Indian Civil Service

Scene at High Court, Burma

The Indian Civil Service may be abbreviated ICS. Before 1858 it was known as the Honourable East India Company's Civil Service.

The service was a cadre of men appointed to administer India and may also known as the Covenanted Civil Service. Employees were required to pass examinations to University level and signed a covenant or 'bond' of good behaviour to serve the East India Company only, as a condition of appointment. The term 'Indian Civil Service' is also used loosely of the Indian public services in general.

History

Initially, the Honourable East India Company Civil Servants handled the civil administration of India, they were covenanted to provide a lifetime of service.

Civil service control was transferred to the Indian Government under the Government of India Act of 1858 afterwards new members of the service were contracted for a 10 year term. The creation of the Imperial Civil Service of India was as a result of the 1886–87 Public Service Commission recommendation.

Covenanted service was given by the elite top ranks of the Civil Service who gave a pledge good behaviour. Lower ranks that took Uncovenanted Service were recuited in India, be they English, Indian, or Anglo Indian.

A subcategory of the Indian Civil Service was the Indian Political Service whose members were responsible for the civil administration of frontier districts and also served as British Agents to rulers of Princely States.It also included members of the diplomatic service. Earlier titles were Foreign Department, and Foreign and Political Department.

Members of the Foreign and Political Department were sometimes known as The Twice Born, a progression of the terminology sometimes used in respect of members the Indian Civil Service, The Heaven-Born.

Positions

Madras High Court

In the Regulated Provinces, those that were the older provinces with a long period of settled administration e.g. Madras, Bombay, the positions (after 1858) were:

• Assistant (to Magistrate and Collector)
• Deputy Collector
• Joint Magistrate,
• Collector-Magistrate (before 1858 known as the District Officer)
• Judge

After reaching the rank of Joint Magistrate, career progessions was to become a Collector-Magistrate, or Judge. Judges, ofter went on to sit on the High Court after 20 years service. A Collector-Magistrate may become a Commissioner of a Division, or gain a seat on the Board of Revenue. Moving sideways, he may become an Under-Secretary for the Lieutenant Governor.

In the Unregulated Provinces, Deputy-Commissioners replaced the role of Collector-Magistrate.

Entry

Arriving in India in 1830, after 2 years patronage supported training at Hertford (1806-1809) and Haileybury Hertfordshire, England (1809-1858) entrants seeking to gain “Writership” became a student writer at The East India Company's Calcutta College in Fort William. Students were lavishly rewarded with ₤400 a year, and encouraged to borrow heavily to acquire high status and comfortable lifestyle - often enabling them to stable 40 horses; not unexpectedly this was reformed. Reforms still allowed students sufficient finance to keep three horses and a buggy. Club memberships and mess parties continued to allow them to gain social influence in the capital.

In 1856 the system of appointment by patronage was replaced by an open competitive examination. Courses of instruction and language training were then carried out in England. Young men were deemed to be fit for immediate service so no longer socialised in the capital unlike their predecessors. They would rely on local tutors for regional dialects.

Entrance requirements c 1872, page 158 Index Scholasticus: Sons and daughters. A guide to parents in the choice of educational institutions, preparatory to professional or other occupation of their children by R. Kemp Philp 1872 Archive.org

FIBIS resources

• FIBIS Fact File No 7: Some major sources for Ancestors in the Indian Public Services by Lawrie Butler with a contribution by Tim Thomas, published 2012, 48 pages

It comprises a list of Abbreviations; Introduction to the L/F/10 Series at the British Library; Case study of research using the L/F/10s; an Index of the L/F/10 series; Availability of Microfilms at both the British Library and the LDS; an article about the Indian Civil Service Records held at the British Library by Tim Thomas.

Available to buy online from the FIBIS Shop

• List of Uncovenanted Europeans Employed at Fort St George 1818, 1819 (logged in FIBIS members only), 1820 (logged in FIBIS members only) are available on the FIBIS database, transcribed by Sylvia Murphy
• "Civil Service Records in the India Office Reading Room: A Study of the L/F/10 series" by Lawrie Butler with a contribution from David Blake FIBIS Journal Number 25 (Spring 2011), pages 37-42. This article focuses on the Uncovenanted Servants Lists within this series of records.
• "The British Indian Civil Service" by Peter Bailey FIBIS Journal Number 29 (Spring 2013) pages 30- 37. "A brief history and description of the service". See FIBIS Journals for details of how to access this article.
• "Keddahs and Epigraphists : miscellaneous appointments in India and Burma in 1909" by Bill Hall FIBIS Journal Number 31 (Spring 2014), pages 26-29. For access, see FIBIS Journals
• "W. Edward Bankes, an East India Company writer in the 1720s" by Francesca Radcliffe FIBIS Journal Number 34 (Autumn 2015), pages 29-37. For details of how to access this article, see FIBIS Journals. W. Edward Bankes was a writer from c 1726 in both Bombay and Bengal, before dying in 1729 at the age of 27.

Records

British Library

• Civil Service British Library guide, now archived, on how to use sources from the India Office Records.

Note some records may be available online, see Findmypast.

