author
C. T. (Charles Thomas) Buckland
1824–1894
A longtime Bengal civil servant, he turned firsthand experience into lively writing about everyday colonial society in India. His work offers readers a direct glimpse of how British official and social life looked in the nineteenth century.
1 Audiobook
Sketches of social life in India
by C. T. (Charles Thomas) Buckland
About the author
Born on February 27, 1824, Charles Thomas Buckland was educated at Laleham, Eton, and Haileybury, and went to India in 1844 to join the Bengal Civil Service. Over the course of his career he built a reputation as an able and independent administrator, serving in Bengal in several important posts, including work connected with the government of Bengal and the Bengal Legislative Council.
Buckland is remembered not only as an official but also as a writer. His best-known book, Sketches of Social Life in India (1884), draws on his own experience to describe the habits, manners, and routines of British life in India. The book remains of interest because it captures the social world surrounding colonial administration in a vivid, personal way.
He also left a mark on the history of Dhaka: the riverfront embankment known as Buckland Bund was built during his time as commissioner there in 1864. Buckland died in 1894, leaving behind both a public career in British India and a written record that still helps modern readers picture that world.