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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2008
Thomas George Williamson, soldier, composer, music publisher and author, died in Paris in 1817. Though neither a great soldier nor particularly a significant creative writer, his attainments have qualified him for a short mention in various biographies and encyclopedias. None of these presents anything approaching an account of the whole man, however, because Williamson had a wide range of interests in which he invested his creative energies and he is known only from the standpoint of each of the subject specializations concerned without reference to the others. The present study was initiated by a commission to write an article on Williamson the composer for the new Grove's Dictionary of Music & Musicians, on whom in the previous edition three sentences had been devoted. Besides adding to a knowledge of his musical activities, source material has been brought together which could be of interest to historians and sociologists, not least in Asian studies. For Williamson's story has very much to do with the twenty years he lived in India before his return to England in 1798, both because this period was the career part of his life and on account of the wealth of experiences that it provided for him to draw upon later in his literary and musical compositions.
1 The author gratefully acknowledges the kind assistance he has received from the staff of the India Office Library and Records while working on this topic.
2 Only an entry giving his rank and date of proceeding to India is found in the Register of Cadets, L/MIL/9/255 (India Office Library and Records).Google Scholar
3 Hodson, V. C. P., List of Officers of the Bengal Army (London, 1927), pp. 483–4.Google Scholar
4 In this case two Europeans were repatriated. The following year the editors of the Asiatic Mirror and the Relator were also sent home as their policy did not meet the approval of the Governor-general. Spear, P., The Nabobs, A Study of the Social Life of the English in Eighteenth-Century India (Gloucester, Mass., 1971), p. 194.Google Scholar
5 Bengal Military Consultations: Range, P. 19, vol. 43. Transcripts of Crown-copyright records in the India Office Records appear by permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office.Google Scholar
6 E., Ingram (ed.), Two Views of British India: The Private Correspondence of Mr. Dundas and Lord Wellesley, 1798–1801 (Bath, 1970), p. 10.Google Scholar
7 G., Forrest, (ed.), Selections from the State Papers of the Governors-general of India, Lord Cornwallis (Oxford, 1926), vol. II, p. 151.Google Scholar
8 Ibid., p. 147.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid., p. 161: ‘all ideas must be given up in the army of looking for perquisites or advantages in any shape whatever beyond the open, avowed allowances which shall be allotted to the respective ranks; and if any officer shall be detected in making such attempt, he ought to be tried by a General Court Martial for behaving in a manner unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman, and, if convicted, be dismissed from the service.’
11 Ibid., p. 164.
12 Philips, C. H. (ed.), The Correspondence of David Scott, Director and Chairman of the East India Company Relating to Indian Affairs 1787–1805 (London, 1951).Google ScholarReferred to in letter 77,Google ScholarDavid Scott to Sir John Shore, Vol. I, p. 67.Google Scholar
13 Ibid., letter 66, David Scott to Alexander Baillie, Bath (22 January, 1796), vol. I, p. 61: ‘By the by it might not be amiss to acquaint you that by the new army arrangement for India which will be sent off in a few days it is rendered without exception I suppose the best service that ever we heard of in the world for military.’
14 Ibid., letter 77, David Scott to Sir John Shore, vol. I, p. 67.
15 Bengal Military Consultations, Ibid.
16 Hodson, , List of Officers of the Bengal Army, p. 484.Google Scholar
17 Advertisement on the title-page of Williamson's 25 National Airs, op. 3.Google Scholar
18 See Williamson, , 6 Canzonettes, op. 2, no.1, ‘The Daffodil’, no. 3, ‘Since in the Mirror of my Eyes’, and no. 4, ‘Ra'ma'nee’.Google Scholar
19 The shop closed in 1802 according to Humphries, Charles and Smith, William C., Music Publishing in the British Isles (London, 1954), p. 336.Google Scholar
20 Grateful acknowledgement is made for the information received from Mr. C. I. Shoulders of The Patent Office on this point.
21 Preface, The Complete Angler's Vade-Mecum, Being a Perfect Code of Instruction on the Above Pleasing Science Wherein are Detailed a Great Variety of Original Practices and Inventions, Together with All that can Contribute to the Sportsman's Amusement and Success.Google Scholar
22 The East India Vade-Mecum, vol. 2, p. 209.Google Scholar
23 Published in London, 1813. The same year saw the publication in London of Sir Charles D'Oyley, The Costume and Customs of Modern India; From a Collection of Drawings by Charles Doyley, Esq. With a Preface and Copious Descriptions by Captain Thomas Williamson.Google Scholar
24 India and British Portraiture 1770–1825, by Archer, Mildred (Sotheby Parke Bernet Publications, London).Google Scholar
25 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 213.
26 The Asiatic Journal, vol. 4 (London, 1817), p. 537.Google ScholarGentleman's Magazine, 1817, pt 11, p. 637.Google Scholar