Records include

• Books
  • Alphabetical list of the Hon. East India Company’s Madras Civil Servants, from the year 1780 to the year 1839. Edward Dodwell and James Samuel Miles 1839
  • Alphabetical List of the Honourable East India Company’s Bombay Civil Servants, from 1798, to 1839 ... Edward Dodwell and James Samuel Miles 1839
  • A similar listing for Bengal is available online , together with a later listing for Madras and Bombay, refer below.
• India Office Serials IOR/V/6 1768-1948 This series comprises serials published or printed by, or on behalf of, the East India Company and the India Office. The serials include Lists of the Company's Servants 1768-1799, the East India Register and Directory (later India List) 1803-1895, the India Office List 1886-1947 and the India Office Establishment 1884-1948. Some are available online, refer Directories online, including the section India List and India Office List. These Lists usually provide short records of service, providing the date of appointment, promotions and qualifications for individuals.
• Histories of Services IOR/V/12 1875-1955. This series includes records of service for overseas Indian Civil Service personnel and for other civil servants of gazetted rank. For editions available online also see the previously mentioned India List and India Office List.
• Civil Lists IOR/V/13 1840-1958. This series includes all the issues of civil lists of the Government of India and of the provincial governments. Coverage is usually restricted to gazetted officers in the main series of lists, but there are a few supplementary lists of subordinate services and also some fuller departmental establishment lists which include non-gazetted appointments, in particular the Telegraph, Indo-European Telegraph, Public Works and Railways departments. For editions available online also see the previously mentioned India List and India Office List.

• Occasionally a person may have been thought to be part of the Indian Civil Service, including the Indian Political Service, but was in fact "attached", belonging still to the Army, in which case the Indian Army Lists may provide information. For editions online, see Directories online - Army Lists including the separate page Indian Army List online.
• Another source of information in the India Office Records at the British Library include Government Gazettes IOR/V/11 1831-1947.

The Government Gazettes were the official newspapers of the Government of India and its provincial governments. The series held are: Gazettes of India 1865-1947, Calcutta 1832-1947, Assam 1874-1947, Bihar and Orissa 1912-1947, United Provinces, 1850-1947, Fort St George 1832-1947, Bombay 1831-1947, Punjab 1872-1947, North-West Frontier Province 1932-1947, Central Provinces 1875-1947, Coorg 1885-1947, Sind 1869-1947, Burma 1875-1947. Summaries of the contents of each series are to be found in the handlists in the Reading Room of the British Library.

Some issues of the Gazette of India and the Calcutta Gazette are available online, refer Newspapers and journals online.

Uncovenanted service

See:

• L/F/10 Records of Service 1702-1928 and
• Biographical Records (IOR O series)

Also see FIBIS resources above.

• Returns of Deaths of Uncovenanted Servants and Other Officers IOR/L/AG/34/14A 1870-1949. The returns, which are not 100% complete, relate to Europeans born in the UK and India and to a few Eurasians. Volume 1: 1870-1876 has been transcribed and is available on the FIBIS database

• A previous India List post advised that a number of FamilySearch microfilms in respect of uncovenanted servants are listed in the FamilySearch catalogue under the title A return of all offices, places and pensions, civil, political, military and commercial held under the East India Company within the United Kingdom and colonies. India Office. The reference IOR/ L/AG/30/1-22/1-60 is quoted, however an examination of page 2 of the film notes for the catalogue entry shows that many of the records for uncovenanted servants are from the series IOR/L/F/10/119-188, for the period to 1900 (broken range), refer L/F/10 Records of Service 1702-1928

Individuals

See List of Indian Civil Servants for details of some individuals.

Related articles

• Civil Service reading list
• Life in India-Work
• Bonds, Covenants, Indentures and Obligations, etc.
• Writer

External links

	The FIBIS Google Books Library has books tagged: Civil Service

• Indian Civil Service and Category: Administrators in British India Wikipedia
• The Civil and Military Patronage of the East India Company, 1784-1858 by John Michael Bourne 1977 PhD thesis, University of Leicester.
• Guide to India Office Records relating to Central Asia explains the role of the Political and Secret Department. British Library publication, now archived.
• “The Men Who Ruled India” by Sagarika Ghose, Outlook, 25 June 1997, archived.
• State Change in the Punjab: Professional and Personal Experiences of British Civil Servants over India’s independence and beyond by Catherine Eleanor Brown Coombs. Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of PhD, The University of Leeds, School of History September 2011.

Historical books online

Lists

Also see Directories online, particularly the category India List and India Office List. The category Army Lists including the separate page Indian Army List online may in some circumstances be relevant.

• Alphabetical list of the honourable East India Company's Bengal civil servants, from the year 1780, to the year 1838 etc by Edward Dodwell, James Samuel Miles (1839) Google Books. Use two page option to view.
• A General Register of the Hon'ble East India Company's Civil Servants of the Bengal Establishment from 1790 to 1842 ... To which is Added a List of the Governors General of India by Rāmachandra Dāsa, Henry Thoby Prinsep 1844 Google Books. The Alphabetical List commences here
• Alphabetical List of the Honourable East India Company’s Madras Civil Servants, from the year 1780 to the year 1839... compiled and edited by Messrs. Dodwell and Miles 1839. Archive.org, Granth Sanjeevani Asiatic Society of Mumbai Collection. Also available Tamil Virtual Library.
• Record of services of the Honourable East India Company's civil servants in the Madras presidency, from 1741 to 1858... by Charles Campbell Prinsep (1885) Archive.org
• Alphabetical List of the Honourable East India Company's Bombay Civil Servants 1798-1839 by Dodwell and Miles 1839. Google Books. Use two page option to view.
• Alphabetical list of the officers of the Indian Army : with the dates of their respective promotion, retirement, resignation, or death, whether in India or in Europe, from the year 1760 to the year 1834 inclusive, corrected to September 30, 1837 compiled and edited by Messrs. Dodwell and Miles. 1838 Google Books. Includes Bengal, Madras and Bombay. Probably much the same content as the individual books, may differ marginally. Use two page option to view.
• "Return of the Officers in each Court of Justice in India" in Sessional Papers Printed by the Order of the House Of Lords: Session 1852-53, Volume XIII, Accounts and Papers East India Company. Google Books
• Memorials of Old Haileybury College by Frederick Charles Danvers, Sir M Monier-Williams etc. 1894 Archive.org. An Account of the Origin of the East India Company’s Civil Service and of their College in Hertfordshire. Contains Lists and details of the men who attended the College, which closed in December 1857.

