| The Families In British India Society (FIBIS) is a self-help organisation devoted to members researching their British India family history and the background against which their ancestors led their lives in India under British rule. Let FIBIS help you break down those brick walls in your research |
W B Hockley
William Browne Hockley, 9 November 1792-22 August 1860, attended Haileybury from January 1812, and proceeded to Bombay in 1813 as a member of the Bombay Civil Service.
He was dismissed from his judgeship in September 1821, tried at Bombay in June 1823 and acquitted. He was finally dismissed with a pension in March 1824. On returning to England, he wrote two books, in 1826 and 1827.
Pandurang Hari, or Memoirs of a Hindoo (original spelling: Pandurang Hàrì) was published in 1826. The hero was Pandurang, a Maharatta adventurer. A c 1872 reprint included an Introduction by Sir H Bartle E Frere which included the words:
- ”It possesses merits of a very rare kind, as a series of photographic pictures from the past generation of a great Indian nation…Pandurang’s descriptions are remarkably faithful sketches of the time when the story was laid”.
Tales of the Zenana or, A Nuwab's Leisure Hours , originally published 1827, contains a number of tales, considered by some to equal many in the Arabian Nights.
Tales of the Zenana was reprinted 1874 with a biographical introduction.
These two books were considered to "... rank along with Meadows Taylor's as the best stories of Hindustan in English literature". [1]
Historical books online
- Pandurang Hari, or Memoirs of a Hindoo by W B (William Browne) Hockley published 1826. (Original spelling: Pandurang Hàrì) Archive.org
- Volume I. Volume II, Volume III
- 1891 reprint, of a c 1872 reprint with an Introductory Preface by Sir H Bartle E Frere
- Tales of the Zenana or, A Nuwab's Leisure Hours by W B Hockley. 1874 reprint edition, with a biographical introduction, originally published 1827. Archive.org