author
C. H. T. (Charles Haukes Todd) Crosthwaite
1835–1915
An Irish-born administrator of the British Empire, he is best remembered for governing Burma during a turbulent period and later writing about the campaign in his book The Pacification of Burma. His career placed him at the center of major colonial decisions in India and Burma in the late nineteenth century.
1 Audiobook
The Pacification of Burma
by C. H. T. (Charles Haukes Todd) Crosthwaite
About the author
Born in Dublin on December 5, 1835, Charles Haukes Todd Crosthwaite was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and St John's College, Oxford before entering the Bengal Civil Service in 1857. He spent much of his working life in British India, building a reputation as a senior colonial administrator.
Crosthwaite served in several high offices, including Chief Commissioner of British Burma and later a member of the Governor-General's Supreme Council. He is most closely associated with Burma in the years after the British annexation of Upper Burma, a period marked by conflict and imperial consolidation.
He died on May 28, 1915. For readers today, his work has historical value less as a neutral account than as a firsthand view from a leading British official of how empire was administered and justified in his time.