General

• The Indian Civil Service 1601-1930 by L.S.S O’Malley, Indian Civil Service, Retired. 1931. Archive.org, Digital Library of India Collection.
• The I.C.S. The Indian Civil Service by Sir Edward Blunt 1937 Archive.org
• Role of Higher Civil Service in India by R Dwarkadas 1958 Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library. The initial chapter covers the British period.
• A District Office in Northern India with some Suggestions on Administration by C W Whish, Bengal Civil Service 1892. Archive.org. Whish appears to have been located at Rae Bareli, Oudh.
• The Indian Civil Service as a profession. A lecture delivered at Trinity College, Dublin, on June 10th, 1903 by Vincent A Smith. Indian Civil Service (Retired) 1903 Archive.org.
• The Administrative History of India, 1834-1947; General Administration by B B Misra 1970. Archive.org Lending Library.

The Bureaucracy in India : an historical analysis of development up to 1947 by B. B. Misra 1977. Archive.org Lending Library.

• The Indian Political Service: a Study in Indirect Rule by Terence Creagh Coen 1971. Archive.org. Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library version.
• British Bureaucracy in India : Status, Policy, and the I.C.S. in the late 19th century by Bradford Spangenberg 1976. Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library.
• The District Officer in India, 1930-1947 by Roland Hunt and John Harrison 1980. Archive.org Lending Library. A study of the workings of the administrative system in India in the last years of British rule, based on statements by ex-members of the Indian Civil Service.
• The Ruling Caste: Imperial Lives in the Victorian Raj by David Gilmour 2006, first published 2005. Archive.org Lending Library.
• Chapter V page 75 (digital page 101) Annals of two extinct families of the eighteenth century (Von Lüders and Light) : with some account of their vicisitudes in Hamburg, Bath, the East Indies, British Guiana, and Canada by John Alexander Temple 1910. FamilySearch Digital Library. Note, you must be signed in to FamilySearch to view this book. William Light was appointed writer 1765 Madras Presidency, died suddenly 1784 of an attack of gout in the stomach, age 35. Contents.
• Oriental Memoirs: A Narrative of Seventeen Years Residence in India by James Forbes Google Books. 1813 edition, in four volumes, with illustrations. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III, Volume IV. 2nd edition 1834, revised by his daughter Volume I, Volume II, with 1835 edition Illustrations to Oriental Memoirs Digital Library of Houston University. The author arrived in Bombay in 1766, aged 16 to work as a writer.
• Narrative of the Life of a Gentleman Long Resident in India by G F Grand. 1814 edition, 1910 edition edited , with Notes, for the Calcutta Historical Society by Walter K Firminger. Archive.org

"Grand, George Francois (1748?-1821)" page 174 Dictionary of Indian Biography by C E Buckland (Indian Civil Service, retired) 1906 Archive.org. 1766 Bengal Army; 1776 nominated to a writership; 1779 court action involving his wife (see Busteed's book Echoes on the page Calcutta); subsequently divorced and she went to Europe and married Talleyrand; 1782 Collector of Tirhut and promoted the indigo manufacture in Bihar to his own advantage;1788 appointed Judge and Magistrate at Patna, and eventually dismissed.

