Alfred Comyn Lyall

Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall (January 4 1835 - April 11 1911) was a British civil servant, literary historian and poet. He was born at Coulsdon in Surrey, the second son of Alfred Lyall and Mary Drummond Broadwood. He died at Freshwater, Isle of Wight.

He joined the Indian Civil Service in 1856, and served a long career in India, He landed at Calcutta in January 1856. After four months training he was posted as an Assistant Magistrate at Bulandshahr in the Doab (forty miles from Delhi, a district in the Meerut Division of the Lieutenant-Governorship of the North-West Provinces). He was there when the Indian Mutiny broke out the following year. His house was burnt down and he was nearly killed when fleeing as his horse was shot under him. He joined the Khaki Risala of Volunteers, an irregular European cavalry unit. He helped pacify Bulandshahr. In May 1858 he was transferred to Shahjehanpur where he helped restore order. In April 1861 he returned to England for about eighteen months. On his return to India he was appointed Assistant Manager at Agra. In 1864 he was appointed District Manager of Nagpur at Hoshungabad in the Central Provinces, before being appointed Commissioner in Berar in1867. He was now earning £3,000 a year. He went on to become Home Secretary to the Government of India in 1873 and the Governor-General's agent in the state of Rajputana the following year. His next post was as Foreign Secretary to Government of India from 1878 to 1881 (during this period he helped negotiate peace and a monarchy in Afghanistan). He was then appointed Lieutenant-Governor of North West Provinces, and Chief Commissioner of Oudh (North-West Provinces) from 1882 to 1887 (he introduced a degree of local self-government to that area). He also founded the University of Allabad and became its first Chancellor.. He was made a member of the Privy Council in 1902, having served on the India Council from 1888 to 1902. He was knighted KCIE in 1887, KCB in 1881 and GCIE in 1896.

His Verses Written in India was published in 1889. He wrote a number of othe books on poetry. He wrote also books on Indian history, Warren Hastings, and Alfred Lord Tennyson. His literary achievements brought him advanced degrees, a D.C.L. from Oxford (1889) and an LL.D. from Cambridge (1891), an Honorary Fellow of King's College, Cambridge (1893), and membership in the British Academy (1902).

Mortimer Durand published a biography "The Life of Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall" in 1913.

He married Cornelia Arnoldina Cloete at Stoke-by-Clare, Suffolk on November 12 1862. They had four children (two sons and two daughters).