband of Indian sportsmen, the Hog-hunters' Ganges cup, which he won in Oudh in April 1875.

His example stimulated all who served under him, and it was owing to his energy and to the confidence placed in him by the princes and people of Rajputana that the calamity of famine during the years 1899–1900 was successfully overcome by the measures of relief which he organised.

In March 1901 he came home on being selected by Lord George Hamilton for the post of political aide-de-camp to the secretary of state for India. His knowledge of India and long association with