• "A Young Civilian in Bengal in 1805" by Isaac Henry Townley Roberdeau, appointed Writer 29th August 1799, page 110, Bengal Past and Present-Journal of the Calcutta Historical Society, Jan-June 1925. Archive.org, Digital Library of India Collection. He was appointed to Mymensingh where he died 1808.
• See Governor General (20 March 1835 to 4 March 1836) for books about Charles, Lord Metcalfe, born 1785, who arrived as a writer in 1801, his father being an East India Company Director.
• Memoir of The Public Conduct and Services of William Collins Jackson, Esq. Late Senior Merchant on the Company's Madras Establishment 1812. Archive.org, Servants Of Knowledge collection.
• "Extracts from the Diary of Emily, wife of John Talbot Shakespear, Bengal Civil Service" [June- July 1814] page 133 Bengal, Past and Present, Volume VI, July-September 1910. Archive.org, Digital Library of India Collection.
• Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque: During Four-and-twenty Years in the East With Revelations of Life in the Zenana by Fanny Parkes [Parks] (sometimes seen as Fanny Parkes Parlby). Volume I, Volume II 1850 Archive.org. She came to India in 1822 with her husband Charles Crawford Parks, a civil servant, appointed a Writer in 1816. "Lady of the Raj" by William Dalrymple 10 June 2007 The Guardian. "Fanny Parks (1794-1875): her ‘Grand Moving Diorama of Hindostan’, her Museum, and her Cabinet of Curiosities" by Joanna Goldsworthy. Case study from East India Company At Home, 1757-1857.
• Letters from Madras, during the years 1836-1839 by A Lady (Mrs Julia Charlotte Maitland] 1846, stated elsewhere to be first published 1843. Archive.org. Transcribed edition digital.library.upenn.edu. A later edition was Letters from Madras during the years 1836-1839 by Julia Maitland ; with introduction, notes and appendices by Alyson Price. 2003. Available at the British Library UIN: BLL01012046269. See Biographies reading list. Julia Maitland (Wikipedia), born 1808. At the time she was in in India she was married to James Thomas who was a judge in the Madras Presidency, who died January 1840.
• The Golden Calm : an English lady's life in Moghul Delhi : Reminiscences by Emily, Lady Clive Bayley, and her father Sir Thomas Metcalfe Edited by M M Kaye 1980. Archive.org Lending Library. Sir Thomas was in India from 1813 and was Delhi Resident at the time of his death in 1853 from poison. Emily joined her father in Delhi in 1848 at the age of 17, and two years later married Sir Edward Clive Bayley, then Under-Secretary to the Foreign Department. With a chapter by M M Kaye from page 21, with many of her comments throughout. With beautiful illustrations of paintings by native Company artists working to Sir Thomas’s commission. Incorporating parts/all? of Reminiscences of Imperial Delhi by Sir Thomas Metcalfe 1842-44, images from which are also available online by Searching the British Library Online Gallery using Metcalfe and his book title as search words.
• Fifty-Seven: Some Account of the Administration in Indian Districts during the Revolt of the Bengal Army by Henry George Keene 1883 Archive.org
• How I won the Victoria Cross by Thomas Henry Kavanagh, Assistant Commissioner in Oudh, 1860 Google Books
• Personal Adventures during the Indian Rebellion in Rohilcund, Futtehghur, and Oude by William Edwards, Judge of Benares, and late Magistrate and Collector of Budaon in Rohilcund. 1858 Google Books
• An episode of the rebellion and mutiny in Oudh of 1857 and 1858 ... by George Yeoward late Head Clerk of Gondah in the Province of Oudh 1876 Archive.org
• Anecdotes and Reminiscences of Service in Bengal [by A. L. M. Phillips (Alfred Lisle March Phillips) 1878] Google Books. He arrived in India in 1846 and retired 1873. At the commencement of the Indian Mutiny, he was Magistrate and Collector of the Etah district, and his paths crossed with the author William Edwards (previous book) who was his cousin. Subsequently he was Magistrate and Collector of Agra and its district June 1857 to March 1863, then Civil and Criminal Judge of Allyghur, then Judge at Goruckpore, close to the Himalayas.
• The Personal Adventures and Experiences of a Magistrate During the Rise, Progress, and Suppression of the Indian Mutiny by Mark Thornhill 1884 Archive.org. Also available as a current reprint by Cambridge University Press Preview Google Books.
• Memorials of the life and letters of Major-General Sir Herbert B. Edwardes by his Wife 1886 Archive.org Volume I, Volume II. He entered the Bengal Army 1841, and subsequently was seconded to the Civil Service where he was Commissioner of Peshawar during the Indian Mutiny.
• "The Bengal Civil Service" Chapter IV of Sketches of Social life in India by CT Buckland (1884) ex-Bengal Civil Service. Archive.org.
• Lives of Indian Officers: Illustrative of the History of the Civil and Military Service of India Volume 1 by John William Kaye (1867) gives, from p45, the background to the Civil Service. Contents Volume 1 Google Books Contents Volume 2 Archive.org
• Thirty-eight years in India : from Juganath to the Himalaya Mountains by William Tayler, late Commissioner of Patna. 1881 Archive.org. Volume 1, Volume 2. The author commenced work in the Bengal Civil Service in 1829.

"‘Our hero is a sportsman’: British domestic interiors in 19th century India" British Library blog “Untold Lives” 05 March 2014. Includes three images by William Tayler from his 1842 publication Sketches Illustrating the Manners & Customs of the Indians and Anglo-Indians, one of which "The Young Lady's Toilet" is also available from another BL blog

18 watercolours by William Tayler Brown University Library on World Digital Library.

• ‪Memorials of Service in India‬: ‪from the correspondence of the late Major Samuel Charters Macpherson‬ Political Agent at Gwalior during the Mutiny, and formerly employed in the suppression of human sacrifices in Orissa 1865. Google Books. Archive.org (has better maps) He initially joined the Madras Army in 1827. In 1831 he was appointed assistant surveyor-general and was engaged in both military and survey work. In 1841 he was appointed as Assistant to the Agent at Ganjam, Political Agent at Bhopal in 1853, and Political Agent at Gwalior in 1854.
• Reynell Taylor, C.B., C.S.I. a biography by E. Gambier Parry 1888 Archive.org. The subject joined the Bengal Army in 1840 , serving as a Cavalry Officer until c 1846. He subsequently served as Commissioner in various areas in the North West until his retirement in 1877.
• Memories of Rugby and India 
by Sir Alexander J. Arbuthnot 1910 Archive.org. The author was in the Madras Civil Service from 1842 for thirty years.
• Life of Lieut.-General the Hon. Sir Andrew Clarke, Colonel-Commandant of Royal Engineers edited by Col. RH Vetch 1905 Archive.org. "Member of Council of the Viceroy of India 1875-1880" pages 193-221. He was head of the Indian Public Works Administration.
• Autobiography and Reminiscences of Sir Douglas Forsyth edited by his daughter Ethel Forsyth 1887. Archive.org, mirror from PAHAR. Born 1827, he went to India in 1848 to the Civil Service, having passed top of the class at the East India College at Haileybury. During his career he was involved in the Indian Mutiny, was Commissioner in the Punjab from 1860, [he was in this role at Jullundur and Umballa], was involved with the Kooka Outbreak of 1872, headed diplomatic missions to Kashgar in 1873 and Mandalay in 1875. In 1877 he resigned from the Civil Service and became involved with Indian Railway companies, and a company building a harbour and railway in Portuguese India. He died 1886.
• A Servant of "John Company"; being the Recollections of an Indian Official by Henry George Keene 1897 Archive.org. Born 1825, he was in North West India 1847-1882 when he was obliged to retire, having served for thirty five years.

