Lyall, Sir Alfred Comyn

(1835-1911)

   Born at Coulsdon, Surrey, the son of a clergyman, he was educated at Eton College then at Haileybury College, Hertfordshire, the training ground for the Indian Civil Service, which he joined in 1856. He fought during the Mutiny of 1857-1858 and received the Mutiny Medal. Subsequently he held a number of high-ranking appointments; his final, in 1881, was lieutenant governor of the North-West Provinces. Between his return from India in 1887 and his death, he was one of the best-known and most distinguished men in English society and advised the government as a member of the India Council in London. He was made Knight Commander of the Bath (1881) and received honorary degrees from Oxford and Cambridge. He died from heart disease at Farringford in the Isle of Wight and was buried at Harbledown near Canterbury, Kent. Some of his poems: "A Sermon in Lower Bengal," "After the Skirmish," "Joab Speaketh," "Meditations of a Hindu Prince," "Rajpoot Rebels," "Studies at Delhi, 1876," "The Amir's Message," "The Amir's Soliloquy," "The Land of Regrets," "The Monk and the Bird," "Translations from Horace."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). Poemhunter (www.poemhunter.com). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Oxford Book of Travel Verse. Kevin Crossley-Holland, ed. Oxford University Press, 1986. The World's Great Religious Poetry. Caroline Miles Hill, ed. Macmillan, 1954. Verses Written in India by Alfred Lyall. Kegan Paul, 1890.