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VOL. XXIV NO. 9, August 16-31, 2014
Remembering The compiler of 'Lists of Inscriptions on Tombs and Monuments of the Madras Presidency'
J.J. Cotton
– Recorder non-pareil
(by K.R.A. Narasiah)

Colonial history of India, in-sofaras the English are concerned, can be read from the inscriptions of the tombstones which are available in plenty in India. In the then Madras, Julian James Cotton (1869-1927) in his short life of 58 years collected tombstone inscriptions and published them with commentary. In the collection there is mention also of a couple of stones on Indians.

His obituary in The Times, London (June 22, 1927) says, “J.J. Cotton, of the Madras Civil Service, who was a great authority on the history and records of British India, died suddenly in Madras on June 20 in his 58th year. Mr. Cotton came of a family whose unbroken record of Indian service is believed to be unique.”

Julian James was born at Krishnagar (Bengal) on October 3, 1869, second son of Sir Henry Cotton (1845-1915), earlier Chief Commissioner of Assam and, later, a Liberal MP. His elder brother, Sir Evan Cotton, was the first President of the Bengal Legislative Council under the reformed Constitution.

Educated at Sherborne and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, J.J. Cotton was known, even as a student, for his extraordinary qualities in learning. After graduation, he was selected for the Indian Civil Service and was posted to Madras, where he arrived in 1893.

Most of his service was in the judicial branch. He was a first grade District and Sessions Judge. Known for his meticulous handling of records, he was appointed Curator of the Madras Records and Editor of the Provincial Gazetteer.

The post had been lying vacant from the end of 1923 when Professor Henry Dodwell left. The post was revived specially for Cotton, to whom the work was most congenial. Cotton was known as an authority on the history of British and Indian relations of the period from 1757.

His list of inscriptions on tombs and monuments in Madras possessing historical or archaeological interest (first published by the Government of Madras in 1901) is a mine of information and has frequently been quoted by authors of the history of Madras. As a member of the Indian Historical Records Commission, of which his elder brother was for some time President, it must have been handy for him to collect all the information he needed.

The family had association with India in one form or another for an uninterrupted period of 160 years, a fact believed to be without any parallel. The connection started with Joseph Cotton (1745-1825) who, serving the East India Company, made his first voyage in 1769, commanding the Indiaman Royal Charlotte; he commanded the ship from 1776 to 1782. He served from 1795 to 1823 as a director of the East India Company. His second son, John Cotton. (d. 1860), was in the Madras Civil Service from 1801 to 1830. His son, Joseph John, and the latter’s son, Henry, followed each other in the MCC. And then came Henry’s son Julian who represented the fifth generation in direct unbroken succession in the service of the Company and the Crown (from 1769-1823). The link continued later too with his cousin, William Bensley Cotton, who was appointed to the United Provinces Civil Service.

J.J. Cotton wrote in his collection, “This volume contains a select list of monumental inscriptions relating to Europeans buried in the Madras Presidency. It includes all epitaphs of adults earlier than 1800 and such entries of later date as possess historical or local interest. Numerous translations from foreign languages have been added, and due attention has been paid towards annotating the names of persons and places of importance.”

What prompted Julian Cotton? He notes, “At the beginning of the last century an attempt to form a similar collection was made by William Urquhart of Madras in his Oriental Obituary, printed at the Journal Press in 1809. This “Impartial Compilation,” as it is termed in the title page, was originally projected in three volumes, but only two were published. An advertisement to the first number contains the announcement that ‘Volume II is preparing and will be put to press so soon as paper can be procured, at present there being none in Madras which could possibly answer the purpose.’ It is believed that only two copies of this curious book survive, one in the library of the late Archbishop Goethals in Calcutta and the other in the private collection of Edward Wenger of the Bengal Secretariat, who has lent his copy for the purposes of the present work. The British Museum possesses a copy only of the first volume. Urquhart’s precursor had been Asiaticus, whose East Indian Chronologist (1801) ‘from the commencement of the East India Trade by David and Solomon,’ and Monumental Register (1803) were printed at the Hircarrah Press, Calcutta. Many of Asiaticus’ gleanings were reproduced in 1815 in M. DeRozario’s Complete Monumental Register of Epitaphs in or about Calcutta.

Cotton goes on to write, “The history of old Madras is in no small measure written upon its tombstones. Especially interesting are the memorials of the Company's earliest servants. They and their families lie buried in every coast town, and often a ruined cemetery is all that remains of a famous factory. Their Puritan names such as Ordonicus and Tryphena are landmarks which bind together successive generations. Like the Pilgrim Fathers, who colonised America, our stout-hearted forbears in the Land of Regrets were all of them true-born Englishmen of credit and renown. Indeed, pioneering would seem to be the peculiar province of the Anglo-Saxon all the world over. The Scotchman follows at a later stage in the race. Our original Cape Merchants, Levant Traders and East India Venturers were typical sons of John Bull; men of London, Bristol, Devon, and the Home Counties. As we travel down the centuries, there are associations with many names that have won recognition at home. A descendant of Cromwell in the person of John Russell was President at Fort William in the days of Queen Anne. Another, Nicholas Morse ruled as Governor in Fort St. George almost at the same time that Milton's grandson, Caleb Clarke, was parish clerk of St. Mary’s, Madraspatam. In the shadow of the towers of the High Court sleeps little David, the four-year old son of Elihu Yale. His father is remembered as the founder of an enlightened university and forgotten as the Governor of a benighted presidency. Every schoolboy knows that Thackeray was the son and grandson of Bengal Collectors; but the tomb at Ootacamund of Sir Henry Davison, the Madras Chief Justice, to whom he dedicated the Virginians, is as unremembered as the grave of his uncle.”

This introduction was written by Cotton in 1905.

J.J. Cotton’s other published book is A Book of Corpus Verses in which we find a poem on the Dutch cemeteries and another mentioning Narasapatnam.

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