Here and There: Memories, Indian and Other by H G Keene 1906 Archive.org.

• Thirty Years of Shikar by Sir Edward Braddon 1895 Archive.org. The author was in India from 1847, including the Civil Service, probably after the Indian Mutiny. Australian Dictionary of Biography. He left India in 1878, when his post disappeared following the amalgamation of Oudh and the North-Western Provinces, and later became a politician in Australia.
• My experiences in Manipur and the Naga Hills by the late Major-General Sir James Johnstone 1896 Archive.org. The account concerns the period 1873 to the operations in 1885-1886, at the time of the 3rd Burma War, when he retired with nearly 28 years’ service in India. Mainly he seems to have worked as a Political Agent, or similar.
• General Sir Richard Meade and the Feudatory States of Central and Southern India; a record of forty-three year's service as Soldier, Political Officer and Administrator by Thomas Henry Thornton 1898 Archive.org. Born 1821, Sir Richard served in the Bengal Army from 1838 for nearly twenty years. At the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny he was Brigade-Major of the Gwalior Contingent which mutinied. Subsequently in 1859 he was appointed Political Agent at Gwalior, then two years later Governor-General’s Agent for the States of Central India, the first of several important posts, involving many confidential matters, finally retiring in March 1881.
• Tales of our Grandfather or India Since 1856 edited by F and C Grey 1912 Archive.org. L J H Grey had a long career in India, 1856-1903, initially in the Bengal Army, mainly in the Civil Service.
• Thirty-five years in the Punjab, 1858-1893 by G. R. Elsie. "The last Haileybury Civilian who worked in that Province" 1908 Archive.org
• Life in the Mofussil; or, The Civilian in Lower Bengal by G Graham (1878) Archive.org Volume 1, Volume 2. The author went to India c 1860.
• Sir Robert G. Sandeman K.C.S.I., peaceful conqueror of Baluchistan by A.L.P. Tucker 1921 Archive.org. Born 1835, he joined the Bengal Army in 1856 and the Civil Service in 1859, working in the North West from 1861 until his death in 1892.
• The Forward Policy and its Results; or, Thirty-five Years' Work amongst the Tribes on our North-Western Frontier of India by Richard Isaac Bruce, formerly Political Agent, Beluchistan, and late Commissioner and Superintendent Derajat Division, Punjab, India. 1900 Archive.org. The author arrived in India in 1862 and retired 1896. The Forward Policy was initiated by Sandeman, refer book above.
• Leaves from a Diary in Lower Bengal by C. S. [Arthur Lloyd Clay] 1896 Archive.org. With illustrations. British Library Digital Collection with rotatable images. He joined the Bengal Civil Service 1862 and the diary covers the years to 1870. He retired 1890.
• A fly on the wheel; or, How I helped to govern India by Lieut.-Col. Thomas H Lewin 1912. 1885 edition with illustrations. Archive.org. He arrived in India 1857, was an officer in the Army, with the Police from 1861. In 1866 he was appointed to officiate as Superintendent of Hill Tribes in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, then permanently appointed Deputy Commissioner and Political Agent of the Hill Tracts of Chittagong. He was also appointed as a Captain in the Bengal Staff Corps, so he appears to have been "attached" as a Political Agent.
• Sir Henry Stewart Cunningham, K.C.I.E. by Margaret M. Verney 1923 Archive.org. Born 1832, he went to India in 1866 as Government Advocate and Legal Advisor to the Punjab, based at Lahore. He became Advocate-General of Madras Presidency 1872 and judge of the Calcutta High Court 1877-1887. H. S. Cunningham Wikipedia.

He was the author of the novel Chronicles of Dustypore; a tale of modern Anglo-Indian society [by H S Cunningham] 1875 Volume I, Volume II Archive.org. Review of Chronicles of Dustypore page 73 of Verney's biography.

• The Garden of Fidelity being the Autobiography of Flora Annie Steel 1847-1929 1930 (first published 1929). Archive.org. Flora Annie Steel Wikipedia. Married to Henry William Steel, a member of the Indian Civil Service, they were in India 1868 to 1889, mainly in the Punjab. During her time in India she became involved with education, and subsequently became an Inspectress of Schools. Also see Food and Drink. After leaving India she became a novelist.
• Memoirs of a Bengal Civilian by John Beames Archive.org version, mirror from Digital Library of India. He served as Collector of Cuttack from 1875 to 1878 and earlier as Collector of Balasore District from 1869 to 1873. For more details about this book, and John Beames, see the Cuttack page.
• "Indian Life: The Cantonment Magistrate" by Major-General de Berry, page 120 The Illustrated Naval and Military Magazine, Volume 8, 1888. Archive.org. The Cantonment Magistrate was invariably a military officer of one of the Indian Staff Corps.

"Indian Life: The Civil Service" by Major-General de Berry, page 391 of the same publication.

• Among Indian rajahs and ryots; a civil servant's recollections & impressions of thirty-seven years of work & sport in the Central Provinces & Bengal by Andrew H. L Fraser 1912 Archive.org. He joined the Civil Service in 1871 and became Lieutenant Governor of Bengal. Wikipedia
• The Little World of an Indian District Officer by Robert Carstairs 1912. Archive.org. He was in the Bengal Civil Service 1874-1903.
• The diary of a civilian's wife in India, 1877-1882 
by Mrs. Robert Moss King 1884 Archive.org Volume I, Volume II. Her Husband was Collector at Meerut at the commencement of the book and in 1878 was appointed Officiating Judge
• After Five years in India, or, Life and Work in a Punjaub District by Anne C Wilson. 1895 Archive.org. The author's husband was deputy-commissioner, magistrate and collector in the Sirsa District, part of the Hissar District.

Letters from India by Lady Wilson (A C Macleod) [Anne Campbell] 1911 Archive.org

• The Ritchies in India; extracts from the correspondence of William Ritchie, 1817-1862; and personal reminiscences of Gerald Ritchie compiled and edited by Gerald Ritchie 1920 Archive.org. William Ritchie was of the Calcutta Bar and Inner Temple, Member of the Council of the Governor-general, appointed Advocate-General c 1856 who died March 22, 1862, age 45. Gerald Ritchie was a Bengal Civilian 1875-1901.
• Indian & Home Memories by Sir Henry Cotton 1910. Archive.org. He spent 35 years in the Indian Civil Service - he arrived in Calcutta in 1867 and resigned in 1902. He became Chief Commissioner for Assam in 1896 (page 226).
• Some Personal Experiences by Sir Bampfylde Fuller 1930 Archive.org, Digital Library of India Collection. May also have been published in some editions as Some Personal Memories, and Some Personal Reminiscences. He passed for the Indian Civil Service in 1873 and became Chief Commissioner of Assam in 1902 (page 103). Bampfylde Fuller Wikipedia. He became first Lieutenant Governor of the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam 1905 and resigned in 1906.
• My Thirty Years in India by Sir Edmund C Cox 1909. Archive.org. He arrived in India late 1876, was a teacher, was for a few years in the Bombay Political Department then joined the Bombay Police c 1882, leaving in 1908. Also see Police.
• The India We Served by Sir Walter Roper Lawrence 1928. Archive.org. He joined the Punjab Civil Service c 1879 He left India October 1903 but returned for the Royal visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales November 1905 to March 1906. During WW1 he was involved with setting up the hospitals in Brighton for Indian soldiers.
• Work And Sport In The Old I. C. S. by W O Horne [William Ogilvie] 1928. He was appointed to the Madras Civil Service in 1882. Archive.org version mirror from Digital Library of India.
• India as I knew it, 1885–1925 by Sir Michael Francis O’Dwyer 1925 Archive.org version, mirror from Digital Library of India. Additional files are also available. In 1885 he was posted to Shahpur in the Punjab and retired as lieutenant-governor of the Punjab in 1919. His actions during the unrest of 1919 were controversial.
• The Company Of Cain by Al. Carthill (pseudonym) 1922. Archive.org. "An account of certain murder cases". “The facts themselves will be true, although the details may be fictitious or altered”. The author's full name was Bennet Christian Huntingdon Calcraft-Kennedy (1871–1935), sometimes seen as B C Kennedy, who went to India in 1891 and worked as a Collector and Judge in Bombay Presidency, retiring in 1926.

Madampur by Al. Carthill (pseudonym, see item above) 1931. Archive.org. Some editions may have had the additional title Experiences of a District Officer in India. Not a real place name, but the author’s "first independent charge" and refers to a time "about a generation ago", possibly c 1911.

• And that reminds me 
being incidents of a life spent at sea, and in the Andaman Islands, Burma, Australia, and India Part III India (page 123) 
by Stanley W. Coxon 1915 Archive.org. The author, probably born c late 1850s commenced with the Civil Service in India in 1892, having previously been with the Police in Burma. He was appointed as Deputy Commissioner at Chanda, the most southerly District of Central Provinces, part of the Nagpur Division page 154 He retired on medical grounds in 1906.
• An Ignorant in India by R E Venede 1911 Archive.org The author was visiting his brother who was a Collector in an indigo region in Bengal.
• From a Punjaub Pomegranate Grove by C C Dyson 1913. Archive.org. The author was possibly the wife of Bob, an Assistant Revenue Collector, and Magistrate, at Hariana, in the "Punjaub irrigation colonies". (Page 68 refers to the author as "the lady of our English Sahib", which generally refers to a wife, however she appears to be middle-aged and perhaps an Assistant Revenue Collector is more likely to be a younger man, so for Bob to be a son or younger brother would suit the narrative better. Details of the author could not be traced.) Republished in 1985 and 1993 under the title Fragments from Indian Life. From the contents, the approximate period covered is 1908-1912, however the narrative may not be strictly chronological. Hariana Wikipedia.
• Life In The Indian Civil Service by Evan Maconochie ICS (retired) 1926 Archive.org. In 1887 he passed examinations to enter the Indian Civil Service, then spent two years at Oxford University, went to India in 1889, retired in 1921.
• Diversions of an Indian Political by Lieutenant-Colonel Roger Lloyd Kennion 1932. Archive.org version, mirror from Digital Library of India. Experiences of a political officer in Northern India from 1892. He also wrote Sport and Life in the Further Himalaya 1910, serving in Kashmir, Gilgit and Leh, and a further book on Eastern Persia.
• Jungle Trails in Northern India: Reminiscences of Hunting in India by John Hewett. With 24 plates and a map 1938. Archive.org version, mirror from Digital Library of India. Sir John was Governor of United Provinces with many royal friends. Hunting largely between 1907 and 1912, including tiger hunting in the jungles of Tarai, Cooch Behar, the Central Provinces, and up north in Kumaon and Garhwal. The author joined the Indian Civil Service c 1877 when he was posted to the North-Western Provinces.
• Captain Shakespear : a Portrait by H V F Winstone 1976. William Henry Irvine Shakespear born Multan 29 October 1878, joined the Political Department in India and in 1904 was posted to the Persian port of Bandar Abbas, the youngest Consul in the Indian administration. He was killed 24 January 1915, at which time he was Political Officer on Special Duties in Arabia. Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library.

"The Death of a Political Agent: Captain Shakespear" British Library Untold lives blog 24 January 2015.

• SW Persia: A Political Officers Diary 1907-1914 by Sir Arnold Wilson 1941 Archive.org, Digital Library of India Collection.
• Letters to Nobody, 1908-1913 by the Rt. Hon. Sir Guy Fleetwood Wilson 1921. 2nd file, with images correctly rotated. Archive.org. He came to India in 1908 as Finance Minister. (Letters to Somebody; a Retrospect by the Rt. Hon. Sir Guy Fleetwood Wilson 1922 Archive.org. Contains minimal comments about India, including his appointment pages 82-83.)
• Macartney at Kashgar: New Light on British, Chinese and Russian Activities in Sinkiang, 1890-1918 by C.P. Skrine and Pamela Nightingale. 1973. Link to a pdf download PAHAR Mountains of Central Asia Digital Dataset.

Macartney’s wife Catherine wrote of her time at Kashgar in An English Lady in Chinese Turkestan first published 1931. Link to a pdf download PAHAR Mountains of Central Asia Digital Dataset. Archive.org mirror version.

A later biography is The Diplomat of Kashgar: A Very Special Agent. The Life of Sir George Macartney, 18 January 1867-19 May 1945 by James McCarthy.

Chinese Central Asia by C P Skrine. Indian Civil Service, British Consul General in Chinese Turkistan 1922-1924. First published 1926 Archive.org. Index.HathiTrust Digital Library version where images are rotatable. The Consulate was at Kashgar.

Envoy of the Raj: the Career of Sir Clarmont Skrine, Indian Political Service by John Stewart 1989. Pahar-Mountains of Central Asia Digital Dataset. If the download button does not display, locate under Books/Indian Subcontinent/1989.

Clarmont Percival Skrine Wikipedia.

Also see Norperforce for more about the Kashgar Mission during WW1 prior to 1922.

• Indian Embers by Lady Lawrence, first published 1948. Archive.org; 1991 reprint Archive.org Lending Library edition with an "Introduction" by Kenneth Wimmel, 2nd file. "Jane Rosamund Napier was already a published author...when she married Henry Lawrence in 1914 and set sail with him for India. She was his second wife...a mature woman of thirty-six..." The book covers the period to 1918. Her husband was a member of the Indian Civil Service, served as a district officer, and was Commissioner in Sind from 1916. Per Wikipedia, Henry Staveley Lawrence was acting Governor of Bombay 20 March 1926 to 8 December 1928.
• Two Years in Kurdistan : Experiences of a Political Officer, 1918-1920 by W R Hay, Captain, attached 24th Punjabis, Political Dept, Government of India. 1921 Archive.org. He was with the Civil Administration of Mesopotamia.
• Pundits and Elephants: being the experiences of five years as Governor of an Indian Province by the Earl of Lytton. 1942. Archive.org, mirror from Central Secretariat Library (CSL) [Delhi] Digital Repository. He became Governor of Bengal in 1922. Victor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton Wikipedia.
• Trials in Burma by Maurice Collis 1938 Archive.org version, mirror from Digital Library of India. The author was a member of the Civil Service in Burma from 1912, and his autobiography covers the years 1928-1931, particularly his role as District Magistrate of Rangoon, and the riots of 1930.
• Forty-four years a Public Servant by C A Kincaid 1934. Central Secretariat Library (CSL) [Delhi] Digital Repository. Archive.org mirror version. Elsewhere, the author is catalogued a Judge, 1870-1954 and the book "Justice, Administration of - India". He arrived in India in 1891.
• Impressions of an Indian Civil Servant by Roderick Donald MacLeod 1938 Archive.org version, mirror from Digital Library of India. MacLeod worked from 1910 to 1934 in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh.
• Looking back on India by Hubert Evans 1988. Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library. Hubert Evans 1904-1989 joined the Indian Civil Service in 1928 and was a District Magistrate in the United Provinces for 8 years. He was appointed President of the Delhi Municipal Council in 1938. After Independence he joined the Foreign Service.
• Memoirs and Recollections of An Officer of the Indian Political Service by Sir John Richard Cotton (b 1909). British Library Mss Eur F226/7 . Qatar Digital Library. A photocopy of a typewritten draft written c 1983. The Telegraph Obituary 2002. After spending his childhood in India, he returned in 1929, initially in the 8th (King George's Own) Light Cavalry, then joined the Indian Political Service in 1934 where he served in the Persian Gulf and in Aden, Addis Ababa in Abyssinia then a series of Indian princely states. After Independence he joined the British Foreign Service.
• Thim Days Is Gone. British Library Mss Eur F226/28 Qatar Digital Library. A memoir written c 1980 by Major Maurice Patrick O'Connor Tandy recounting his career, initially in the Royal Artillery in a Light Battery,and an Indian Mountain Battery in the 1930s. He then joined the Foreign and Political Department in October 1936, page 33 and his postings included the Persian Gulf and Kuwait. Further details are in Thim Days Is Gone – a colonial memoir 16 February 2017 Untold lives blog, British Library.
• The Men Who Ruled India, published in two volumes, by Philip Woodruff (pseudonym): The Founders (1953), Archive.org version, mirror from Digital Library of India; and The Guardians, (1954) Archive.org version, mirror from Digital Library of India. The author was Philip Mason who joined the Indian Civil Service in 1928, and his books are about members of the Indian Civil Service.

A Shaft of Sunlight–Memories of a Varied Life by Philip Mason 1978. Link to a pdf download, PAHAR Mountains of Central Asia Digital Dataset. If the download does not display, located under Books/Indian Subcontinent. Archive.org mirror version. Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library version. Review of the book kirkusreviews.com.

"Philip Mason obituary: Last witness to the Raj" by Hugh Tinker 2 Feb 1999. The Guardian

Listen to the 1978 interview Philip Mason, with transcripts. He talks of his training for the ICS, his work as a court official and map surveyor, and of his life as an author.

• Years of Change in Bengal and Assam by Sir Robert Reid 1966. Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library. Sir Robert was 36 years in the ICS 1907-1942, including the years 1937-42 as Governor of Assam. He then worked in wartime Calcutta to mid 1943.
• The Jewel In The Lotus by Sir Basil John Gould 1957. Archive.org, Digital Library of India Collection (catalogued 1921). Full title: The Jewel in the Lotus: Recollections of an Indian Political. Gould's Wikipedia page advises he joined the Indian Civil Service in 1907, and served as a Political Officer in Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet from 1935 to 1945.
• The Princely India I knew, from Reading to Mountbatten by Sir Conrad Corfield, former Political Adviser to the Viceroy. 1975 Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library. Published by the Indo British Historical Society. The author was the last official head of the Indian Political Service, which he had joined in 1925 after preliminary service in the Punjab Province from 1921.
• The India we left: Charles Trevelyan, 1826-65. Humphrey Trevelyan, 1929-47 by Humphrey Trevelyan 1972 Archive.org Lending Library. Charles Trevelyan was in the Bengal Civil Service, Humphrey Trevelyan was in the Madras Civil Service.
• A Young Man's Country : letters of a subdivisional officer of the Indian Civil Service 1936-1937 by W. H. Saumarez Smith 1977. Archive.org Lending Library. The author was in the Indian Civil Service 1934-1947. The letters were written when he was at Madaripur, in the district of Faridpur, in East Bengal (now Bangladesh).
• Reminiscences, Discreet and Indiscreet by T. N. Kaul (Triloki Nath), 1982. Website of "Academy of the Punjab in North America". An Indian, he joined the Indian Civil Service in 1937.
• Peacocks Calling: one man’s experience of India. 1939-1947 by Bill [William] Cowley, 1978. Pdf download, PAHAR Mountains of Central Asia Digital Dataset. Archive.org mirror version. Description of the contents of the book based on papers at the Centre of South Asian Studies. s-asian.cam.ac.uk. Appointed to the ICS 1939 and became a Magistrate in the Punjab with promotions to lst class Magistrate. Became involved with the Boy Scouts and took over administration of Youth Movement and Boy Scouts.
• Enchanted Frontiers: Sikkim, Bhutan, and India's Northeastern Borderlands by Nari Rustomji 1971. Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library. An Indian born c 1918, he was educated in England, and returned, appointed to the ICS, in 1942.
• A Traveler's Tale : Memories of India by Enid Saunders Candlin 1974. Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library. The author’s husband was a metallurgist/chemical engineer who worked for the Inspectorate of Armaments in ordnance factories at Ishapore and Ambernath (Bombay Presidency) 1941-46, having been transferred from Hong Kong.
• Race, sex, and class under the Raj : imperial attitudes and policies and their critics, 1793-1905 by Kenneth Ballhatchet 1980. Archive.org Books to Borrow/Lending Library.

Administrative

• One digital book file, Google Books, containing
  • Necessaries for a Writer to India c 1799. A Broadsheet (one page).
  • Regulations as to the Nomination of Students at the East India College, with a View to Their Future Appointment as Writers in the Service of the United East India Company [1809] includes Candidates are to obtain the Extract from the Parish Register of their Birth or Baptism.
  • 1937 Typescript letter and document by Wilfred Partington about the contents of the book.

British Library Digital Collection version. Same book file, but rotatable pages.

• "Abridged Code of Regulations Affecting Civil Employees" in The Bengal and Agra annual guide and gazetteer, for 1841 Part 2, p193, Google Books
• Appointment in 1848 from The Oriental Interpreter and Treasury of East India Knowledge... by Joachim Hayward Stocqueler (1848) p284, Google Books
• The Punjab Record or Reference Book for Civil Officers Volume 3 1868 Google Books
• The Punjab Record or Reference Book for Civil Officers Volume 4 1869 Contains circulars, with indexes, for 1869. Each section is numbered separately:Financial Circular Orders; Police Department Orders, commencing here; Account Department Orders; Jail Department Orders; Registration Circular Orders; Supreme Government Orders, commencing here; Punjab Government Orders, commencing here; Selections from the records of the Office of the Financial Commissioner, Punjab 1869 Google Books
• ‪Manual of Rules and Regulations compiled for the use of Junior Members of the Madras Civil Service. Brought up to 31st January 1870‬ by William Donald. Google Books
• Civil Service of India. The Selection and Training of Candidates for the Indian Civil Service Presented to both Houses of Parliament. HMSO 1876. Google Books.
• The Indian Civil Service and the Competitive System by Alfred Cotterell Tupp, Bengal Civil Service 1876. Google Books version. Archive.org Asiatic Society of Mumbai Granth Sanjeevani Collection.
• Civil Service Commission. Civil Service of India. Examination Papers set at the Open Competition...June and July 1878. Followed by 1879 and 1880.. Printed under the superintendence of Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1878. Archive.org.
• Financial Handbook Vol-II. Issued by Authority of the Government of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh by E. A. H. Blunt. Corrected up to the 1st April 1925. Archive.org. Includes various definitions relating to pay and leave etc